The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Debate => Topic started by: Dino on October 06, 2012, 08:38:48 AM
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Last March there was a “repeat” of the Bedford level experiment conducted on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela which I witnessed myself. The experiment sought to avoid the flaws of the earlier experiments by using modern technology and measuring at closer lateral increments. Markers were stretched out across 15 km of the lake 2 meters high atop buoys stationed at .5 km intervals on calm water. Theodolites equipped with lasers measured the height of each marker, moving the theodolite from station to station to measure the height of each marker as measured from the previous station by laser. The reason for the .5 km intervals was to minimize the effect of refracted light. Each marker station as well as the theodolite were equipped with accelerometers in order to calibrate for any swelling or compression of the water surface.
The results were unambiguous: Over the entire 15 km no more than 2 cm of deviation from the flat line of the laser was observed. (The 2 cm is attributed to some light refraction.) The conclusion is that either the Earth is flat or round yet many times larger than Round Earthers currently believe. (So I suppose the result is ambiguous if you want to believe the circumference of the Earth is at least 20 times greater than is currently believed.)
This direct measurement of the curvature (or lack thereof) of the Earth is more persuasive than any scientific theories which rely on indirect evidence for attempting to establish that the Earth is round (or any other shape).
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Just out of curiosity, were any measurements taken across the full 15 km from the first marker to the last?
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Just out of curiosity, were any measurements taken across the full 15 km from the first marker to the last?
No, at that distance too much light refraction would have rendered the experiment null and void. The purpose of measuring one segment at a time and summing the total was to avoid any dispute about what might be attributed to light refraction. Since the effects of refraction are nonlinear, the summation of each segment will result in significantly less refraction than a single measurement across the entire survey would.
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The purpose of measuring one segment at a time and summing the total was to avoid any dispute about what might be attributed to light refraction.
How would the error due to refraction of a single measurement compare with the cumulative error made during 30 individual measurements?
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The purpose of measuring one segment at a time and summing the total was to avoid any dispute about what might be attributed to light refraction.
How would the error due to refraction of a single measurement compare with the cumulative error made during 30 individual measurements?
Significantly. The light bends parabolically so whereas after .5 km it hasn't bent much, after 15 km it would bend on the order of 10 m. The reason one can't normally see the earth more than a few miles at a time is because the light is bending sharply after a couple of miles.
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By the way, the experiment was carried out by the government of Venezuela. I happened to be in the area working on an unrelated project and was able to witness it because I knew a few people working on it and got wind of it. I don't know what Venezuela'a motive behind it is, but they don't have a space program to worry about and perhaps are looking to embarrass the USA over the fraud that is NASA.
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1. Do you have a link to the experiment in a public newspaper or something? I can't find one.
2. If you measured each marker from the marker before it, and each marker is the same distance apart, isn't it expected for the measurements to be nearly identical regardless of curvature?
ex: If it curves by .01 arc seconds on the first marker then it'll be the same from the first to the second.
Also, what was the original frame of reference for determining the flat line? How was that found out?
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1. Do you have a link to the experiment in a public newspaper or something? I can't find one.
As mentioned, the experiment was conducted by the government of Venezuela and as far as I know they haven't made it public.
2. If you measured each marker from the marker before it, and each marker is the same distance apart, isn't it expected for the measurements to be nearly identical regardless of curvature?
Yes, that is what one would expect. The question was “how much” curvature and the point of measuring 30 different segments was to “wash out” any noise which may have been caused by any individual errors. In other words, they didn't simply measure one segment and multiply by 30 because that would have multiplied any noise, if any, from the single measurement. Furthermore, it was considered important to measure across the entire 15 km line since the purpose of the experiment was to prove (or disprove) how much curvature over 15 km occurs. A RE model would predict that about 10 m of curvature would be measured in sum over that distance.
Also, what was the original frame of reference for determining the flat line? How was that found out?
A theodolite typically contains a level.
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An experiment you describe isn't doing anything more than measuring the average curvature over 500m of distance. Measuring curvature over 15km actually requires a single distance between 15km. sin and cos aren't linear functions, 30 times the curvature of 500m segments isn't the same as the curvature of a 15km segment. But it's unclear to me if you're claiming this 2cm was the maximum (or average?) recorded curvature over 500m, or if it's 30 times the average.
