The Strange Theory That Mountains Are Trees (+ Other Bizarre Mysteries)

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The Strange Theory That Mountains Are Trees - and More</h4>

How well do you know your history? Is there anything from the past that makes you… question what really happened? And could any of the many alt theories offer a better explanation?

In this video, we’ll first take a closer look at the bizarre theory that all the mountains of Earth… are actually trees from an ancient time. Next, we’ll deep dive into the real history of giants, exploring whether huge people ever did live on our world. And, finally, we’re counting down the top 20 alternate theories in history, in general - covering everything from Atlantis to the Illuminati.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at some of the strangest alternate theories that have ever been suggested.

When we gaze out across the many landscapes of this planet it’s perhaps clear that Earth holds many secrets from us. This 4.5-billion-year-old world has certainly been around much longer than mere humans have. But, still, you’d think by now we’d have got the basics right. Trees are trees and mountains are mountains, aren’t they? Well, not according to one controversial idea…

By now, the flat earth conspiracy theory has arguably become the most widely recognised conspiracy theory of all, with certain celebrities and high-profile figures pedaling its various eye-catching claims. What might be somewhat surprising, however, is that the theorists themselves can’t quite wholly agree on the layout of the flat earth. For example, while some believe the Earth to be a disc that’s walled in on all sides by massive ice sheets in Antarctica, which are guarded by none other than NASA… others think that really there’s no edge to flat earth at all, and that the plane of earth extends on and on forever. As strange a theory as Flat Earth in general is in our modern times, though, it has yet managed to give rise to an even stranger one.

In 2016, a video appeared on a now-deleted YouTube account arguing for the certainly unusual “No Forests on Flat Earth” theory, and it gained some initial popularity. Since then, the ideas within it have become key to some flat earth beliefs. The astonishing theory argues that trees - normal, everyday trees - are actually only bushes and shrubbery, and shadows of their once much larger and greater, former selves. Real trees of long ago - as per the theory - were massive structures that towered into the sky, miles and miles high. And the forests we have now aren’t real forests, as the real forests no longer exist. That’s the idea, anyway… so, what’s going on?

The basic gist of the “no forests” suggestion is seemingly that the Earth we know today is nowhere near as majestic (or as massive) as it once was. In some ways, this might be considered an understandable position to take. Scientists and researchers, even in the mainstream, do agree that Earth has at times been a much more abundant place than it is now. With wholly different, and often bigger life forms, to the point that if we (today) were to somehow be transported back in time… we might mistake ancient Earth for some other, unrecognizable, alien planet. But if there were once giant trees in amongst all this, as the “no forests” idea suggests, then where are they now? Here the theory makes another surprising claim… that the visible remains of those massive trees from long ago can still be found today all around us. We just call them mountains. 

According to the theory, which (importantly) is thoroughly unsupported by conventional science or research, mountains are evidence that trees used to be towering structures because mountains are the remnants of those ancient trees. Mountains are like huge, sprawling, roughly cut and jagged tree stumps, so it’s said. The old trees, the ones that no longer exist, were some forty or fifty miles tall… with trunks multiple miles wide. Unsurprisingly, it’s said that they totally dominated the landscape. Our mountains are, then, merely the corpses of these trees, the leftovers… with the “no forests” theory claiming that there’s evidence for this, if we look at mountains closely enough. 

The original video, now removed from YouTube, showed various images of famous mountains and monuments… and compared them side-by-side with tree trunks. Uluru in Australia, for example, is a large (and somewhat flat) island mountain that, the theory tells us, looks extraordinarily like a massive tree stump. Uluru was a tree, so the claim goes, but its destruction has turned it into what it is now. Elsewhere, Devil’s Tower, a large, steep formation with almost vertical sides, in Wyoming, USA, allegedly looks like a tree that was cut down before it could grow to full height… while the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, an iconic monument of basalt columns, is purported evidence toward a dramatically alternate history, too, with it claimed that the Causeway’s hexagonal pattern must be linked to organic life. Overall, the theory asks for quite a leap of faith or foolishness, depending on your view… imploring that we look at these monuments (and others) not as we’ve come to know them, but as fallen trees. Long dead, but once magnificent (and giant) fallen trees. 

