Do you still have confusion about whether the Earth is round or flat? Bob Knodel, an avid conspiracy theorist was taken aback when he realized his fateful and costly mistake. Knodel clearly did not get the results he desired in order to prove his bold claims. The flat earther, who also runs a YouTube channel called Globebusters, was in the midst of filming for Netflix's documentary Behind the Curve which debuted on the platform in 2018 and explores the growing community of flat-earthers. The film's premise read, "The internet has revived the conspiracy theory that the earth is flat and America's flat-Earth movement appears to be growing despite hundreds of years' of scientific evidence disproving the idea."

Knodel decided to put his theories to the test in the documentary and set out to prove to viewers that the Earth is flat. He was so convinced of the method that he spent a whopping $20,000 on an experiment that revealed the exact opposite, reports Unilad. In an attempt to prove his belief right, Knodel first explained the ins and outs of the DIY experiment using a laser gyroscope in order to disprove the bounty of research led by experts at NASA. The flat-earther believes that the Earth is flat if the light can be seen when the camera, the holes in the fence, and the torch are all at the same height above the ground. The Earth is round if the torch is held at a higher angle and still shines through. 

Unfortunately for the flat-earther, when his friend holds the torch at the same level as the camera the light is invisible but when he lifts it higher, the light shines through the fence holes clearly. In an amusing turn of events, no light could be seen with Knodel quietly muttering 'interesting' after the painfully awkward gaffe. Knodel opened up a little more about the experiment and what it means for flat Earthers everywhere on his YouTube channel. "What we found is when we turned on that gyroscope we found that we were picking up a drift. A 15-degree-per-hour drift," he explained. "Now, obviously we were taken aback by that," before adding that the results were kind of a problem. "We obviously were not willing to accept that and so we started looking for ways to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth," he maintained.

The video has since gone viral on Reddit after it was uploaded by u/killHACKS and users pointed out that even after the experiment, he continued to use 'mental gymnastics' to argue that his conspiracy theory was correct. "He blamed it on twigs and leaves as well uneven terrain that caused the experiment to 'fail'," said u/AnyoneWantSomeRice. "Uneven terrain, also known as the curvature of the earth," commented u/clusterlove. "Watching them move the goalposts over and over is the perfect illustration of why when people believe things for emotional reasons, you can't convince them otherwise with rational ones. It's textbook motivated reasoning, documented in real-time," wrote u/astroskag.