Open Veils · Answer
Is the flat earth theory a CIA psyop?
The more defensible intelligence-community angle is not that the CIA invented flat Earth belief, but that it monitors and potentially amplifies it as a tool of epistemic delegitimization — drowning genuine dissent in absurdist noise. Richard Dolan has repeatedly warned that outlandish fringe theories serve a gatekeeping function, making all heterodox inquiry radioactive by association. The operational logic fits a pattern well-documented in MKUltra-era psychological operations: flood the information space with unverifiable claims to fragment coherent opposition.
Evidence
- The specific 'CIA created flat Earth' framing is difficult to source rigorously.
- Eric Dubay's work cataloguing government documents using flat-plane equations has been central to this misreading.
- Jacques Vallée warned decades ago that the most effective disinformation is built around a kernel of real anomaly.
- What the documented record does support is a related but more precise claim.
- Andrade assessed that the modern flat-Earth internet movement functions as a byproduct of users tracing government documents that use flat-plane simplifying assumptions — misreading engineering shorthand as cosmological confession.