The crazy conspiracy theories people come up with can really blow your mind.

Finland doesn't exist. Australia doesn't exist.

But did you know geographic conspiracies like these go back centuries, even before the

dawn of the internet?

But why would people make up false continents, false islands, and erase other places from

maps when they clearly exist in reality?

Turns out there are sometimes good reasons.

Geographic conspiracies coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Australia doesn't exist and other geographic conspiracy theories.

A few years ago we covered a conspiracy theory that claimed the country of Finland doesn't

exist and all the world's governments cooperatively conspired to fool all the world's citizens

into believing in it as a ploy to get extra fish to feed struggling post-war Japan.

Well, regardless of how plausible you may have felt that one was or wasn't, we have another

one for you today. A similar claim made about Australia, complete with an equally believable

motive.

In 2006, an anonymous post on the Flat Earth Society forum first raised the idea of Australia

being fake. It said, in part,

Most of you have probably been brought up believing in the imaginary land called Australia.

Well the fact is that Australia doesn't really exist. Everything you have ever heard about

it was made up and any pictures of it you have seen were faked by the government.

I am sure you have even talked to people on the internet who claim to be from Australia.

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