An immediate realization is perhaps the clear and obvious difference between the wood of the trees and the rock of our mountains, however. But here, too, the theory makes another astounding claim. Because, according to the “No Forests” point of view, rocks don’t actually exist either. All the rocks we see in our day to day lives - from miniscule pebbles to massive cliff faces - are apparently nothing more than rubble left behind by the ancient trees. If you’ve ever held a rock in your hand, you’ve actually held part of the body of a long-dead tree... is the general idea. Understandably (and while this is by no means the only aspect of the theory that they’ve taken issue with) scientists, academics, researchers, most of everyone else can immediately see various and huge problems here. The inherent, real-world differences between rocks and trees are, in reality… vast. But, in this retelling of how the world works, they’re one and the same thing. Again, if plain flat earth theory wasn’t strange enough already, then this extension of it certainly is!

Finally, the last part of the “No Forests” theory attempts to explain what happened to the ancient trees which, if they did exist, must clearly have gone through a truly catastrophic deforestation event, to bring Earth to be almost entirely rid of them now. It’s said, by advocates, that there are a couple of different possibilities - including a great flood, or even that their destruction was the work of a race of long-lost giants. Another suggestion is that there was, at some time, a massive fire on Earth, that ravaged the landscape and burned down the trees, leaving just the “stumps” (or mountains) we see today. 

Probably the most confusing answer offered, though, is that the trees were destroyed in nuclear warfare. Waged during a time long before nuclear weapons were invented, as per the conventional history of humankind. More broadly, the idea that humanity is (or was) at fault in some way, even without nuclear weapons, is common. Perhaps these ancient, miles-high forests were cut down by humans for energy, during an episode (or even a whole era) that’s otherwise been completely lost to history. And, if not for energy, then maybe it was to prevent the trees from breaking through the heavenly dome… that some versions of flat earth theory insist is encasing the world we live in. There have been a number of possibilities floated as to what might’ve befallen the trees… but perhaps here, more so than at any other point, is where the theory falls in on itself.

Because, to recap the basics: the idea is that there are no forests on earth because real trees don’t exist anymore. The trees we have today are tiny shrubs compared to their giant ancestors… but all that’s left of them (the ancestors) are our mountains, which are actually the remainder of massive tree trunks. Suffice to say, this isn’t a claim that’s in any way supported by conventional scientific research. And, what’s more, it has even caused some division in the flat earth movement itself, with many flat earthers distancing themselves from it. 

Perhaps the only shred of scientifically backed truth we can glean from the whole thing is that it’s generally agreed that Earth was once a lot greener than it is now, with much of the world map hosting more than double the forest land that it does today… a change brought on by the urbanization of humankind.

We live in cities now. Towns and villages, with commuter links, air travel, and far fewer green spaces. Times have certainly changed and (depending on the view you take) maybe for better or worse. But gigantic trees that reached miles into the sky, to the point that mountains - those immense natural structures - are mere leftovers of a time gone by? It’s an entertaining idea, but it’s not one that science takes all that seriously.

Think of the natural world, and your mind’s eye can immediately picture some truly massive things. The immense oceans that cover most of Earth; the majestic mountains that form some of our planet’s most iconic and humbling landscapes; or the sprawling, sub-zero wildernesses of the Arctic and Antarctica. Think of human beings in amongst all that, or of most living things in general, and we quickly realize that, really, we’re incredibly small. For all their apparent power and influence, humans and most animals are physically tiny. Although, according to some ideas, that might not have always been the case. 

First things first, we of course know that Earth certainly has hosted giant lifeforms in its history. The dinosaurs walked this planet for almost 200 million years, up to an extinction event (widely held to be an asteroid strike) that wiped them out, some 66 million years ago. So many of these magnificent creatures were far bigger than any examples of life on Earth today, but the biggest of the lot is usually held to be the Argentinosaurus, which researchers believe was up to 130 feet long, and may have weighed more than 100 tonnes. Unsurprisingly, given its name, it’s thought to have lived in modern-day Argentina, and for a contemporary comparison… its size was about fifteen times that of the African Elephant, the largest land animal today.

Naturally, we also have giant creatures that do still exist, though off-land in our waters. While we continually hear of myths and legends such as that of the Loch Ness Monster or the Kraken, not even those gigantic, fantastical creatures could match what we have confirmed in real life - the blue whale. This extraordinary animal can measure up to 100 feet long and weigh 200 tonnes. In fact, it’s the largest animal known to have ever lived on Earth… and it’s here with us, today. So, could any theory implying that ancient Earth played host to other giants really hold its own? Could any suggestion of human-like giants ever require serious consideration? There’s no doubt that these are controversial claims, but some have gone ahead and made them anyway.