RET predicts the curvature (deviation between the arc and the straight line drawn between the two points) @ 500m is approximately (in cm):
(6371 - (sqrt((6371^2) - ((0.5/2)^2)))) = 0.00000490503845738969
Or about 0.5cm. Note that this isn't the same as how much of a drop would be perceived, due to looking over the "hill."
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
2cm was the cumulative difference. We can divide by 30 now if you'd like.
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
2cm was the cumulative difference. We can divide by 30 now if you'd like.
Just making sure that's what they did.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm)
They do have a space program of sorts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales)
Is there any way we can verify your story?
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
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What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
2cm was the cumulative difference. We can divide by 30 now if you'd like.
Just making sure that's what they did.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm)
They do have a space program of sorts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales)
Is there any way we can verify your story?
You can verify my story when Venezuela releases it. All I can do is "leak" it.
Perhaps it's Venezuela's recent efforts at a space agency which has gotten them suddenly interested in testing the shape of the earth.
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
2cm was the cumulative difference. We can divide by 30 now if you'd like.
Just making sure that's what they did.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm)
They do have a space program of sorts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales)
Is there any way we can verify your story?
You can verify my story when Venezuela releases it. All I can do is "leak" it.
Perhaps it's Venezuela's recent efforts at a space agency which has gotten them suddenly interested in testing the shape of the earth.
So why wait a full 6 months to leak it?
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That's a good point. Obviously the curvature would be a nonlinear function. So the expected summation should have been 15 cm not 10 m as I suggested.
But you are wrong that it was just an averaging of 500m segments. A summation yields a cumulative difference not an average.
What cumulative difference? They didn't just add the variation of height of all 30 measurements did they?
2cm was the cumulative difference. We can divide by 30 now if you'd like.
Just making sure that's what they did.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4760982.stm)
They do have a space program of sorts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencia_Bolivariana_para_Actividades_Espaciales)
Is there any way we can verify your story?
You can verify my story when Venezuela releases it. All I can do is "leak" it.
Perhaps it's Venezuela's recent efforts at a space agency which has gotten them suddenly interested in testing the shape of the earth.
So why wait a full 6 months to leak it?
Because it's been six months and Venezuela hasn't released it like I have hoped.
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Just out of curiosity, were any measurements taken across the full 15 km from the first marker to the last?
No, at that distance too much light refraction would have rendered the experiment null and void. The purpose of measuring one segment at a time and summing the total was to avoid any dispute about what might be attributed to light refraction. Since the effects of refraction are nonlinear, the summation of each segment will result in significantly less refraction than a single measurement across the entire survey would.
This is a very sneaky claim. You are right when you say the effects of refraction are non-linear. But you forget to say that the non-linearity is not increasingly worse with distance, but the exact opposite. No matter what you do, the maximum temperature differential you might get between any two places in the whole 15 km stretch is less than 5 degrees centigrade, and this is the equivalent of making a prism out of a material with refractive index of 1.00026666 and putting it in air with refractive index of 1.000271373. (you can use the calculator at http://emtoolbox.nist.gov/Wavelength/Ciddor.asp (http://emtoolbox.nist.gov/Wavelength/Ciddor.asp)). And this is true no matter what distance you are looking through.
So, even in the perfect situation in which the air suddenly changes 5 degrees Celsius at the perfect height above the lake, producing the maximum refraction possible with such a small change in refractive index, the total refraction would be 0.2 degrees. (this comes from n2/n1*arcsin(Theta)=1). In fact, you would see more a mirage than a subtle refraction. And even if you had a lake of several hundreds of kilometers, you would not be able to get more than 0.2 degrees of refraction.
On the other hand, the size of the curvature that you can measure increases in an approximately exponential scale. While there is nothing measurable in 2 km, you have some 20 meters at 15 km (enough to see a clear appearance of a sinking boat).
In conclusion, the whole argument for the design of this experiment is totally wrong. Measuring stretches of 2 km, no matter how many of them, is totally useless as a method to calculate the circumference of the Earth.
