Flat Earth Conference: People paid as much as Rs 16,000 for a seat to attend first such event

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The first-ever Flat Earth Conference was concluded in the US recently where YouTubers and other science junkies spoke on some of the topics tied to their mission to disprove that the world is round.

The conference, billed as a gathering for those who believe that the planet is disc-shaped, was highlighted by various notable Flat earth conspiracy theorists on YouTube, whose channels were titled like “NASA and other space lies” and “Waking up to Mainstream Science Lies”.

The conference was also attended by Mark Sargent, who has garnered over 43,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, dedicated to debunking the idea that the Earth is round.

The “Flat Earthers” believe that the Earth is a disc with the Arctic Circle in the centre and Antarctica and a wall of ice along the rim.  They argue that NASA and other space agencies digitally fake pictures of the globe from space and that there is a vast conspiracy to keep the truth of the flat Earth from the public.

As per another claim by the group NASA and other agencies digitally fake pictures of the globe from space. The group also believes the sun and the moon to be visual projections in the sky to persuade people that they exist.

What’s most surprising is that it charged prices of around USD 249 (Rs 16,188) per ticket and saw as many as 400 people attend it.

The hosts of the conference claimed that their experiments and their rationale prove that the international scientific community is wrong about the Earth’s shape.

Mark Sargent, who has over 40,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, said in a Q&A session at the event: “Science is gonna have to address this, plain and simple. They cannot dodge us forever,” as per a report in Daily Mail.

The discourse, so as to put it, expanded beyond just Flat Earth into a host of other conspiracy science theories as well.

Among other topics discussed were the “fake moon landing” along with other “international treaties” that cover up the true nature of Antarctica which some believe lies at the edge of the Earth.

A few months back, US-based rapper Bobby Ray Simmons Jr, more popularly known as B.o.B, is crowd-funding a project "Show BoB The Curve" to find out if the earth is actually spherical. The plan was to launch satellites in order to check that. His tweet challenging the scientific community went viral and even invited responses from Nasa astronauts Scott Kelly and Terry Virts.

The cities in the background are approx. 16miles apart... where is the curve ? please explain this pic.twitter.com/YCJVBdOWX7

— B.o.B (@bobatl) January 25, 2016

I can save BoB a lot of money- The Earth is round. I flew around it. https://t.co/F7qAovPEng @bobatl @BBCWorld

— Terry Virts (@AstroTerry) September 27, 2017

Show you the curve? Here you go @bobatl! One full orbit around Earth. Maybe donate funds raised to #PuertoRicoRelief https://t.co/bhJSXfwYXL pic.twitter.com/rFAysS2clc

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) September 27, 2017

(Currency rates are in 1 USD= Rs 65.02)