The general argument usually starts with the age of the dinosaurs. At that time, when everything it seems was bigger, it’s thought that Earth’s atmosphere was more oxygen rich, too, which may have led to life taking much larger forms. This basic idea works well to explain how the dinosaurs grew to the spectacular sizes they did… before inevitably perishing as a result of the extinction event 66 million years ago. At that point, smaller mammals were able to survive and rise, as they were able to better adapt to the changing conditions. In mainstream science there’s no suggestion that giant, human-like creatures existed at this time, though, nor at any other time before or since. But so often when conspiracy theories of past giants come up, here is where they begin.

It isn’t only the conspiracists that promote the idea, though. Another major influence is that mention of giants comes up across most of the major religions of the world, and in the stories and legends of most major civilizations. In the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, there’s mention of the Nephilim, the Anakim, and others, all of which are depicted as being a race of giants. Many of the Biblical giants are then said to have been killed as part of the Great Flood, and that’s why they no longer exist alongside us today - according to the Bible. And then, of course, there’s the much-told tale of David and Goliath, another story that originates from the Bible, with Goliath’s legendary size variously described as anything from his being six feet nine inches tall… to more than ten feet tall in some retellings. Besides religious texts, though, there are no official records to show that a man of ten feet or more really did exist.

In Greek mythology, we have regular mention of the one-eyed cyclopes. In amongst the many medieval legends of King Arthur, there are heroic tales of giant-slaying. With Norse mythology, it’s said that all aspects of the world were actually made by the gods from the flesh of a spectacular giant named Ymir. In Chinese myth there’s a similar figure, named Pangu. In Northern Ireland, the legend of the Giant’s Causeway says that the unusual rock formation along the coast was physically put there by giants. And, of course, we have countless children’s fairy tales featuring giants, like the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. We can perhaps see, then, why humans hold on to the idea of giants. We’re taught stories all about them as children, and they often feature in traditional tales of creation and of pre-human times. But, from a truly scientific perspective, all from the cyclopes to the giant that Jack slays exist much more in fantasy than in fact. Nevertheless, even science has something to say about giants in the past, even if its version of them isn’t quite so… incredible.

A long extinct type of ape, Gigantopithecus, is known to have inhabited Earth until it disappeared around 300,000 years ago, at around the same time that the first modern humans were emerging. Scientists don’t have a lot to go on with regard to fossil examples, because finding any remains of the Gigantopithecus is a pretty rare event... with almost all the evidence of them amounting to preserved teeth, only, found predominantly across China and parts of Southeast Asia. Even so, it’s been estimated that this creature may have weighed comfortably more than 600 pounds, and that it may have stood up to twelve feet tall. It was much more like a giant gorilla than a giant human in stature, however, and it isn’t generally thought to have been part of the human, homo sapiens, line of evolution. Still, the Gigantopithecus occasionally makes its way into modern folklore, too, as it has before been linked to the supposed existence of bigfoot. According to mainstream, conventional science, though, while Gigantopithecus did exist, bigfoot doesn’t.

But, really, this blurring of the boundaries between what’s real and what’s not is an all-too-common theme across all talk of giants - whether it’s from an academic, archaeological, pseudo archaeological, or theological point of view. And, as a result, history is full of notorious hoaxes. In the modern world, we’ve seen various supposedly legitimate photographs published across the internet that seemingly show the excavation of giant bones or skulls. But, after scrutiny, these are almost always shown to be simple fakes. Manipulated images, to carry on our long tradition of giant tales. Perhaps, in the distant past, people may have unearthed large, fossilized bones and not realized that they had once belonged to dinosaurs, or to some other ancient creature, and instead assumed that they were evidence of one-time giant people. But today, science doesn’t generally draw that conclusion.

Ultimately, the stories and legends we tell of giants aren’t likely to disappear anytime soon. But science is also increasingly confident that evidence of their actual existence isn’t likely to appear anytime soon, either. Over the years, there have been various theories put forward, suggesting that humans were once bigger than we are now. But, really, the only giant anythings that we have physical evidence for… are the dinosaurs. There’s no doubting that the dinosaurs were here, and for a longer period of time than humans have been so far. But, beyond that, talk of giants is one big fantasy.

