Case file · Folklore / legend
The flat-earth 'ice wall' around the world
In his 1849 pamphlet 'Zetetic Astronomy', written as 'Parallax', Samuel Rowbotham described the Earth as a flat disc centred on the North Pole and ringed by a wall of ice; modern flat-earthers say Antarctica is that wall.
1849 CE · -78.20, -170.00 · status: explained
The account
Rowbotham expanded the pamphlet into a book in 1865 and founded the modern flat-earth movement. Today's version claims the Antarctic Treaty exists to stop people reaching the rim, and that Operation Highjump was sent to explore the 'wall'. Fact-checkers have traced the Highjump version to misread history.
The sceptical view
Antarctica has been crossed, flown over and circumnavigated; ships sail all the way round it, and the 24-hour summer sun seen there is impossible on a flat disc.
Connections in the atlas
- The Final Experiment: flat-earthers see the midnight sun
- Ross finds the Great Ice Barrier
- The Antarctic Treaty and 'why is it closed?'
- Operation Highjump: myth and history