Why some still believe the flat Earth conspiracy

The global pandemic launched a number of conspiracy theories, like the Bill Gates microchips and the cabal that created the vaccines for world domination. But it also resurrected a belief among some that the Earth is flat.

Yes, that you can sail to the edge of the Earth and simply fall off of it. In fact, that’s what journalist Kelly Weill’s new book is titled, “Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything.”

Mike Hughes was just such a person. In Weill’s prologue, she describes his repeated and dangerous attempts to launch himself into the atmosphere with a homemade rocket so that he could see the shape of the Earth for himself.

Hughes would die doing this several years later.

Weill, a journalist who covers the conspiracy beat for The Daily Beast and spoken with thousands of flat-earthers, also introduces us to Nate Wolfe, a pastor from Ohio who lost his congregation and his church when they found out he believed that the Earth was flat.

Weill writes: Once committed to a conspiracy theory, people find themselves even likelier to be socially ostracized. This can lead to a vicious cycle of alienation and acceptance, pulling a person away from society at large and further into a conspiratorial movement.”

Weill also points out that Donald Trump’s election in 2020 and his tweeted support for quack doctors and hoax COVID cures lit a match under the conspiracy world. She writes: “The fringe wasn’t fringe anymore.”

I hope you’ll catch my interview with her in a few weeks on my Friday Book show. Next on the Thread: Why I read S.A. Cosby’s mystery novels and why you should, too.

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*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Minnesota Public Radio News can be found here ***