Today we’re looking at strange and interesting premises about the nature of history and the universe that don’t jibe with any standard conception of accepted reality. For the purposes of this list, we are not including creation myths. 

#20: Cosmic Garbage Theory

Human beings are the eponymous garbage of the Cosmic Garbage theory. In 1969, Thomas Gold was attempting to make a name for himself in the world of astrophysics. While he would eventually be successful, his journey kicked off with a rough start. Almost a decade earlier, he devised a theory considered so absurd that Gold was utterly rejected by the scientific establishment. He came up with “The Cosmic Garbage Theory” in 1960. Gold suggested the possibility that, eons ago, interstellar alien travelers used the earth as an interplanetary garbage dump. After they left, life bloomed in their wake, springing up thanks to their leftover waste. 

#19: The Ancient Romans “Discovered” America

It’s somewhat common knowledge that Christopher Columbus didn’t actually discover the Americas. In addition to the fact that the continents were already inhabited, Viking Leif Erikson “discovered” Canada five hundred years earlier. But did you know that the Ancient Romans explored the West hundreds of years before Erikson? Neither did we! This burgeoning online theory is based on the discovery of supposed Roman artifacts among Aztec relics. Ancient Roman and Athenian coins have also allegedly been found in the central United States. Were they elaborate hoaxes? Were errors made? Or did Ancient Romans find a way to row across the Atlantic Ocean 2,000 years ago? 

#18: The Ancient Greeks Were Transplants From Northern Europe

Some self-anointed online ‘scholars’ have a very particular reading of Homer’s “Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” They believe that his description of the journey of Odysseus didn’t take place in the Aegean. Instead, they say it describes the landscape of their true, original home in the far North. The geography described in these epic poems, they believe, fits better with the Baltic and North Seas than the Mediterranean. Felice Vinci, an Italian engineer, is the driving force behind this theory. He even wrote a book “The Baltic Origins of Homeric Tales.” Few historians agree with Vinci. But in this golden age of conspiracy theories, it remains alive - if not well - online. 

#17: Aleister Crowley, Occult Spy?

Aleister Crowley, infamous occultist, earned many ignominious nicknames in his life. People called him  “The Wickedest Man in the World” and “The Great Beast.” Crowley believed in a sort of sexual mysticism, which was likely just a cover to excuse his promiscuity. Years after Crowley’s death, author Richard B. Spence wrote a biography of Crowley titled Secret Agent 666. According to Spence, in addition to being an occultist, Crowley was a secret agent of the British Empire. He had deep ties to pro-German factions in America during World War I. His service, according to the theory, continued through the second World War. It was then that Ian Fleming - of James Bond fame - allegedly recruited Crowley to interrogate top Nazi occultist Rudolf Hess. 

#16: The Freemasons Gave Germany The Franco-Prussian War

The Freemasons are a not-so-secret secret society, first established in the 17th and 18th centuries. Since that time, Freemasons have supposedly been the boogeymen behind one conspiracy or another. One of the strangest took place after the Franco-Prussian War. In victory, Germany emerged as one of Europe’s major military and industrial superpowers. The French, however, were humiliated by defeat. Looking for someone to blame for the loss, groups of far-right Catholics and nationalists used the Freemasons as a scapegoat. Conspiracy theories spread. One of the crazier anti-mason theories was pushed by a man named Leo Taxil. He promoted a particularly pernicious hoax, calling the freemasons devil worshipers. Somewhat ironically, anti-Masonic sentiment and purges spread in Germany a generation later, thanks to Adolf Hitler. 

#15: William Shakespeare Had a Ghost Writer

Rumors have surrounded the authorship of William Shakespeare’s oeuvre for centuries. Determining the “true identity” of Shakespeare’s alleged ghost writer has always been a favorite pastime of amateur sleuths and historians. There are several usual suspects. According to some French historians, the prime suspect is Sir William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby. A Jesuit spy named George Fenner wrote a pair of letters to his superiors while searching for noble Catholic sympathizers in 1599. He seemed to indicate that Derby was the true author of Shakespeare’s work. This connection dovetails with another related conspiracy theory: namely that William Shakespeare, too, was a secret Catholic spy. Though there are a list of other suspects, it's a question that will never be answered without a time machine.  

