A PAIR of ‘Flat Earthers’ repeatedly breached quarantine in a bizarre bid to “reach the end of the world” during Italy’s lockdown. They Venice couple tried to prove the crackpot theory by attempting to set sail to Lampedusa, an island between Sicily and North Africa. The middle-aged couple first headed to Termini Imerese, a town […]
A PAIR of ‘Flat Earthers’ repeatedly breached quarantine in a bizarre bid to “reach the end of the world” during Italy’s lockdown.
They Venice couple tried to prove the crackpot theory by attempting to set sail to Lampedusa, an island between Sicily and North Africa.
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The middle-aged couple first headed to Termini Imerese, a town on Sicily’s north coast, where they sold their car so they could buy a boat.
Then they headed for Lampedusa, off the south coast of Sicily, which would require the couple to sail around the huge island.
However, their boat didn’t make it and they became stranded on the island of Ustica.
Salvatore Zichichi, a doctor of the maritime health office who helped the pair after they got lost, pointed out one big flaw in their Flat Earth theory.
He said: “The funny thing is that they orient themselves with the compass, an instrument that works on the basis of terrestrial magnetism, a principle that they, as flat-earthers, should reject.”
The gullible pair were immediately taken into quarantine where they then tried to escape and return to the sea but were quickly caught.
A few days later, they tried to escape once more but were again unsuccessful.
Flat earth theory is an archaic conception that the earth is shaped as a plane or a disk.
The idea was first seen in ancient cultures including the Romans until the classical period.
The theory is generally accepted as being disproved by Aristotle in 330BC but the idea of the earth being round was suggested by Pythagoras in the 6th century.
However, the flat earth theory still holds weight today with some sects in society such as the Flat Earth Society.
Modern flat earth theories believe earth is a disc or a pentagon which is surrounded by mountains or a wall of ice.
They believe that the earth being round is a lie put out by the government – making it into a conspiracy theory.
