A couple
years ago it was reported by film maker Anthony Powell that there is one easy,
objectively provable way to debunk the flat Earth theory.
It is the fact that
both the North and South poles experience phenomena in which the Sun either
stays in the sky or stays out of the sky in straight light or darkness for long
periods of time.
The video
notes that in the Antarctic summer from about late October to late February, it
is constant daytime on the continent with the Sun above the horizon for 24
solid hours a day. The incredible time lapse footage shows the Sun moving up
and down in the sky, still fully day-time at midnight.
Some
commenters suggested the footage was doctored or edited, but it seems quite
objectively provable that there are several months of solid light and several
months of solid darkness on both the North and South Poles.
The person
who argued that the footage was probably doctored received a reply that pointed
out there is not one, but several videos one can find online of the 24 hour Sun
in Antarctica. There is this, and this. A user on Quora commented on the
phenomena:
“For us, the
Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
But at the poles, there are no directions. From the North Pole, whichever way we look it
is south, and from the South Pole, whichever way we look, it is north. There is no Sunrise or Sunset at the Polar
Regions as we experience at lower latitudes. The Sun appears above the horizon
in summer and makes a 360° circle in the sky – over a period of 187 days at the
North Pole 90° North latitude.
And in
winter, the Sun is below the horizon for 163 days of darkness and 24 days of
semi- darkness when the Sun is just below the horizon. It is not exactly six
months of darkness / sunlight at the poles.
(In
Svalbard, Norway, the northernmost inhabited region of Europe, there is no
sunset from approximately 19 April to 23 August, and no sunrise between
November 14 and January 29.)
Needless to
mention, when it is summer in the Northern hemisphere, it is winter in the
South. A solstice happens when the sun’s zenith is at its furthest point from
the equator.
The December
Solstice or Winter Solstice occurring on or about 21st December when the Sun
reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, when
the North Pole is tilted furthest to 23.5 degrees away from the Sun. The Sun is
directly overhead of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere during
the December Solstice.”
However,
some mysteries in Antarctica most certainly must exist. Some things are readily
provable and some are not: it is up to the researcher to develop an ability to
wade through information and decide what is true and what isn’t.