Walter Bislin
| Real name | Walter Bislin |
|---|---|
| Other names | wabis |
| Location | Switzerland |
| Accounts | |
| Known for | Flat Earth Model being misused |
| NASA salary | infinite |
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This person is a |
Walter Bislin is a glober from Switzerland and is responsible for a lot of flat Earth tears. He is known for providing resources and models that are useful in debunking flat Earth arguments. He appears to be aware of the flat earth debate but is not an active participant and does not seem to have an active social media presence.
Walter does have a blog which has an extensive collection of his interests, some of which is not concerning flat Earth. Wolfie 6020 and Walter have communicated several times in the comments under some of his models[1]. StingRay has met Walter Bislin for a discussion IRL.
Background
Walter is an engineer with a masters degree.[2] His educational background also includes software and programming. From his blog:
I am a retired (since 2024) graduate engineer in electronics, measurement and control technology (EMRT) and have a master's degree in systems engineering. I worked as a Senjor Software Development Engineer and as such developed basic software, graphics subsystems and programming languages.
Flat Earth debunking resources
Walter has developed several great web-based resources and models on flat earth topics. Most are intuitive and easy to use and can debunk flat earth talking points.
Flat Earth dome model
One of Walter's well-known models is his "Flat Earth dome model". He created it to demonstrate the impossible nature of flat earth. The model uses an AE type map with a circling sun overhead. One aspect he had to invent was a "personal dome" which puts the sun in an observers view wherever the globe predicts.
| An example of the Flat Earth dome model is pictured below. The model shows a Gleason type map - the gridlines are turned off. Country borders are not displayed. In the example the observer location is set in Punta Arenas; this is indicated by a compass with a black outline on the ground at the southern tip of South America. There is a darkened "shadow" indicating which parts of earth have nighttime. The observer location is at the right edge of the shadow indicating sunrise. A "personal dome" sphere surrounds the observer. The north pole is indicated by a compass outlined in red. A thin red line connects the observer location and the north pole, indicating which way is north. The sun is represented by a small white circle outlined in orange. The moon is similar but outlined in gray. There is an arcing orange line going from the sun to the observer, indicating the path light rays would need to travel to be seen. The moon has a similar gray line. On the "personal dome" there is a second sun and orange line indicating the direction the observer would actually see the sun. |
In the example above with an observer in Punta Arenas several problems can be seen. As mentioned, the sun rays are making an arcing curve to reach the observer. That is because the subsolar point is northeast of the observer near Madagascar. The sun rays would have to bend in an inexplicable manner to reach the personal dome of the observer to match globe observations of a southeast sunrise. Another issue is that parts of Brazil, which are closer to the sun, are in darkness even though they are in direct line-of-sight path between the observer and the sun. Parts of Norway are in darkness a full 24 hours during this time even though they are clearly much, much closer to the sun. The sunlight also reaches the Antarctic "ice ring" to mimic the unproven "coffee cup caustic" effect that many flat earthers have claimed exists. The arcing sun rays are even more pronounced when the observer location is changed to below the Pacific Ocean in Antarctica.
Typically these types of flat earth maps will have the subsolar point, and the sun above it, map onto the corresponding coordinates of a Gleason's map. However, this does not work on the flat maps because an observer would not necessarily need to look towards the sun to see it. For example, observers in Salem Massachusetts and Punta Arenas will both look east and see sunrise at around the same time on the equinox. However, both observers are looking east towards different points on a flat map, and neither one is looking towards the sun's subsolar point. The magical "personal dome" solves these issues for observers and puts the sun wherever the globe predicts regardless of its known subsolar point.
The "personal dome" was created because known observations of the Sun will not work with a flat map. In order to make the model work Bislin had to make light rays from the sun and the stars bend and curve, sometimes at sharp curves close to 90 degrees, as shown in the example above. Making light rays sometimes go straight and sometimes curve to match known observations was the only way for the flat earth model to work and reach the observers "personal dome". While irregular bending light rays were needed for the flat Earth, straight lines matched globe predictions. A disclaimer at the top of his page explains:
"It can do this only by doing all calculations in the Heliocentric Model and then projecting the results onto the Flat Earth Model and bending light in a physically impossible manner."
Misuse of the Flat Earth dome model
Some flat earthers misunderstood the point of the model and have lauded it believing it supports flat earth. Walter had to add a note on his page telling flerfs to stop saying his model is supportive of flat earth. Witsit, Shane St. Pierre, and Steven Alonzo were some of the flat earthers who cited the model. Shane and Steven also copied the code from the model to create their own versions, after which Shane earned the nickname "Shame St. Plagiare". Space Audits would later create another model based on it.
Advanced Earth curvature calculator
Walter has built probably the ultimate in Earth curve calculators. You can find it here. Flat earthers typically use "drop from a tangent" curve calculators which are misleading because they don't use refraction. Bislin's calculator can account for refraction and has been used many times to debunk flerf claims of "seeing too far".
Curve overlay tool
This tool simulates the view of the earths surface from any height and any camera zoom level. You can overlay this simulation on an image you upload and can then compare the horizon you see in the real life image to the predicted horizon based on the mathematics of the globe.
Refraction simulator
This program renders scenes as seen on atmospheric conditions you can provide. It is an accurate simulation of atmospheric refraction for both globe Earth and flat Earth. The simulation predicts what we can expect to observe in reality. Available here.
Distance calculator
Walter has created a calculator to find the shortest distance between two places along the surface of both a flat and globe Earth. In the absence of any flat earther confidently putting forth an accurate map, Walter opted for the AE map for the flat Earth calculation. The calculator takes the latitude and longitude of two points (P1 and P2) as an input, and the distance between P1 and P2 as an output. It allows the user to customise the radius of the globe and the North Pole-equator distance for flat Earth, and can output in units of km, nmi or mi. App link
Flat Earth flight planner
An extension of the distance calculator, Walter's flight plan tool offers flat earthers a way to plan flights over flat Earth. Anyone that uses it will see the flight plans do not correspond with the actual routes flown in real life. Some regularly flown flights should be impossible due to the distances and times predicted by flat Earth. Walter added the note:
This App is an answer to the Flat Earth Challenge - 9 months later Flat Earth Airlines is still grounded from the pilot Wolfie6020 to Flat Earthers, to produce a Flight Plan based on the Flat Earth model, so it can be compared to real Flight Plans. Since after 9 months no Flat Earther was able or willing to provide such a Flight Plan, I decided to create this App. Just for fun.
Resource links
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | Root page for his website and blog | Link |
| Flat Earth Dome Model | Easy to use model attempting to map real world data onto a flat earth map. | Link |
| Advanced Earth Curvature Calculator | A curve calculator that uses refraction and not just drop from a tangent. It can be used to determine if objects (such as buildings or mountains) should be able to be seen and can debunk many flat earth claims that "we see too far". | Link |
| How Airplanes follow the Curvature of the Earth, Physics Simulation | A great simulator that demonstrates how a plane flies around the globe without having to "dip the nose". More accurate than Angels of Light deceptive flight simulator. | Link |