FE Meme
Monterey Bay: 82 ft Missing Curvature?
#4: A Monterey Bay sightline at 13.23 miles shows ~82 ft of "missing" curvature, packaged as proof the Earth is flat.
The Meme
Three-panel macro: sand distance demo (top), hazy skyline photo with red circle (middle), ape reaction panels labelled "GLOBETARD" (bottom).
Why It Spreads
The three-panel layout dresses a beach day and one telephoto skyline shot as a controlled experiment, complete with "13.23 miles" and "~82 ft missing." The ME versus GLOBETARD reaction panels reward sharing without checking observer elevation, target building heights, or bay refraction.
What It Gets Wrong
The three-panel collage jumps from a sand-distance demo to a hazy Monterey Bay telephoto and an ape reaction meme without logging eye height, target elevation, or refraction. At 13.23 mi (~21.3 km) with R ≈ 6371 km, h ≈ d²/(2R) predicts about 36 m of midpoint drop before surveyed building heights are added, and the meme's 82 ft (~25 m) figure still needs that baseline. Cold-water ducts and superior mirage over the bay can lift distant skylines by tens of metres, which fits coastal optics and is inconsistent with treating one hazy panel as a curvature survey. TestTheGlobe's No Curvature Is Visible and TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
Measured heights and ~21.3 km distance predict how much of a Monterey Bay skyline should hide on a sphere; many "missing curvature" bay photos fit that model once refraction is logged. One hazy telephoto panel with a shock-face reaction collage is inconsistent with a curvature survey. Use TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator to compare the meme's claim with a measurable prediction.
- TestTheGlobe's No Curvature Is Visible: at 13.23 mi (~21.3 km), h ≈ d²/(2R) with R ≈ 6371 km predicts about 36 m of geometric drop at the midpoint; the meme's 82 ft (~25 m) figure still requires surveyed target height to judge what should hide.
- TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator accepts distance and observer altitude so you can compare the meme's 82 ft claim against the globe prediction for that sightline.
- Superior mirage and cold-water ducts over bays bend light upward; TestTheGlobe's Perspective Explains Everything notes how atmospheric optics, not flatness, can expose extra lower structure in a hazy skyline photo.
- TestTheGlobe's Horizon Distance Calculator shows how far the geometric horizon sits at a given eye height, the baseline the meme never measures before declaring curvature absent.