#14: The Bear Cult Hypothesis

Anthropologists and historians have long been fascinated by ancient religions. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know much about civilizations that predated writing. What we do know is that examples of animism - the worship of animals - can be found the world over. Some historians have developed a theory about the animal worship of ancient Indo-Europeans. The Bear-Cult hypothesis believes that bear-worship is the most ancient form of religion, potentially dating back to the dawn of humanity. While bear worship can be found from Russia to North America, virtually every European nation has a bear cult connection. Finland, France, Spain, and even Greece have paleontological proof of bear worship. There is even evidence of Neanderthal funeral rites conducted for slain bears.   

#13: The Olmecs Came From China or Africa

This particular historical theory is a little far out there. According to one line of thought, it wasn’t Columbus, Erikson, or even the ancient Romans who first crossed the ocean to the Americas. The Olmec civilization is the oldest known organized society from Mezoamerica. They ruled what is now Veracruz, Mexico from around 1200-400 B.C.E.  In 1975, American archaeologist Betty Meggers from the Smithsonian Institution argued that there were significant similarities between the Olmecs and the Shang Dynasty of Ancient China. Chinese author H. Mike Xu claimed to have found Olmec tools with Chinese characters. Another theory claims that the Olmecs came from Africa. The scientific consensus believes these theories are too often filtered through racist tropes and stereotypes to take seriously.

#12: Tectonic Strain Theory 

Professor Michael Persinger was a psychologist and professor of psychology whose theories earned both fame and harsh criticism. He was accused of being a crank running pseudoscientific experiments. Persinger’s biggest claim to fame was the Tectonic Strain Theory. According to this theory, visual phenomena like UFOs and ball lightning aren’t real objects or energy in the sky. They are actually hallucinations within the human brain triggered by electromagnetic fields. These fields are caused by the mostly undetectable tectonic strain within the earth in the weeks and months leading up to major seismic events. The form these hallucinations take - namely, alien spacecraft - is a figment of the imagination shaped by popular culture. 

#11: Clockwork Universe Theory,

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote several treatises on the nature of the universe. In his writings, Aristotle hypothesized the existence of a supreme being. He called it the Prime or Unmoved Mover - a being who designed the universe and put it to work. In more recent years, this notion has been expanded into the Clockwork Universe Theory. According to the theory, a supreme being sits at the metaphysical center of existence. The universe as we know it is a clock-like device using the laws of physics as its gears. Just as with Aristotle, the God of a Clockwork Universe doesn’t take an active role in the universe. It just created the mechanism and set it in motion.

#10: The World Is A Cylinder 

Anaximander was a pre-Socratic philosopher from Ionia, a region in modern-day Turkey. He was a scientist and empiricist who was particularly interested in the nature of the universe. He is known for a number of beliefs, the most famous being the shape of the world. Anaximander believed that the world was neither flat nor a globe, but was instead a cylinder. Building upon the earlier work of the philosopher Thales, Anaximander described the world as a cylindrical disc floating in infinite space. That disc is in turn surrounded by wheels of fire, the source of the sun, stars, and planets. In this modern era of online conspiracies, the cylindrical earth theory has found a place in social media debates. 

#9: Expanding Earth Theory 

We know one thing for sure: the universe is expanding. Celestial bodies are, at the current moment, soaring at great speed through the cosmos. It is believed by some that the Earth itself is following a similar pattern. Tectonic plates are causing the earth to slowly expand, getting larger and larger over time. This expansion - rather than greenhouse gasses - are responsible for the increase in global temperature over time. A similarly ludicrous theory claims that the exact opposite is true: the earth is actually getting smaller. Unsurprisingly, mainstream scientific proof of either theory is lacking. 

#8: Jesus Christ Appeared in North America

In the nearly two centuries since the founding of the Mormon Church,  some of their core beliefs have courted controversy. In its early days, polygamy was the source of great tension with other, more mainstream Christian sects. The Church has also had to grapple with a long, racist legacy. One of the more esoteric Mormon beliefs relates to the history of Jesus's life. According to the Book of Mormon, a group of Israelites followed a prophet, Nephi, across the Atlantic. Some 600 years later, Jesus appeared in North America, preaching his Gospel. Centuries later, a failure of belief led these Nephites to their destruction in the year 385 C.E. There is no archeological evidence for this belief however.

