Do Ibiza and Mallorca prove a Flat Earth? [No, they demonstrate the curve of the globe]

MIketivated

New Member
My apologies if similar topics have already been discussed. I get buried in a sea of information when reading through the threads!

I have been attempting to provide definitive proof to a friend that the Earth is indeed a spinning ball. Unfortunately, he will not accept any information provided by Nasa nor from any other space agencies, as he is convinced they are all in on the Grand Ruse! So, I decided to do a test of my own here where I live.

I have seen the island of Ibiza off the coast on a number of occasions, and had been waiting for a clear day to take some photographs and perform some calculations (with the help of metabunk's Earth Curve Calculator.)

As I understand it, at a 90km distance from the mainland, a noticeable portion of the bottom of the island should be missing due to curvature, approximately 133 meters, in accordance with spherical mathematics, and accounting for standard refraction.

The day finally arrived and I took a number of shots at an initial altitude of 140 meters. The island was clearly in view, and landmarks made it possible, with the help of Google Earth to calculate altitude of different parts of the island.

The peak on the far right of the island has an altitude of 415 meters. The lowest point of the saddle to its immediate left appears to be approximately 210 meters in height.

Screenshot 2017-09-10 18.07.00.png

20170910_155506.jpg

At 210 meters altitude, minus 133m allowing for curvature/refraction, only 77 meters of the saddle should be visible. It was hard to determine whether this was the case, so I later descended to an altitude of 85 meters and took another picture of the island.

This change in altitude means that approximately 200 meters of the island should be hidden from view! The highest point of the saddle is at best 210 meters, yet in the pictures, far more (is not all) is seen. In fact, based on the height of the peak to the right, it appears the entire island is in view, though some of the island is clearly obscured behind a white band of atmosphere just above water level.

In the picture below, the white band appears to have thickened. This I imagined was due to my lower vantage point (85m), and thicker atmosphere.

While trying to come to terms with these numbers, and the apparent lack of curvature, I happened to notice that in a number of my photographs I had also captured an additional island to the left of Ibiza. Imagine my shock when I realized that it could be none other than Mallorca!

20170910_155514.jpg


The distance to the nearest point of Mallorca from where I was standing was 202 km!


Screenshot 2017-09-10 18.10.20.png


Screenshot 2017-09-13 12.25.33.png


When I ran the numbers through the Metabunk curve calculator, my jaw dropped. At at an initial altitude of 140 m and a distance of 202km, at least 1644m of the island should be hidden from view! This is hard to come to terms with give that the highest point on Mallorca is Puig Major, clocking in at 1364m altitude.

This means that the HIGHEST point on the island should be COMPLETELY hidden behind approximately 300 meters of curvature. How can this be? Not only is the island not completely hidden, but a fair portion of the rest of the island can be seen!

As I examined the photographs more closely I discovered that to the right of the darker portion of the Island of Mallorca could be seen sections of the island that are at least an additional 30km further away. This distance brings the 'refracted hidden' number to 2336m, nearly a kilometer lower that the highest peak on the island!! Please explain to me how this can be?!?!

While I was not able to see these portions to the right of the island of Mallorca from the lower vantage point of 85 meters, the darker section of the island was still clearly visible (1863 refracted hidden).

These numbers do not even take into account the rather large section of the island (vertically) that can be seen in all the photos.

Help!

Kind regards,

Mike
 
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Could you post the GPS coordinates showing where the camera was please? And also try to show in the photos what it is we're looking at, as I'm finding it hard to make out the landscape. Perhaps play a bit with the contrast and show a Google Earth image or photograph taken nearer that aligns with the various features, and maybe label some of the summits. Peakfinder.org may also be useful.

Thanks. :)
 
Are you sure that is Mallorca? It seems to me the shape of the left-hand landmass better matches the northern end of Ibiza. There is high ground at the south and the north of Ibiza, with lower ground in between.

I don't have Google Earth on this machine, only the Google Maps version which isn't very good, but a (very) rough match-up suggests that the north end of Ibiza is in about the right place. Mallorca is way off to the left.

ibiza.jpg

Perhaps someone with access to better software can confirm?
 
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Looking at the terrain map of Ibiza, there is high ground well over 300 metres on the north coast. The highest contour here is 380 metres:

upload_2017-9-19_14-18-11.png

That is about 103km from your vantage point, as far as I can see from your post:

upload_2017-9-19_14-18-43.png

According to the curve calculator, taking into account refraction, about 306 metres of this hill should be hidden from your lower vantage point of 85 metres, which fits with what you say about only the highest ground at the far left being visible from there.
 