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On the other hand, the size of the curvature that you can measure increases in an approximately exponential scale. While there is nothing measurable in 2 km, you have some 20 meters at 15 km (enough to see a clear appearance of a sinking boat).
In conclusion, the whole argument for the design of this experiment is totally wrong. Measuring stretches of 2 km, no matter how many of them, is totally useless as a method to calculate the circumference of the Earth.
On the contrary, something should be measurable on that scale if the Earth is in fact curved. It seems that whenever Round Earthers are confronted with direct evidence of a flat earth they attempt to discredit the evidence.
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On the other hand, the size of the curvature that you can measure increases in an approximately exponential scale. While there is nothing measurable in 2 km, you have some 20 meters at 15 km (enough to see a clear appearance of a sinking boat).
In conclusion, the whole argument for the design of this experiment is totally wrong. Measuring stretches of 2 km, no matter how many of them, is totally useless as a method to calculate the circumference of the Earth.
On the contrary, something should be measurable on that scale if the Earth is in fact curved. It seems that whenever Round Earthers are confronted with direct evidence of a flat earth they attempt to discredit the evidence.
You are plainly talking out of your posterior hole. You have been shown clearly that the curvature you could measure is in the order of a few centimeters while the sources of error are more than a few centimeters, making your whole experiment void.
If you want to say something "should be measurable" you have to show a valid estimation of the expected experimental errors. Even if you just take into account the 10 cm or so of the waves you are already measuring something much smaller than the size of the waves. And you have not even explained how you are going to level your theodolite to a precision of less than 0.002 degrees. The level it has inside does not even come close.
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On the other hand, the size of the curvature that you can measure increases in an approximately exponential scale. While there is nothing measurable in 2 km, you have some 20 meters at 15 km (enough to see a clear appearance of a sinking boat).
In conclusion, the whole argument for the design of this experiment is totally wrong. Measuring stretches of 2 km, no matter how many of them, is totally useless as a method to calculate the circumference of the Earth.
On the contrary, something should be measurable on that scale if the Earth is in fact curved. It seems that whenever Round Earthers are confronted with direct evidence of a flat earth they attempt to discredit the evidence.
You are plainly talking out of your posterior hole. You have been shown clearly that the curvature you could measure is in the order of a few centimeters while the sources of error are more than a few centimeters, making your whole experiment void.
If you want to say something "should be measurable" you have to show a valid estimation of the expected experimental errors. Even if you just take into account the 10 cm or so of the waves you are already measuring something much smaller than the size of the waves. And you have not even explained how you are going to level your theodolite to a precision of less than 0.002 degrees. The level it has inside does not even come close.
You're wrong about the waves. The water was a placid as a sheet of glass. Morevoer, accelerometers were employed to calculate any adjustments necessary to calculate the exact elevation of the markers above sea level with an accuracy of less than .05 cm.
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smells like bs, i would of been taking pictures of this to prove the claim. it would be wrong for a skeptic or believer alike to just take your word without any proof.
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Even if such an experiment did happen for whatever reason, and Dino did witness some or all of it, we'd really need to see a report from one of the experimenters who is properly presenting and analyzing the data (and test setup, etc).
It does seem weird that Venezuela would let a foreigner witness a government experiment that is otherwise secret enough to not show up in google (also was anyone else confused by the use of "last March" referring to the one in 2012?)
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Yeah it's really rare for a proprietary test to take place with observers yet no press release.
Everything in your world has press releases?
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Yeah it's really rare for a proprietary test to take place with observers yet no press release.
Everything in your world has press releases?
You're over-generalizing what I actually said. It's unusual for the government of a country to allow a random foreigner to witness a test whose findings have public significance, yet are for some reason not being disclosed. We're not just talking press releases, we're talking anything.
It strikes me as possible that you did witness some kind of testing done for some kind of internal purposes, where there's nothing interesting to report to the rest of the world.
So let me guess, you didn't take pictures of this..
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I had no official participation in the project, and no, they wouldn't allow me to take pictures.
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
And how did you know all the methods?
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
I was a consultant for an unrelated project in the area. Lake Maracaibo is a huge oilfield and the Bedford Level experiment was something some oil workers did on a good weather day at the instruction of one of the captains. Several of the guys working on the project were guys I was working with. They had no problem with my observing, but because it was proprietary I couldn't take pictures. That's typical on Lake Maracaibo jobs whether it has anything to do with the shape of the Earth or not.
