THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT KNOWS THE EARTH IS FLAT

 

This is a constant assertion that flat earthers repeat and one of the arguments they use to support this asseveration is that inside previous US presidential plane (the “Air Force One”) there is a map of the flat earth.

 

Above I put a photo taken in 1966 where President Lyndon Baines Johnson appears on the right, and below I put another photo taken in 1963 where President John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears on the left.

 

 

 

 

This second photo has been used by flat earthers to make memes that according to them support their belief that the earth is flat.

 

And they have even published videos:

 

 

 

 

In summary what the flat earthers try to say is:

 

“What better proof that the earth is flat than the fact that a flat earth map is aboard the mythical Air Force One! If the President of the United States has that map on his official plane, what other proof is needed?"

 

 

 

But if you look more carefully, you will notice that the map that appears on the presidential plane does not correspond to the map used by flat earthers.

 

 

Since in the map of the flat earthers the North Pole is in the center, while in the map of the presidential plane the city of Washington is in the center.

 

In the map of the flat earthers Antarctica surrounds the Earth, while in the map of the presidential plane Antarctica appears as a large island under America; which creates a big problem for flat earthers since there is no a "wall of ice" that prevents the water from the oceans from being lost around the edges of the planet.

 

On the flat earthers map, Australia is on the opposite side of America, while on the presidential plane map, Australia is on the left and has an enormous size since it exceeds the size of America.

 

 

 

These differences are due to the fact that these maps are not a true representation of the Earth, but are projections of the world globe on a disk.

 

Cartographers call these types of projections "azimuthal equidistant projections" and in the case of the presidential plane this projection is centered on the United States, while in the case of flat earthers this projection is centered on the Arctic.

 

 

 

 

And to give you more examples, if it had been the government of France, then it would have used this projection:

 

 

 

And if it had been the Australian government, then it would have used this projection:

 

 

 

But this does not mean that the governments that use these maps, they accept that the earth is flat. They use this type of projection when they want to position their country in the center and put the other countries around them.

 

The disadvantage of these types of projections is that they generate gigantic distortions, such as:

 

·        The colossal size of Australia when the projection is centered on the United States or Europe.

·        Or Antarctica, which, from being an island, becomes a circle when the projection is centered on the North Pole.

·        Or the strange shape that continents take when the projection is centered on Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The flat earthers in their profound ignorance of cartography, they confuse the azimuthal equidistant projections of the spherical Earth with their "flat earth", and is why they say such tremendous absurdities as they put up.

 

And for the anecdote, I heard that later that map was removed from the presidential plane for diplomatic reasons, because it generated an unpleasant impression for the governments of other countries.

 

But continuing with the way of reasoning of the flat earthers, I would reply to them that the real reason was because: "the United States government no longer believed that Earth was flat and that is why it removed that map from Air Force One..."