Round or Flat?
August 6, 2026
I’m working a trip to Paris. I’m early for my sign-in, so I stake out a quiet spot at the bottom of the stairs, down at the connector to terminal C. I’m scrolling on my phone, setting up some things on my iPad.
A man approaches from the escalator. He’s looking right at me, and I can sense he’s about to say something. Probably he wants trading cards, or has some nerdy question about planes. I don’t mind this at all. I’m only killing time, and it makes me happy when people take interest in my job.
“Hi,” he says. “Do you mind if I ask you a question? Whenever I see a pilot, there’s a question I like to ask them.”
“Hey,” I respond. “No, not at all.”
But something is off. What does he mean by “there’s a question”? The phrasing, plus the oddly smug look on his face, are caution flags. This is going somewhere strange, I can tell.
“Round or flat?” he asks, folding his arms.
Oh. This. I look back at him but don’t say anything. I know exactly what he’s asking, but I’m too annoyed, too disappointed, to speak.
“Are you a round earth pilot, or a flat earth pilot?” He’s half-smiling, looking down his nose at me, like he’s got me in a bind.
“Come on, dude,” I finally say. “Seriously?”
For a moment he seems startled. I’m probably less polite than most of the pilots he’s ambushed with this nonsense. He’s used to hearing the likes of, “Well, sir, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but I have to argue that the planet is round.”
And while that’s certainly true, I don’t have patience for it. “I’m not answering the question,” I say to him. “It’s too silly.”
He bristles, moves his head around.
And how unexpected this is. The man is so nondescript, so normal looking. Aren’t flat-earthers supposed to be dressed like medieval priests, with a crazy gleam in their eye? Here’s a professional-looking 35 year-old with a neatly trimmed beard and luggage from Tumi. Is this what the Internet has done to us?
“What if I told you,” he goes on, “That fifty percent of the pilots I talk to say the earth is flat?”
I make an exasperated noise. “I’d say either you’re lying, or they’re messing with you.” (And if it’s the latter, I’d like to add but keep to myself, I don’t blame them.)
I’m tempted to run with this. “Actually it’s both,” I could tell him. “It’s round on the top and flat on the bottom. Like a gumdrop. You’ve never heard of Gumdrop Theory? The trash countries are all at the bottom, like Burundi and Canada.”
Or I could turn it into a gentlemanly discussion, where I invite him to sit, take out my charts, and brief him on the realities of latitude and longitude, great circle routes and such.
From there, once I’d convinced him of his folly, we could segue into a chat about map projections. One thing that has always irked me is the Mercator projection, with its massive distortions as you approach the poles. Kids grow up thinking Greenland is bigger than Africa, or that Alaska is the size of Western Europe. Point being: things aren’t always what they seem, or what conventional wisdom says they are. Common ground.
But I know there’s no point. No matter what I say, he won’t believe me. It’s no different with the chemtrail people, or the September 11th people. It’s like arguing religion. So I don’t try. Besides, why indulge what essentially is willful ignorance?
And with that he gives up. “Okay, he says “If that’s how you feel.” And he walks away.
Yes, that’s how I feel.
Why me? Why couldn’t this guy have just sauntered by and gotten himself lunch at Walhburger’s, instead of approaching me so that I can feel hopeless about the future of humanity? And this business about, “Are you a round earth pilot, or a flat earth pilot?” As if there are two camps. As if this is the kind of thing we debate all night flying across the Atlantic. As if his question isn’t, in fact, stupid.
And apparently it’s worse than I thought. A friend of mine, a pilot, told me that a man came up to him at a party and did the same thing. Another colleague said it happened to him in an airport restaurant. Suddenly it’s a trendy line of thinking. Which both surprises me and doesn’t.
“The Dark Ages,” wrote Kurt Vonnegut. “They haven’t ended yet.”
Artwork by Jack Niles and Gael Gaborel, courtesy of Unsplash.
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22 Responses to “Round or Flat?”
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Two years ago, a very rich investment/hedge fund guy brought a couple dozen Flat Earth believers to one of the only places where it can be proved to be wrong.
This is that story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Experiment_(expedition)
The normal pilots hide in the catering truck.
