What Happened During Flat-Earthers' "Final Experiment" In Antarctica

While many of you are patiently waiting for big answers to questions like the black hole information paradox, or whether gravity can be united with quantum mechanics, there are people out there still trying to prove that the Earth is as flat as a pancake.

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Fortunately, there are many ways you can prove to yourself that the Earth is indeed an oblate spheroid (or a sphere that bulges slightly at the equator). These range from the simple – looking at photos of the Earth from space, or simply at the stars – to using a few sticks and some shadows.

But for some, that isn't enough. There have been conspiracy theorists in the past who have decided that they must sail to the edge of the world to see it for themselves (it didn't end well) or set up simple experiments ready to backfire on camera.

In 2024, one group of flat-Earthers set out for Antarctica in order to prove that the Earth was flat, the result of three years of planning. The trip was part of a project by Will Duffy, a pastor from Colorado, who wanted to "end the debate over the shape of the Earth...once and for all".

Dubbed dramatically as "The Final Experiment",  there wasn't a whole lot of experimenting going on. The problem with believing that the Earth is flat is that it simply doesn't align with the evidence. One major piece of evidence that the Earth is round can be seen from Antarctica in summer, in the form of the midnight Sun.

As Antarctica tilts towards the Sun during summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the Sun can be seen all through the day and "night", depending on how far south you are. This midnight Sun would be impossible to explain if the Earth was flat and the Sun moved around over us. 

Duffy had recently become aware that people, and a friend, still believe the Earth to be flat. After failed attempts to convince her that she was incorrect, he settled on an idea. He would simply take a group of flat-Earthers to Antarctica and show them this indisputable evidence that they live on a sphere.

"I created The Final Experiment to end this debate, once and for all," Duffy said in a statement. "After we go to Antarctica, no one has to waste any more time debating the shape of the Earth."

For his part, ahead of the trip, Duffy stated that if the Sun was not visible for 24 hours, he would concede that the Earth was flat.

Some flat-Earthers believe that the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 prevents them from visiting the continent, no doubt a part of the coverup. But that is incorrect, and the Final Experiment indeed went ahead in December 2024, with four flat-Earthers and four "globers" traveling to the continent to continuously record the midnight Sun. 

As the headline on this article is not "IT TURNS OUT THE EARTH WAS FLAT AFTER ALL" or simply "WELL THIS IS EMBARASSING", you know it did not go as the flat-Earthers expected.

To their credit, some of the flat-Earthers abandoned their old belief that the midnight Sun wasn't real, after witnessing it for themselves.

"Sometimes you are wrong in life. I thought there was no 24-hour Sun. In fact, I was pretty sure of it,” Jeran Campanella, a well-known flat Earther, said in the resulting video (above).

"I realize that I'll be called a shill for just saying that, and you know what? If you're a shill for being honest, so be it – I honestly believed there was no 24-hour Sun," he added. "I honestly now believe there is. That's it."

However, while they accepted the midnight Sun was real, that doesn't mean that they accepted the Earth was a globe.

"I know a lot of people want to know what my take is in terms of how does it work and stuff and I will [give you] a quick teaser," fellow prominent flat-Earther Austin Whitsitt added. "I have seen a physical demonstration that could show this working, but I do think that some of the data we're going to have from this trip may help to clarify if that is actually what's happening."

While dubbed the "final experiment", it doesn't appear to have worked in debunking flat-Earth, even for the people on the trip to the bottom of the globe. Maybe they should have a little read on how we learned the Earth was round centuries into our past.