I love it when flat earth memes are so ridiculous that they debunk themselves. And the flat earth meme saying, "When Someone Tells You There's No Ice Wall In Antarctica, Show them this picture" just debunks itself many times over.
In the debunking the Antarctica Conspiracy series we discuss the beliefs that flat earthers have about multiple conspiracies about Antarctica. One of these conspiracies is the belief that, instead of being a continent at the bottom of the world, Antarctica is a giant 60,000 mile ice wall that surrounds the world. In the article, we Debunk the Existence of the Ice Wall and show you this image below, an image flat earthers use to prove an ice wall exists.
Image credit to Our World Heritage, the source of the ORIGINAL image!
But for anyone who is able to fact check and use common sense, the image is quite hilarious and debunks itself. But the problem is that flat earthers simply do not do even two minutes of research on any of their claims, which is why they believe all sorts of utter nonsense that I also debunk, such as, Admiral Byrd was a Flat Earther, that The Antarctic Treaty is a Giant Conspiracy, that Sunbeams Prove the Sun is Close, and the meme above that tries to say it is evidence of a 60,000 mile ice wall that keeps all the earth's oceans in and is the barrier to the edge of the earth.
Flat Earthers, Fact Checking is Fun and Educational
The truth about this image is quite funny, as the original image is from a blog called Our World Heritage. The ship is not an armed UN ship designed to keep people from finding the mythological ice wall, but the FS Polarstern, a private ship that was contracted to take the author on his scientific research expedition and refuel a permanent station in Antarctica.
First of all, flat earthers claim that you cannot even go to Antarctica because it's surrounded by a fleet of tens of thousands of armed UN gunships that will prevent anyone from stepping foot on the continent so that no one finds the ice wall. Here's a closer image of the FS Polarstern later in their trip, showing the name of the ship and that it does not have a UN insignia nor any mounted guns aboard. From the On the Ice blog post of the same blog.
Image credit Our World Heritage
The Image Proves You Can Go to Antarctica
So, how did the author of the blog get this image if no one can even go there? And why is there a private research vessel in the Antarctic where it is not supposed to be? And what are all those people and equipment doing on the 'ice wall' above the ship that the UN is supposed to be preventing them from seeing or stepping foot on? Just a bit of fact checking shows the incredible inconsistencies in this meme.
Additionally, the author describes the ship taking supplies to Neumayer Station, a permanent research outpost of which the author shows multiple images.
Here's an image of the location of Neumayer Station.
Image credit to AWI.de
A permanent research station? On Antarctica? And the images show no UN gunboats around or any military presence to keep people from wandering away from the station? You can also see a 24 hour live webcam of the station at the bottom of the home page on their website. Anyone catch any military presence there? They even have archived time lapses you can search through to see if there are any military around and to Debunk the Flat Earth Claim There is No 24 Hour Sun in Antarctica yourself, since they would not watch something that would rebut their belief system.
Find any military in that live feed? I thought not. Sorry flat earthers, fact checking your own videos is all evidence that you CAN go to Antarctica, that the military is not roaming around preventing people from finding the ice wall, and that there is even a permanent research station there that is not guarded by the military. Myth busted... by your own meme. Maybe you should fact check a bit better before stealing images and using them for purposes the photographer would not have approved of.
The Antarctic Ice Shelf is Not a 60,000 Mile Ice Wall
In the blog, the author tells about the boat going to the ice shelf that is depicted in the meme. No one denies there is an Antarctic Ice Shelf, but to claim that an image of a few hundred yards of the known ice shelf NEXT TO THE WATER is proof of 60,000 miles of an wall, when the impenetrable part or the 'edge of the world' would need to be MILES from the water is utterly ignorant at best, insane at worst.
Think about it. Showing an ice wall at the edge of the water is not where the ice wall would even be. The ice wall would be miles away from the ocean, at the EDGE of the world. On the OUTSIDE of the rim... not at the edge of the water. On that map, there is 100+ miles from the water to where the 'edge of the world' would be.
Why would you use an image that was obviously taken over 100 miles from the edge of the world... to prove it's the edge of the world? That would be like taking a picture of the California coast to prove that California has deserts. It's not even the slightest bit logical.
Image credit: my own
Again, the ice shelf (actually there are several different ice shelves) are known fact. However, they are not even stable or there from year to year. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, "Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that connect to a landmass." What is that? They 'connect to a landmass? Isn't it the landmass that flat earthers are claiming IS the ice wall? So why are they showing a picture of an ice shelf claiming it's the ice wall?
In the blog that the image was taken from, they show a few wider images of the ice shelf, and you can see there are mountains in the background, confirming that it really is connected to a land mass.
Image credit: Antarctica- Unknown Territories from Our World Heritage.
If that is THE ice wall, why are there mountains behind it? And what is beyond those mountains? Sphere earthers know, but flat earthers already claimed the SHELF is the wall, then they'll claim those mountains in the distance are the wall. They have to change their claims constantly when you point out these discrepancies to them. I imagine that the person who took the image is either amused or horrified that the image is being used to portray the flat earth ice wall. But since he's actually been to Antarctica, witnessed 24 hour sun in Antarctica, and is a scientist, well, we can guess that he's probably not a flat earther.
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