The far right seems quite a good match, but the rest of it looks quite different.
I can't get a camera position low enough in Google Maps, so it won't match the skyline properly. It's more to show the horizontal scaling: in other words that the land visible on the left is part of Ibiza, not Mallorca, which would be further to the left.
 
I can't get a camera position low enough in Google Maps, so it won't match the skyline properly. It's more to show the horizontal scaling: in other words that the land visible on the left is part of Ibiza, not Mallorca, which would be further to the left.
Agreed: here's what peakfinder shows, which is a pretty good match to his photo:

xabia.JPG
 
Agreed: here's what peakfinder shows, which is a pretty good match to his photo:

xabia.JPG
That also matches pretty well to another photo of Ibiza from Xabia that I have found on Flickr:

upload_2017-9-19_15-15-16.png

(from https://flic.kr/p/8jwT9M)

It seems pretty clear that it's all Ibiza. And the fact that the middle, lower part of the island is below the horizon, with only the higher ground at each end visible, is a pretty good demonstration that the Earth is a globe.
 
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Are you sure that is Mallorca? It seems to me the shape of the left-hand landmass better matches the northern end of Ibiza. There is high ground at the south and the north of Ibiza, with lower ground in between.

I don't have Google Earth on this machine, only the Google Maps version which isn't very good, but a (very) rough match-up suggests that the north end of Ibiza is in about the right place. Mallorca is way off to the left.

ibiza.jpg

Perhaps someone with access to better software can confirm?

I think you are spot on... I had no idea the island would be so broad!
 
That also matches pretty well to another photo of Ibiza from Xabia that I have found on Flickr:

upload_2017-9-19_15-15-16.png

(from https://flic.kr/p/8jwT9M)

It seems pretty clear that it's all Ibiza. And the fact that the middle, lower part of the island is below the horizon, with only the higher ground at each end visible, is a pretty good demonstration that the Earth is a globe.

Yes, Trailblazer, I think you are quite right. I appreciate your time and help. It seems clear to me that the land mass to the left is not Mallorca. Which would have been a lot harder to explain!

I do have one question still however. I took the picture below from a slightly different location, after scrambling down the hill. I have included a google earth screenshot of the spot where I stood. The longitude and latitude are on the google earth screenshot.

The altitude was 85 meters. At a distance of 90 km, Metabunk's calculator gives a refracted hidden height of 199.5 meters.

The lowest point of the saddle, which I have marked on the third images is 205 meters! As I understand, the top of the saddle should be sitting at almost water level... 205-199.5= 5.5m above the water? It appears that very little is any of the saddle is obscured.

Also, am I correct in assuming that the white atmospheric band is obscuring additional land, and not water?

Thanks for the help!

20170910_162831.jpg Screenshot 2017-09-21 12.55.50.png ibiza zoom.PNG
 
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I think it's pretty safe to say, if more of a distant island is in view than the calculator predicts, the effects of refraction when the image was taken must have been larger than "standard".

Maybe one way for you to work out what's going on here is to pinpoint where Ibiza is no longer visible - in the middle part of the island - and then find the elevation of the land at that point: this will give you a better idea of exactly how much is obscured.

It's also a good proof that the earth isn't flat: because if it was, none of Ibiza would be hidden from you.
 
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The lowest point of the saddle, which I have marked on the third images is 205 meters! As I understand, the top of the saddle should be sitting at almost water level... 205-199.5= 5.5m above the water? It appears that very little is any of the saddle is obscured.
ibiza zoom.PNG
I think this is not the saddle but overlapping slopes of two mountains, one of which is closer to the observer, whereas the other is farther behind:
Screen Shot 2017-09-21 at 14.42.51.png
The apparent point where the two slopes cross each other will be much higher than the saddle point.
 
Sorry for the long delay in responding, it's been a busy week.

I must admit, at first your explanation of 'overlapping slopes' made perfect sense to me. I understood immediately, that depending upon the location and viewing angle, the sides of the mountains could easily offer a false low. Upon closer examination however, I must conclude that the original numbers I provided seem to be accurate. (viewing height of 85 meters, target distance 90 kilometers = 199.5 meters refracted hidden.) The highest point of the saddle (as shown in the screenshots added) is 215 meters at best.

