You are now in the year 1838, in the small English town of Bedford, on the banks of the Great Ouse River, which flows so slowly that the water appears still, like a broken mirror. There stands a man named Samuel Birley Rowbotham, a local pharmacist in his thirties, wearing a long black coat and holding a six-foot brass telescope. He stands on the old Bedford Bridge, facing a straight waterway that stretches for six miles without any noticeable curve.
He begins his experiment on a perfectly sunny day at three in the afternoon, when the sun is at its highest point. He places the telescope on a wooden stand, secures it firmly, and asks his assistant to stand at the far end of the canal, six miles away. The assistant raises a red flag three feet above his head. Rowbotham peers through the telescope. He can see the flag clearly, as well as a small boat sailing in the middle of the canal, and he can see the entire lower part of the boat — it does not disappear as it should if the Earth were curved. He notes in his small leather notebook:
"Flag fully visible, boat fully visible, no curvature, no disappearance of lower parts."
The next day, he repeats the experiment with another man carrying a lamp at three in the morning. The lamp appears as a bright point of light six miles away, and does not fade gradually as the spherical theory predicts. Rowbotham records:
"The light is visible without any loss of its lower portion, as if the surface were perfectly flat."
He publishes his findings in a small pamphlet titled "Zetetic Astronomy" in 1849, selling thousands of copies in the markets of London and Manchester. People read it and begin repeating the experiment themselves on local lakes and seas.
In 1864, Rowbotham undertakes a larger experiment on the Old Bedford Level, a flat water expanse twelve miles long. He uses a boat with a flag twelve feet above the water. Standing on the shore with a stronger telescope, he sees the flag clearly — and also the bottom of the boat — even at a distance of eight miles. He records:
"If the Earth were a globe with a circumference of 25,000 miles, the curvature should be eight inches per mile squared — that is, thirty-two feet over eight miles — and thus the lower part of the boat should be completely hidden. Yet it is visible."
He publishes the result in a local newspaper and receives letters from sailors confirming that they too see ships at great distances without their lower portions disappearing.
In 1870, John Hampden, one of Rowbotham's followers, makes a famous £500 wager with scientist Alfred Wallace. They agree to repeat the experiment on the same Bedford canal. Wallace sets up three poles of equal height at equal distances. Hampden looks through a telescope and sees the middle pole appearing higher than the others — indicating curvature. But Hampden rejects the result, accusing Wallace of manipulating the telescope. The matter goes to court, Hampden loses the bet, yet Rowbotham's supporters continue spreading the original claim: "The experiment proved flatness."
In 1881, Rowbotham dies, but his books continue to be printed. Lady Elizabeth Blount, one of his followers, establishes the Universal Zetetic Society and begins publishing a monthly journal containing similar experiments from members in America and Australia. One writes from Lake Michigan:
"I saw the city of Chicago in full view from sixty miles across the lake, though spherical calculations say 2,400 feet should be hidden."
The letter is published along with primitive photographs clearly showing the buildings.
In 1890, William Carpenter, Rowbotham's successor, conducts an experiment on the Brooklyn Bridge. He measures the distance between the bridge's pillars and finds that the water level remains perfectly even over a mile, with no measurable drop. He publishes a book titled "One Hundred Proofs the Earth is Not a Globe," which becomes a foundational text.
Proof No. 16 states: "If the Earth were a globe, ships approaching from the sea should first show their sails and then their hulls, but we always see the hull first."
He supports this with testimonies from sailors in the ports of Liverpool and Boston.
These experiments continue to be repeated over the decades, unchanged in their basic method: a straight water surface, a telescope, a flag or a lamp, a measured distance, and direct observation. Every one of them records the same result — no visible curvature.