What Quito’s Sunrises Reveal About the Flat Earth

Flat Earthers love the Gleason map — it shows up everywhere. On shirts, posters, profile pictures, even pizza shop walls. It’s treated like the ultimate representation of their model. But can it actually explain what we see in the real world?

In this video, we put that question to the test using a single location: Quito, Ecuador, a city almost directly on the equator, just 15 miles south of it. And more importantly, it’s home to 2.8 million people — all of whom can observe the Sun every day and see whether reality matches the claims.

We’re focusing on two specific days: June 21 and December 21 — the summer and winter solstices. These are the dates when the Sun reaches its most extreme positions north and south in the sky. They’re also the days where any good map or model should clearly show consistent, predictable sunrise and sunset behavior. But does the Flat Earth model — specifically the Gleason map — actually hold up?

Using real-world data from dateandtime.com, we gather the sunrise and sunset azimuth angles for both solstices. We then locate the ground positions of the Sun at those exact times — one over the Atlantic, one over the Pacific, one near Africa, and one near Hawaii — and map them onto the Gleason map to see if they align with where people in Quito actually see the Sun rise and set.

Spoiler-free: the results raise serious questions.

We also show how the shape of Ecuador itself is distorted on the Gleason map, and how the Sun would have to move faster across a longer arc in December than in June to maintain consistent daylight — despite no one ever observing the Sun moving at different speeds. That’s a massive red flag.

No telescopes. No space agencies. Just geometry, timing, and 2.8 million sets of eyes.

✅ Tools used:

Google Maps & Earth

dateandtime.com

Gleason map overlays

Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop

📅 This video is part of a series testing the biggest fringe theories using measurable data — including Flat Earth, UFOs, Hollow Earth, Tartaria, and suppressed science. Subscribe for weekly breakdowns and challenges to popular misinformation.

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Test the claim. See for yourself.