In 2017, the group who name themselves ‘ASAN’ staged a protest to Donald Trump by sending a high-altitude balloon carrying a camera and a crude message, which was quoted from a statement by Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut from the Apollo 14 mission.
Some unscrupulous flat-Earthers hijacked the protest and turned it as if ASAN did it to prove Earth’s curvature and to insult them. These flat-Earthers pointed out that ASAN somehow “forgot” to conceal the fact that a fisheye lens was used. In reality, it is never the intention of ASAN to prove Earth’s curvature, nor to throw insults to flat-Earthers.
In the People magazine from April 8, 1974, Edgar Mitchell was quoted:
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
From the Moon, Earth looks small, and political conflicts that occur on Earth seem petty and unimportant. It was the message ASAN wanted to say to Donald Trump, even only from the height of a high-altitude balloon.
This protest by ASAN was irresponsibly hijacked by unscrupulous flat-Earthers to provoke the emotion of their potential victims. Unfortunately many believed the altered message, and the provocative memes were circulated everywhere.
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