Bedford Level Experiment: The 19th Century Experiment That Laid The Foundation of The Flat Earth Society

In 1838, English writer and socialist, Samuel Rowbotham, set out to disprove what the ancient Greeks as well as modern scientists had long established—that the earth was round.

A flat-earther from his youth, Rowbotham saw that the ideal place to test out his stupid theory was on the Old Bedford River, an artificial canal dug in the early 17th century to partially divert the waters of the River Great Ouse in the Fens of Cambridgeshire. The canal runs perfectly straight and unobstructed for a distance of about six miles, making it an ideal location to directly measure the curvature of the Earth.