“It’s flat. I commute from Edgelandia. Got a deck right over the edge. The view is quite literally out-of-this-world.”
When I see stories like this I take some solace in paraphrasing H.L. Mencken: “Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
Is the Earth round or flat?
I’d put the person who is asking that question into the same crackpot category as anyone who would assert that there are more than two genders…and one can pick and choose which one they’d like to be. 🙂
Now for a truly important question, at least if one is in Chicago. Deep-dish or thin crust?
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead” — Thomas Paine
Next time someone asks you such an idiotic question, answer it with another question.
Want to stump them in their tracks?
Ask them why there’s snow on the top of mountains but not the base. How can that be? It’s closer to the sun. Right?
And see the looks on their face.
I’m a pilot and whenever I’m asked, I look over my shoulder as if I’m about to divulge a highly-classified secret, lean in closely, and whisper “it’s actually flat, but you didn’t hear it from me.” You should see the looks on their stupid faces.
I think you were too courteous, maybe … “Come on, dude. Seriously?” made me laugh. Are these guys (gotta be guys, I’d bet money on it) doing it on a dare? Thanks for your lovely writing, always. ❤️
Flat Earth believers are just being edgy.
The commentator #2 noting an analogy to germ theory deniers … well, the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the USA denies germ theory. It’s the basis of his 2021 book allegedly about Dr. Anthony Fauci. Really. Someone I know who was a fan of his, and a germ theory denier, ended up dying of Covid. Viruses don’t care about opinions.
I am convinced that flat earthers are the ultimate trolls and the joke is on us. I simply cannot accept that anyone really believes it. I know there are plenty of idiots out there but come on. They get their kicks watching us try and explain.
Love how the dude phrases his question as if flat earth pilots exist. Or gotta love the pilots that agree with him just for fun, feeding the absurdity.
Either way now if I ever meet you I’m gonna have to ask round or flat.
JK but I’ll probably ask for a picture.
That’s as dumb as asking a doctor if the germ theory of disease is legit.
If this should happen to you again, just say, “The Turtle Moves,” then return to whatever it was you were doing. (It’s a reference to “Small Gods,” a novel in Terry Pratchet’s Discworld series. Discworld sits on the backs of four elephants that stand on a turtle.)
Not a pilot, but it happened to me in the hallway of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Consider that they believe the Earth is flat, but that the rest of the universe is a (crystal) sphere. I presume they believe every scientist on Earth is not only lying to the public, but also to all the world’s pilots.
Should have told him Earth used to be spherical but now it is flat and round. Solved.
I would have asked him what he meant. Really – what do you mean by “flat”? Why can’t I see anything of New York on a clear day? Why can’t I see the beach at Provincetown from here, when I can see the Pilgrim Monument? Where is the edge? What’s on the bottom? What keeps the ocean from just draining off the top? Why does it take almost the same amount of time to fly to (Southeast Asia?) if you fly east or west?
Or even, which way is Mecca, then?
It is, in fact, very much like religious faith (as are staunch political partisanship & a great many other things). Also tribalism, which colours most public debate. If you’d tried to have a discussion with him, he wouldn’t have listened. He knows what he believes & wasn’t really interested in your answer to his question — he was just giving you the gears.
Here’s a guy who was willing to go to considerable effort to have some fun. I watch this once a year on the anniversary of Apollo 11.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_loUDS4c3Cs&t=591s
In Gay Land, in a situation like this, we just give that person some SERIOUS side eye and as snidely as we can say….
QUEEN, PLEASE.
Then saunter away without looking back. This works best in HIGH drag. But us non drag mortals can usually pull it off too.
I wouldn’t want to be on Project Sunrise when it goes over the edge.
Well, depending on your definition of “Western Europe”… Alaska is pretty big?
There’s ignorance, and then there’s proud, aggressive stupidity. The latter is ascendant.
Thank you for not debating with him. In my opinion debating a factless thing only give the thing credence (they’re debating, it must be a thing). That’s the problem today, we give too much credence to factless things. You can debate on how to interpret a particular fact, but if one party insists a particular thing is true when it is demonstrably false, engaging a debate will only make you feel worse.