The Tribune from Coshocton, Ohio • 14

4B The Coshocton Tribune Wednesday, June 1 ond The Tribune Trader Wednesday, June 1, 1983 an Suends His Life Heating, Plumbing Electric Supply ushing A Flat Earth As for the heavens, Johnson says most of its mysteries are known but to God. However, the Flat Earth Society does have some scant data. The sun is 32 miles in diameter, or thereabouts, and it travels around the pole. The moon is somewhat smaller, and is used by nature to light the night. And Johnson says he can prove it.

At least to his own satisfaction. He is a onetime airplane mechanic, with no formal training in science, but he says he has eyes and he can measure and that is enough. "I am a researcher," he says. "I spent a lot of my time surveying. I know what I'm talking about." For example, Johnson says that if the earth were round then big bodies of water would have to bend to fit the curve.

And there is no evidence that they do. "The and the missions are inventions. "The Three Stooges once made a movie about a trip to Venus. Governments are doing the same thing now. The moonflights, the space shuttle, they are all part of the act." And that's why the Flat Earth Society was formed.

It tries to expose the act. Johnson says the society has 2,000 members, and is headquartered at his home in Lancaster, Calif. "Our hope is to restore world sanity," he says. "We want people to know the truth about their place in the universe." That place is stationary. That place is central.

That place is flat. "You know," Johnson sighs, "I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Ptolemy or Columbus would have said the earth was shaped like a banana. Millions of people, no doubt, would think were miles long, but in all that way it only falls 12 inches. Twelve inches! That's almost completely flat." The same goes for the oceans. Johnson says they are also laid on a plain.

He says he has made calculations which indicate that if, say, the Pacific Ocean were on a ball it would rise 1,700 more feet in the middle than at the shores. "But it doesn't. Like everything else, it's flat." Thus Johnson thinks every scientist since Ptolemy has been wrong. Worse, he says that wittingly or not they have been part of a damnable conspiracy to defraud public intelligence and control the minds of the masses. "Churches- have been involved, governments, everybody.

It's a gigantic ripoff." Johnson says space travel has been part of the ripoff. He savs the rockets are fake Me savs tne rockets are lake II I I 1 Valley II Shower Head Assembly $38.09 Valley (I 3 Hole Mounting 8" Swing Spout Model TC-103-8 Starfire crystal handles Tom Tiede WASHINGTON (NEA) -When Charles K. Johnson started grade school, a half century ago, he got into an immediate academic argument with his teacher. She had a world globe on her desk, and he questioned its authenticity. If the world was round, he said, the ocean water would fall off.

So she told him, in effect, to dry up. Since then, Johnson has spent his life trying to prove he was right about the matter. And he thinks he has proven it. He is now the president of the Flat Earth Society, which is 95 years old this spring, and he claims he can show conclusively that the world is a tablet instead of a sphere. He also claims that millions of people agree with him.

He says only 10 or 20 percent of the people in the United States think the earth is round. "Everyone else can see that the water is flat, and the deserts are flat; therefore the logical conclusion is that the whole world is flat," he says. And there is nothing new about that conclusion, he goes on. At one time everyone thought the earth was flat. Moses wrote of it, some of the authors of the Bible did the same; even Jesus, who should know, said the kingdom of heaven was "above" not around or below but "above" the earth.

And that was the dominant wisdom for most of recorded history. People believed that the earth had edges, and that it was a plain at the center of the universe. The world was a floor, the stars were the ceiling, and the sun and the moon traveled in regular circles between them. Nile River, for one, is 1,000 are living on the neel." Jackson Electric Water Hester 130 gal. sin) $118.25 A i hKtt rtNMKUILHAI FREE PENNZOIL HAT With Each 24l at.

Case Purchase! Basket Sink Stain $4.40 Mansfield Water Savsr Closets NO LtMITCAH CARRY 3 "HxrtpjcrljaL PENNZOIL 01L FILTERS STARTING AT (foreign and domestic car and trucks to 3 ton) ml 1.69 AIR FILTERS STARTING AT unpaid DELUXE 17.2 CU. FT. ENERGY-SAVING REFRIGERATOR-FREEZER! PEIUZOf MOTOR GIL BY CASE AfiDOR QUART STRAIGHT WEIGHT H.D. 1.C4J Determent SAE 1BW, 20W, 39. 49, 50 par case 24.90 perql P- fT Va.

WJ 1 IS. -j I td ar-w -i wm PENNZOIL sjLubricV0 10W 30 GAS SAVER 1QW-38 GAS SAVER per case 26.S2 per case $27.30 Then, shortly after the death of Christ, opinions began to change. A Greek astronomer named Ptolemy said the earth was a ball, not a billiard table, and, later, Christopher Columbus sailed beyond the known reaches of the earth without, happily, dropping over the end of the structure. So, Johnson says, "the new religion began." And the religion was modern science. The earth was no longer flat, and it was no longer the center of creation.

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freezer section Reversible doors Rugged Trilon II door and cabinet liner 'J See-thru meat keeper or end. just $626oo Johnson says it's all poppycock. The ancients were right at the start. The Flat Earth Society, founded in 1888, believes the earth as we know it is the focal Supreme Qim( ly I I I r-fc r-; STARTS AS A VALUE -J-JlfTJr A VALUE! Gasoline, Kerosene, place of existence, and dead DC3GG PENNZOIL and dieael fuel available level. It is 6,400 miles across, the North Pole is at ut our bulk plant pump.

5th and Walnut 622-2436 OPEN: 8 5 Sat 8 12 lubricate 1049 S. 6th 622-0691 the center, and the whole thing is encircled by ice.