Hope you had a great weekend, and thanks to everyone who pitched in as part of my spring fundraising drive on Friday! — Dan

The Earth, to be clear, is round. Humanity has suspected this for millennia and known it for centuries. But the view that the Earth is a flat disc was the common belief before the 6th century CE, and — despite more than 2,500 years of math, science, and more — there are a handful of people who still hold on to that myth.

Will Duffy isn’t one of them. But his friend was, so Duffy decided to do something to convince her otherwise: literally show her the light.

If you go to Antarctica during part of the summer, you’ll experience the phenomenon known as the “midnight sun” — a period when the sun never sets, circling the horizon for a full 24 hours without dipping below. If the Earth is round, this makes perfect sense: Antarctica tilts toward the sun during the Southern Hemisphere's summer, bathing the polar region in continuous daylight. But on a flat Earth, where the sun supposedly hovers above a disc-shaped world like a spotlight, this shouldn't be possible. The sun should rise and set everywhere, more or less the same way. As IFLScience noted, "This midnight Sun would be impossible to explain if the Earth was flat and the Sun moved around over us."

Seeing is believing, as it’s said, so Duffy — a Colorado pastor — organized a trip for him, his skeptical friend, and a bunch of her fellow Flat Earthers to see the midnight sun in action. He called his project "The Final Experiment," and he was serious about the stakes. Before the trip, Duffy publicly stated that if the sun was not visible for 24 hours, he would concede the Earth was flat. The expedition, which launched in December 2024, included four Flat Earthers and four "globers," along with ten 360-degree cameras mounted on tripods near Union Glacier to record everything. "I created The Final Experiment to end this debate, once and for all," Duffy said in a press release. "After we go to Antarctica, no one has to waste any more time debating the shape of the Earth."

And it worked — kind of.

The sun, of course, did exactly what globes predict: it circled the horizon without setting. Jeran Campanella, a prominent flat-Earth YouTuber, admitted the obvious in the resulting footage. "Sometimes you are wrong in life," he said. "I thought there was no 24-hour sun. In fact, I was pretty sure of it." He added, with some resignation, "I honestly believed there was no 24-hour sun. I honestly now believe there is. That's it."

Other participants, though, were curious but remained unconvinced. Fellow flat-Earther Austin Whitsitt, who was on the same trip, suggested that he had seen "a physical demonstration that could show this working" on a flat model. As Green Matters reported, another participant, Lisbeth Acosta, acknowledged that the midnight sun was real but noted that "it doesn't imply that a 24-hour sun proves a 'globe model.'" The goalposts, it seems, had quietly moved.

And for the Flat Earthers who didn’t go on the trip? The “Final Experiment” is just part of the larger glober conspiracy. Per the Denver Post, “some have suggested they filmed the trip in a studio, a dome or a sphere similar to the live-music venue in Las Vegas.” One Alabama pastor, per the Post, "suggested Satan accompanied Duffy to Antarctica then created a fireball in the sky to light up the night.” At some point, Duffy proved, people will only go as far as their beliefs take them — and that extends well past Antarctica.

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Today’s Bonus fact: The modern Flat Earth movement owes much of its growth to YouTube's recommendation algorithm. A researcher studying attendees at a Flat Earth conference found that nearly all of them said they first encountered the idea through the video-sharing platform, as the BBC reported. The algorithm, designed to maximize watch time, had a tendency to serve up increasingly fringe content to viewers who showed interest in conspiracy-adjacent topics — turning casual curiosity into full-blown belief systems.

From the Archives: Feeling Buzzed: The main story isn’t about a conspiracy theory, but the bonus item is.

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And thanks! — Dan