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
I was a consultant for an unrelated project in the area. Lake Maracaibo is a huge oilfield and the Bedford Level experiment was something some oil workers did on a good weather day at the instruction of one of the captains. Several of the guys working on the project were guys I was working with. They had no problem with my observing, but because it was proprietary I couldn't take pictures. That's typical on Lake Maracaibo jobs whether it has anything to do with the shape of the Earth or not.
Seems rather odd to me to stop work on pumping oil and do a pointless experiment. An experiment done by someone other than scientists.
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
I was a consultant for an unrelated project in the area. Lake Maracaibo is a huge oilfield and the Bedford Level experiment was something some oil workers did on a good weather day at the instruction of one of the captains. Several of the guys working on the project were guys I was working with. They had no problem with my observing, but because it was proprietary I couldn't take pictures. That's typical on Lake Maracaibo jobs whether it has anything to do with the shape of the Earth or not.
Seems rather odd to me to stop work on pumping oil and do a pointless experiment. An experiment done by someone other than scientists.
When did I say that the experiment was done by someone other than scientists? Do you not consider geologists to be scientists.
Nobody stopped "pumping oil" and if you think that experiment was pointless you are in the wrong place.
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
I was a consultant for an unrelated project in the area. Lake Maracaibo is a huge oilfield and the Bedford Level experiment was something some oil workers did on a good weather day at the instruction of one of the captains. Several of the guys working on the project were guys I was working with. They had no problem with my observing, but because it was proprietary I couldn't take pictures. That's typical on Lake Maracaibo jobs whether it has anything to do with the shape of the Earth or not.
Seems rather odd to me to stop work on pumping oil and do a pointless experiment. An experiment done by someone other than scientists.
When did I say that the experiment was done by someone other than scientists? Do you not consider geologists to be scientists.
Nobody stopped "pumping oil" and if you think that experiment was pointless you are in the wrong place.
Right when you failed to say who did the experiment.
Also: geologists are not well suited for this kind of experiment. So why would the government send them (via the captain of one rig) instead of a dedicated team with the specialty for this type of experiment?
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If you had no official participation in the project, then what were you doing there?
I was a consultant for an unrelated project in the area. Lake Maracaibo is a huge oilfield and the Bedford Level experiment was something some oil workers did on a good weather day at the instruction of one of the captains. Several of the guys working on the project were guys I was working with. They had no problem with my observing, but because it was proprietary I couldn't take pictures. That's typical on Lake Maracaibo jobs whether it has anything to do with the shape of the Earth or not.
Seems rather odd to me to stop work on pumping oil and do a pointless experiment. An experiment done by someone other than scientists.
When did I say that the experiment was done by someone other than scientists? Do you not consider geologists to be scientists.
Nobody stopped "pumping oil" and if you think that experiment was pointless you are in the wrong place.
Right when you failed to say who did the experiment.
Also: geologists are not well suited for this kind of experiment. So why would the government send them (via the captain of one rig) instead of a dedicated team with the specialty for this type of experiment?
Dude, you make weird assumptions.
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correct me if I am wrong, but would a team of trained surveyors that have professional training, be better at this sort of thing?
I mean why would you send fire fighter to a burglary when you can send a police man?
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correct me if I am wrong, but would a team of trained surveyors that have professional training, be better at this sort of thing?
I mean why would you send fire fighter to a burglary when you can send a police man?
Part of a team which specializes in subsea engineering did the experiment. I don't know why you people think they would not be competent enough for this.
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correct me if I am wrong, but would a team of trained surveyors that have professional training, be better at this sort of thing?
I mean why would you send fire fighter to a burglary when you can send a police man?
Part of a team which specializes in subsea engineering did the experiment. I don't know why you people think they would not be competent enough for this.
Subsea engineers did a bedford level experiment on the surface of a huge lake that has perfectly still water and were sent to do this experiment from an oil rig, but they were also oil workers, who also just so happened to be contracted to do this by the government, and they allowed you to see it while you were working on an unrelated project, but they didn't release any of their findings for peer review, just you?
This is good. Continue on.
