THE CONSPIRASPHERE
NOEL ROONEY looks on as Flat-Earthers are dissed by proponents of the Hollow World and the Internet is taken in by a fictional temporal anomaly in a London foot tunnel...
UNDERGROUND THINGS
Flat Earth Theory has enjoyed its fair share of the attention economy of late, what with gaining celebrity endorsements, mainstream coverage, and even a merchandising fillip (see last month’s column, FT362:4). So perhaps it is only to be expected that competing theories about the true nature of the planet should make their own bid for a share of the market. Some of this activity has been a touch resentful, even openly contemptuous, of the Flat Earth meme. At first glance, the criticism is identical to that of the rational and sceptical responses to the idea that we live on a disc; but the apparently matter-of-fact naysaying is followed up by the offer of an equally eldritch theory.
The main competitor (indeed the only one with any profile that I could find; if any FT readers have come across others, I would be very happy to hear about them) is the venerable – and historically tainted – idea that the Earth is in fact hollow. Some proponents of this theory have come out of the woodwork in recent weeks to pour scorn on the Flat-Earthers, and some of the media that have picked up on them seem to be working under the misapprehension that Hollow Earth theory is novel. I suppose this is yet another symptom of the ‘more bigger snacks now’ attitude of even allegedly respectable media outlets; an ill-informed approach by ill-informed journalists trying to fill page space with engaging and superficial clickbait.
One prominent spokesperson for the Hollow Earth theory, Rodney Cluff (who has published at least one book on the subject) was interviewed by the Sun. His response to Flat-Earthers was amusingly reminiscent of the ‘as everybody knows’ gambit that often passes for theological, or political, debate in our dimly, grimly, benighted times: “I don’t know how the Flat-Earthers can be so confused,” he opined. “They are obviously wrong. The world is not flat – it’s hollow. They reject all the evidence.” So there you have it. Personally I would be somewhat wary of venturing down a hole that might be inhabited by the lost tribes of Israel, the Vikings, and a late infusion of escaped Nazis, but each to their own.
I was intrigued to see a piece of purported psychogeography make a splash on social media recently. The Woolwich Foot Tunnel Anomaly excited an avalanche of responses online, and eventually found its way into the pages of the Guardian. I was emailed on the topic by quite a number of friends and fortean correspondents, so I followed the story to its source, a charmingly creepy little blog site called Portals of
London, which claims that London has a number of locations where time acts in decidedly odd ways. Workers on the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, it was suggested, had experienced time distortions, such as appearing at one end of the tunnel mere moments after descending the other.
The blog is clearly a piece of gently Borgesian fiction, with just enough of a plausible tone to give the innocent reader a moment of pause: could this be true? But it is not exactly a hoax: the language and atmosphere of the stories reveal themselves as fiction on anything more than a cursory reading. Amusing, then, that such a large proportion of the online population took it at face value; I wonder if, in 30 years or so, it will have morphed into the kind of legendary citation that fuels so many fictive fortean fields. In an increasingly gullible world, it’s a decent bet.