Behind the Curve

We live on a globe… right? You might find more disagreement on that than you’d expect. The Flat Earth community has risen out of nowhere in the past three years and shocked the world with its reach, counting among its members celebrities like NBA star Kyrie Irving and the rapper B.O.B, and drawing the ire of celebrated science communicators like Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye. Their existence has nonplussed millions, who can't seem to figure out if they're really serious or just elaborate pranksters. But rest assured—they are deadly serious. The king among the Flat Earthers is MARK SARGENT, an affable, fast-talking video-game tester in his forties who now champions the Flat Earth cause full-time. Far from a huckster, Mark is a conspiracy enthusiast convinced to his core that we’re all victims of a massive cover-up. He works closely with his enigmatic confidante PATRICIA STEERE to spread their message. The two are now revered as saints in the members, the eccentric craftsman CHRIS PONTIUS, who makes intricate models of the Flat Earth, and experimenters JERAN CAMPANULA and BOB KNODEL. Their group—Globebusters— carries out complicated experiments meant to prove once and for all the true shape of the earth. All is not well in Flatland, however. The experiments are all either inconclusive or suggest that the Earth is, in fact, a spinning globe, prompting ever-more convoluted theories to explain away the results. Furthermore, internal rifts threaten to tear the Flat Earth community apart. What begins as a doctrinal argument about whether the Flat Earth is an infinite plane or an enclosed system encased in a dome spirals into something more. Mark’s former mentor, MATT BOYLAN—a surly, secretive artist who claims to have been employed by NASA—is angry at his protégé’s rise to the top, and feels he isn’t getting the credit he deserves for kickstarting the resurgence of a belief that’s been dead for centuries. He feverishly works to bring down Mark and Patricia by convincing other Flat Earthers that they are actually government agents, creating a massive divide in the community, and sending shockwaves through Mark and Patricia’s personal lives. Meanwhile, the Flat Earth movement is exploding, adding hundreds of members across the world every day. Media attention builds to a fever pitch during the August 2017 eclipse, when Flat Earthers make the front page in newspapers across the country. Everything comes to a head at the first-ever Flat Earth International Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, where hundreds of Flat Earthers gather to spend time with the only community where they feel they truly belong; where they feel they have value, and where their lives have real meaning.