Empirical Earth · Test It Yourself

Colin O’Brady’s 2018 Antarctic crossing — what the tracking does and does not show

The claim

“O’Brady’s 2018 Antarctic crossing was never verified and no GPS data exists.”

What is measured

O’Brady skied from 65°W on the Ronne Ice Shelf to 85°38′S 147°35′W at the foot of the Leverett Glacier, by way of the South Pole, between 3 November and 26 December 2018. Those two points are 82.6° of longitude apart. On a globe that is about 1,400 km through the pole, or 26 km a day, which is what his dispatches reported. On the flat-Earth map the same trip is roughly 27,800 km.

What would show this is wrong

a flat-Earth map, drawn to one consistent scale, on which two points 82.6° of longitude apart and both within 9° of the pole lie about 1,400 km from each other; or by evidence that no independent party held his position while the crossing was under way.

Sources

  1. The problem with Colin O’Brady (National Geographic, 2020). Investigation reporting that he used the South Pole Traverse haul road for the final 366 miles, that the route carries flagged pol link
  2. Crossing Antarctica: how the confusion began (ExplorersWeb, 2019). Damien Gildea on which crossings are complete and which are not, and on the ice shelves being part of the continent. explor link
  3. Lithium cells in extreme cold, and how polar photographers work around them. Capacity loss below freezing, the manufacturer rating of roughly 0 to 40 °C, the lithium-plating risk of charging link
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