SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launch was FAKED by Elon Musk, insist Flat Earth Society conspiracy theorists

Conspiracy theorists who believe Earth is flat have branded Elon Musk’s astonishing Falcon Heavy space mission as fake and nothing more than a “good car ad”.

The Flat Earth Society has sensationally claimed that those who do not question the authenticity of the billionaire business magnate’s latest SpaceX launch are giving in to “blind belief”.

Mr Musk’s Falcon Heavy mission has been heralded as a new era of space exploration after its enormous engines successfully blasted off out of the atmosphere on Tuesday.

But while the SpaceX CEO stunned the world when the rocket became the largest and most powerful spacecraft to leave the planet upon take off, the Flat Earth group unsurprisingly remained sceptical.

SpaceX Falcon launch - In pictures

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The group, which prides itself on “encouraging the spread of ideas and free thought since 1865”, said in statement: “Why would we believe any privately-held company to report the truth?”

It added: “People who believe that the Earth is a globe because ‘they saw a car in space on the Internet’ must be the new incarnation of ‘It's true, I saw it on TV!’ It's a poor argument.”

Falcon Heavy: Conspiracy theorists have branded the mission as fake 
AP

The rocket, which was carrying Mr Musk’s cherry red Tesla sports, was fitted with a camera that allowed earthlings to watch a live stream of its journey through space.

Mr Musk has not responded the group’s controversial claims, but in the past he publicly mocked them by writing on Twitter: “Why is there no Flat Mars Society!?”

The conspiracy theorists responded to his social media post. A tweet from the group’s account read: “Hi Elon, thanks for the question. Unlike the Earth, Mars has been observed to be round. We hope you have a fantastic day!”

World-renowned US entrepreneur Mr Musk has brought forward his ambitious plans to launch rockets that will take humans to Mars following the “successful” mission this week.

Despite the rocket missing its Mars orbit and shooting off towards an asteroid field, the SpaceX founder urged other rocket companies to join him in a “new space race” as he boasted of his latest mission using the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to leave Earth.

And he has now said the timeline for reaching the Red Planet has been brought forward as he laid out plans to test a new even bigger "beast" rocket next year.

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