Tolkien 1954a book 2, ch. 1 "Many Meetings". "You were in gravest peril while you wore the Ring, for then you were half in the wraith-world yourself."

An early mention in literature was Ludvig Holberg's comedy Erasmus Montanus (1723). A great many people disagree with Erasmus Montanus when he claims the Earth is round, since all the peasants believe it is flat. He is not allowed to marry his fiancée until he cries "The earth is flat as a pancake". In Rudyard Kipling's The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat, the main characters spread the rumor that a Parish Council meeting had voted in favor of a flat Earth. Joseph W. Holden of Maine, a former justice of the peace, gave numerous lectures in New England and lectured on flat-Earth theory at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His fame stretched to North Carolina, where the Statesville Semi-weekly Landmark recorded at his death in 1900: "We hold to the doctrine that the Earth is flat ourselves and we regret exceedingly to learn that one of our members is dead." [20] Cole, John R. (2001). "Flat Earth Society President Dies". National Center for Science Education . Retrieved 15 June 2009. During the 19th century, the Romantic ideas about a European " Dark Age" made the Flat Earth model look more important than it ever had been in history.

After Rowbotham's death, Lady Elizabeth Blount established the Universal Zetetic Society in 1893, whose objective was "the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures, based on practical scientific investigation". The society published a magazine, The Earth Not a Globe Review, which sold for twopence and remained active well into the early 20th century. [18] A flat Earth journal, Earth: a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science, was published between 1901 and 1904, edited by Lady Blount. [19] She held that the Bible was the unquestionable authority on the natural world and argued that one could not be a Christian and believe the Earth is a globe. Well-known members included E. W. Bullinger of the Trinitarian Bible Society, Edward Haughton, senior moderator in natural science in Trinity College Dublin and an archbishop. She repeated Rowbotham's experiments, generating some counter-experiments, but interest declined after the First World War. [20] The Universal Zetetic Society "was revived under different names over the years—in 1956, 1972, and 2004". [21] The movement gave rise to several books that argued for a flat, stationary Earth, including Terra Firma by David Wardlaw Scott. [22] Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square, all in one mass at one time, then as now, the magnetic north being the Center. Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart, divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today. One thing we know for sure about this world...the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World. Johnson, Charles K. (December 1978). "Sun is a light 32 miles across" (PDF). Flat Earth News. Lancaster, California: International Flat Earth Research Society. p.1 . Retrieved 1 January 2018.

Beliefs that the Earth is flat, contrary to over two millennia of scientific consensus that it is roughly spherical, [3] are promoted by a number of organizations and individuals. Such beliefs are pseudoscience; the hypotheses and assertions are not based on scientific knowledge. Flat Earth advocates are classified by experts in philosophy and physics as science deniers. [4] [5] Flammarion, Camille (1872). L'atmosphère: description des grands phénomènes de la Nature. Paris: Hachette. p. 138. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Thirded.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0261102750.Portuguese people explored Africa and Asia, Columbus sailed to the Americas (1492) and Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated (sailed all round) the earth (1519-21). This proved finally, and in a practical way, that the Earth is a globe.

Filmmakers of Behind the Curve attended another flat Earth conference at which a substantial number of people believed the Earth was an infinite plane, potentially with more continents beyond the purported circular ice wall of Antarctica. Scott, Eugenie (1997). "Antievolution and Creationism in the United States" (PDF). Annual Review of Anthropology. 26: 263–289. doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.263. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2012 . Retrieved 8 December 2011. YouTube had faced criticism for allowing the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories through its platform. In 2019, YouTube stated that it was making changes in its software to reduce the distribution of videos based on conspiracy theories including flat Earth. [76] [77] [78]

Larsen, Kristine (2008). Sarah Wells (ed.). "A Little Earth of His Own: Tolkien's Lunar Creation Myths". The Ring Goes Ever on: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference. The Tolkien Society. 2: 394–403. Carpenter, William (1885). One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe. Baltimore: William Carpenter – via Project Gutenberg.