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correct me if I am wrong, but would a team of trained surveyors that have professional training, be better at this sort of thing?
I mean why would you send fire fighter to a burglary when you can send a police man?
Part of a team which specializes in subsea engineering did the experiment. I don't know why you people think they would not be competent enough for this.
Subsea engineers did a bedford level experiment on the surface of a huge lake that has perfectly still water and were sent to do this experiment from an oil rig, but they were also oil workers, who also just so happened to be contracted to do this by the government, and they allowed you to see it while you were working on an unrelated project, but they didn't release any of their findings for peer review, just you?
This is good. Continue on.
Who do you think oil workers are? People standing around physically pumping oil out of the ground? Who do you think contracts anything to get done in Venezuela other than the government of Venezuela?
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Here is what really happened. Surveyors were simply surveying the lake and Dino made up the rest. Geological surveying would play a big part in the oil industry. The surveyors weren't checking to see if the Earth was flat. They were just doing what they are paid to do. That is why there is no evidence. There would be no point to take a picture of a surveyors daily job.
Surveyors do the same thing for the mining industry.
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Here is what really happened. Surveyors were simply surveying the lake and Dino made up the rest. Geological surveying would play a big part in the oil industry. The surveyors weren't checking to see if the Earth was flat. They were just doing what they are paid to do. That is why there is no evidence. There would be no point to take a picture of a surveyors daily job.
Surveyors do the same thing for the mining industry.
You come the closest to understanding what was going on but keep in mind that Chavez believes in the theory of abiogenic oil, which means a lot of oil may not come from dinosaur bone. The theory is controversial and implies there may be a lot more oil in the ground than thought conventionally. It also implies the geology is different than conventionally understood. Many things are thrown into question and questioning Round Earth theory is the next logical step. They were willing to try the Bedford Level experiment as an experiment. What I know about the results I know from a friend who worked on it. I witnessed the survey but couldn't "see" the results with my own eyes.
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yeah so like i said what you are talking is utter crap. yet again. you didn't actually know what was going on you just came to your own conclusions.
reminds of this other thing you bang on about daily....
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You come the closest to understanding what was going on but keep in mind that Chavez believes in the theory of abiogenic oil, which means a lot of oil may not come from dinosaur bone. The theory is controversial and implies there may be a lot more oil in the ground than thought conventionally. It also implies the geology is different than conventionally understood. Many things are thrown into question and questioning Round Earth theory is the next logical step. They were willing to try the Bedford Level experiment as an experiment. What I know about the results I know from a friend who worked on it. I witnessed the survey but couldn't "see" the results with my own eyes.
I think I said something pretty similar before, ie "It strikes me as possible that you did witness some kind of testing done for some kind of internal purposes, where there's nothing interesting to report to the rest of the world."
Could perhaps your friend join and explain the purpose and results of the experiment for us, so it isn't as filtered through your particular viewpoint?
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What a load of cobblers.
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I live in maracaibo and I didn't heard anything about the experiment :C I would loved to watch it
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This 'experiment' sounds more feasible to be a lie than anything Nasa have done.
Just saying.
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Yeah it's really rare for a proprietary test to take place with observers yet no press release.
Everything in your world has press releases?
Everything in science is done by publishing your methods and results for peer review. As it is, you have nothing at all.
Quite amusing that your story fell apart on page 2, I thought you'd make it to page 4 at least - it was a good start.
You do know that Venezuela actually operates two satellites don't you? China launched it's second for them 2 months ago:
http://www.cnn.co.uk/2012/09/29/world/americas/china-venezuela-satellite/index.html (http://www.cnn.co.uk/2012/09/29/world/americas/china-venezuela-satellite/index.html)
They now have a telecoms and an observation satellite. What's this about? They in on this global conspiracy with China, the USA, Russia etc? Or are they going to blow the whole thing open? Check out how many countries have a space program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_agencies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_agencies)
Anyway, you'd think if a the government of a large, oil rich, nation wanted to show that the earth was flat, it would be fairly trivial. They wouldn't need top secret Bedford experiments (lol) - they could just fly to the ice wall, or past the end of the official map to show the infinite plane. Or whatever flavour of lunacy is your choice. They probably wouldn't be launching satellites.