It calls the idea of a round Earth 'humankind's greatest lie, dictated by the global elite.' 'A malignant pseudo-science has corrupted the education system around the world,' says another text he is carrying. Write that!' says Anderson Neves, a 50-year-old entrepreneur, who has come to Ricardo's restaurant armed with a pamphlet denouncing the 'hoaxes' of Newton and Copernicus. It is an argument they advance with varying interpretations of physics, optics and the Bible, dismissing all evidence to the contrary as a conspiracy.īrazilians who believe the Earth is flat are mostly men, often Catholics or evangelical Christians, and with relatively low levels of education, according to Datafolha.īut don't confuse education with knowledge, the Flat-Earthers warn. There, they are free to state what they believe, without fear of ridicule: that the Earth is a flat, stationary body. Yet Brazil's Flat-Earthers are also a secretive, at times paranoid, community, communicating via encrypted messages on WhatsApp, invitation-only Facebook groups and especially on YouTube, where their channels have tens of thousands of followers. One of Bolsonaro's most prominent ideologues, the writer and former astrologer Olavo de Carvalho, has said he 'cannot refute' Flat-Earth theory. It is a curious but remarkably large club: more than 11 million people in Brazil - seven percent of the population - believe the Earth is flat, according to polling firm Datafolha.Īnd their influence stretches surprisingly far, in a country currently swept up in the post-truth era and the anti-intellectual, climate-change-skeptic worldview embodied by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. 'The only things I know for certain are that I'm going to die someday and that the Earth is flat,' he says. Ricardo, who declines to give his full name for just that reason, is a 60-something man whose restaurant in Sao Paulo has become a meeting place for people who, like him, reject the notion that the Earth is a sphere.

Sitting by a model of the Earth shaped like a pancake, Brazilian restaurant-owner Ricardo lets out an exaggerated laugh: ''Hahaha!' That's how people react when you tell them the Earth is flat,' he says.

Is earth flat