Flintoff
© Ian Kington / AFP
Earth could be flat, according to former England cricket star Andrew Flintoff. Speaking on his BBC podcast, he ignored all satellite photos to claim there is "evidence to suggest the world wasn't round."

Flintoff admitted being obsessed with a podcast called The Flat Earthers - a show dedicated to discussing the conspiracy theory that Earth is flat, and that claims to the contrary are merely lies peddled by Disney. The assertion of a spherical planet has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks and widely acknowledged as fact since Christopher Columbus's famed voyage in 1492.

"If you're in a helicopter and you hover, why does the earth not come to you if it is round?" Flintoff asked, according to The Sun. "Why, if we're hurtling through space, why would water stay still? Why is it not wobbling? Also, if you fire a laser about 16 miles, if the world was curved, you shouldn't be able to see it but you can."

He added: "There's evidence to suggest that the world isn't round. The pictures which you see, the horizon always appears flat apart from NASA pictures, which some say could be doctored. They could be doctored."

Flintoff, who inspired England to victory in the 2005 series, conceded he does not think the world is entirely flat, however, rather believing it is "bulbous, like a turnip." He said: "I am not coming out now and saying that the world is flat, but it could be. You've got the earth, its bulbous, like a disc. It's not completely flat underneath."

He added: "The middle is the North Pole, around the outside is the South Pole, which is like a big wall of ice. This is why all governments now have bases on the South Pole. You can't turn up to the South Pole as a punter."

The former England captain also claimed he would stake £1,000 ($1,332) on the Earth being flat, if given odds of 5/1.

Flintoff said he is considering going to next year's The Flat Earth International Conference in the US. Members claim Earth is flat and believe that evidence to the contrary, such as satellite photos of the globe as a sphere, are fabrications of a "round Earth conspiracy." Many also believe that water doesn't fall off the edge because Antarctica acts as a wall of ice that wraps around the edge of the world.