#7: Hollow Earth Theory 

Long before Godzilla fought Kong, several cultures and writers envisioned a hollow earth. Some Buddhists believed that a city named Shambala existed at the earth’s core. Europeans called the city Agartha. Jules Verne’s classic story “Journey to the Center of the Earth” found great popularity in western culture. The entrance to the Hollow earth is often thought to be at the North Pole. In 1964, one researcher named Raymond Bernard claimed that the core of the earth had been colonized by the Incas fleeing conquistadors. What may have begun as an ancient legend or fantastical piece of fiction has evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory. Even as Hollywood envisions a kaiju filled hollow earth, conspiracists debate the efficacy of a real-world version. 

#6: Anunnaki Aliens 

Conspiracists have spent years theorizing that aliens helped shape human civilization. Sites like Easter Island or the world’s great pyramids have long been sources of fantastical speculation. In 1976, author Zecharia Sitchin centered one such theory on the Anunnaki, the gods of ancient Sumer. According to Sitchin, the Annunaki were actually giant aliens from a planet called Nibiru. They traveled to earth half a million years ago after discovering a planet rich with gold. They created humanity, a small hybrid of their own race, as slaves to mine the precious metal. The melting of Antarctic glaciers forced the Annunaki to temporarily leave, though they are likely to return. Presumably, that day will be less than pleasurable for the human race. 

#5: The Phantom Time Conspiracy

Despite its fun name, the Phantom Time Conspiracy has nothing to do with metaphysics or the nature of time. It's actually a wild theory about the Catholic Church. In 1991, Heribert Illig claimed that when the Church was establishing the Anno Domini dating system, they completely rewrote history. In order to make the then current year AD 1000, the church added 297 years to European history. According to Illig, the Carolingian period of European history was made up out of whole cloth. Charlemagne never existed, and we are actually currently living in 18th not the 21st century. 

#4: The Illuminati Through History

Like the Freemasons before them, the Illuminati were a secret society from the 18th century often blamed for accidents of history. Founded in Bavaria in 1776, their stated goal was to control levers of power without dominating the people. They quickly found themselves at the center of European conspiracists. Conservative institutions like the Church often took advantage. They blamed the Illuminati for The French Revolution before the organization fell apart at the end of the century. They re-entered the zeitgeist in the 1960s as the result of a practical joke. Since then, the Illuminati has been blamed for everything from poverty to major wars.

#3: The Silurian Hypothesis

Life on earth began at least 3.7 billion years ago. Since then, it has ended and restarted over and over. Homo sapiens are less than 200,000 years old. Is it inconceivable, then, that a technological civilization grew on earth before humanity? Named after a “Dr. Who” villain, the Silurian thought experiment asks just that. Posed by an astrophysicist in 2018, it imagines how we could discover such a society’s remnants. Would any of their artifacts have survived here on Earth or on the moon? Did they escape Earth and colonize the stars? Evidence is non-existent either way, so in theory it could be possible.

#2: Lemuria & Atlantis

Atlantis and Lemuria are each mythical lost civilizations. Supposedly ancient and possessed of superior technology, each was allegedly lost to calamity and time. Atlantis was an island land mass supposedly lost to the sea. Lemuria was an entire continent - located somewhere in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. While the common consensus shows no evidence for either, both lie at the heart of pseudoscience history. The existence of these long lost continents, they said, explained why two landmasses far apart can have similar species. Once geologists discovered plate tectonics, the theory essentially died. We now know that Pangaea explains biodiversity and similarities. 

#1: The Earth Is Flat 

The continuation of the Flat Earth Conspiracy after centuries of empirical evidence shows just how enduring conspiracies can be. The ancient Greeks proved that the earth was round centuries before Copernicus and Kepler disproved the Geocentric theory. Just as the earth revolves around the sun, both bodies are empirically spheres.  And yet, thanks to YouTube and social media, the theory persists to this day. The Flat Earth Society has meetings all over the globe - which they say is not a globe at all. Even when flat Earthers prove themselves incorrect, the theory just won’t go away. 

So, what’s your verdict? Are mountains trees? Did giants exist? And which of our top 20 countdown did you find most interesting? Or, perhaps, most alarming?

For now, what’s clear is that with 4.5 billion years of Earthly history to fill in, modern humankind has certainly been hard at work. Many of the claims made don’t hold up to mainstream scientific scrutiny… but, for those who propagate them, that’s all part of the reason why they should be listened to.