Also, as we have previously discussed, parts of the island to the left (previously mistaken for Mallorca) are missing from view. I agree, this would appear to be proof of curvature, were it not for the presence of the saddle standing clear and well above the water.

This could lead one to conclude that the missing parts of the island have merely been obscured by the density of the atmosphere, rather than any expected curvature.

In addition, if I am to account for the additional land that must be obscured behind the white atmospheric band, I find myself struggling to demonstrate ANY curvature whatsoever at 90km distance! Am I missing something?Screenshot 2017-10-02 15.54.25.png Screenshot 2017-10-02 15.54.59.png Screenshot 2017-10-02 15.56.56.png Screenshot 2017-10-02 16.19.51.png Screenshot 2017-10-02 11.27.42.png
 

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Am I missing something?

The best way of clarifying these types of confusing images is to create a "pseudo flat earth view". This video shows how to do it:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOQSxal-2FM


In short, you will want to mark the island with a polygon column, add a transparent photo at the viewpoint, zoom in on the island, rise up the viewpoint so the shoreline is visible, then match the contours of the top of the island. Details in in the vid.
 
I will check it out. Regardless, I believe that whoever changed the title of this thread has jumped the gun in their conclusions. "Do Ibiza and Mallorca prove a flat Earth? [No, they demonstrate the curve of a globe]"
 
Here's a suggestion for you:

1. Identify the heights of some of the peaks in your photo
2. In a program that shows cursor location - eg, photoshop, gimp, ms paint - note the pixel position
3. Using the y-axis location, and the differences between the peaks, work out "how many metres per pixel"
4. See how many metres above the water the peaks are, and the saddle

A better photo would be preferable, of course. Is that a possibility?
I believe that whoever changed the title of this thread has jumped the gun in their conclusions. "Do Ibiza and Mallorca prove a flat Earth? [No, they demonstrate the curve of a globe]"
Agreed. Probably further calculations would be required to say this photo categorically "demonstrates the curve of a globe" - though I'm not sure the photo's of good enough quality to do that. I think leaving it at "No" would suffice.

If it helps, here's your original 85m altitude image, straightened, cropped, and adjusted to try and bring out the features more:

ibiza_adjusted.jpg
 
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It's also worth remembering that an effect of refraction is to "compress" objects with the bases being moved upwards relative to the tops, as illustrated in this picture of the Toronto skyline:

[compare]
[/compare]

So the saddle, close to the horizon, will not be appearing where it "should" be if there was no refraction.
 
It's also worth remembering that an effect of refraction is to "compress" objects with the bases being moved upwards relative to the tops
That's true. Which kind of renders the 'pixel counting' idea rather inaccurate. :(
 
That's true. Which kind of renders the 'pixel counting' idea rather inaccurate. :(
Any one number is likely going to be misleading, as the effect of refraction is not linear.
That’s why the pseudo-flat view overlay is so valuable for this type of thing.
 
Agreed. Probably further calculations would be required to say this photo categorically "demonstrates the curve of a globe" - though I'm not sure the photo's of good enough quality to do that. I think leaving it at "No" would suffice.
ibiza_adjusted.jpg

The fact that a bunch of the height is hidden isn't a proof by itself? ( no irony, a genuine question, I'm not aware of the FE point of view about that)
 
The fact that a bunch of the height is hidden isn't a proof by itself?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? It's interesting that they genuinely don't seem to see that - or conveniently explain it away. But mostly they just seem focused on what they imagine should or shouldn't be happening on a globe. It's a bit like not seeing the wood for the trees.
 
You'd think so, wouldn't you? It's interesting that they genuinely don't seem to see that - or conveniently explain it away. But mostly they just seem focused on what they imagine should or shouldn't be happening on a globe. It's a bit like not seeing the wood for the trees.
"On a flat Earth it would look like this, which is totally unlike what we see."

"Yeah, but on a globe it ought to look like THIS, and it doesn't quite match. Therefore the Earth is flat!"
 
I see, this a little like when someone invalidate an entire argument because there is a grammar mistake...
It's like taking evidence in isolation. It's not difficult to find a long-range photo which, on the surface, contradicts the globe. But it takes a lot more than that to overturn reality. This is one of the more curious aspects of most CTs - that someone could watch hours and hours of space footage, for example, but then zoom in on one microsecond which looks 'suspicious' and decide that constitutes enough evidence to debunk the whole thing.
 
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