Nikon discontinues popular camera just before an eclipse. Now people think NASA ordered it

A conspiracy theorist is going viral after saying that NASA deliberately forced Nikon to discontinue one of the company's popular models, the P1000, ahead of a solar eclipse. According to his commenters, NASA did so to make sure that people couldn't discover if the Earth was flat.

Cameras: The latest tentpoles of the flat earth conspiracy

TikTok content creator @corporate_tarzan33, who almost exclusively posts conspiracy videos, wrote in his bio that he runs a “satire account.” One of the creator's conspiratorial videos is currently going viral for theorizing that “NASA allegedly paid Nikon to discontinue the Nikon P1000 just before the total solar eclipse of April [8], 2024.” The video has more than 401,000 views.

“They made a deal with NASA, Nikon did,” the creator claimed. “And then they discontinued the Nikon P1000. And now they have the [Nikon P1100], but it has digital zoom. You see, the Nikon P1000 had optical zoom only, so it could make ships reappear that were below the curvature … If the ship was going over a physical curvature, you would never be able to make it reappear again, no matter how far you zoom in.”

The Nikon P1100 has optical zoom, however, which directly contradicts his statement.

The creator did not originate this talking point. Multiple posts on Facebook and Reddit push the same theory. However, the P1000 only zooms farther than the naked eye can see. Rather than miraculously zooming past a curved horizon and proving the existence of a flat one, the P1000 lens simply lets individuals see objects that are far away. Those objects still disappear over the horizon.

The Nikon-NASA conspiracy

While it is true that the Nikon P1000 was discontinued about a month before the aforementioned eclipse, this only happened because Nikon was upgrading the camera. Nikon immediately replaced the P1000 with the P1100. According to Digital Camera World, it “is essentially the same as the P1000, just with a few subtle tweaks.”

The Nikon P1000 is also still available to buy secondhand. It has not been wiped from the market —a seemingly sloppy oversight from what flat earthers believe is a state-sanctioned conspiracy.

Furthermore, there is zero evidence NASA paid Nikon to discontinue the camera. There's also little evidence it had anything to do with the decision at all. NASA and Nikon have had a brand relationship “for more than 50 years,” but NASA does not make business decisions on behalf of Nikon. They are simply linked due to NASA having wanted space-friendly cameras in the 1960s —and Nikon delivering ever since.

In a statement emailed to Buzz News, a NASA spokesperson said that “humans have known that Earth is round for more than 2,000 years.”

“The ancient Greeks measured shadows during summer solstice and calculated Earth's circumference,” they wrote. “They used positions of stars and constellations to estimate distances on Earth. They could even see the planet's round shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. (We still can see this during lunar eclipses.) Today, scientists use geodesy, which is the science of measuring Earth's shape, gravity and rotation. Geodesy provides accurate measurements that show Earth is round. With GPS and other satellites, scientists can measure Earth's size and shape to within a centimeter. Pictures from space also show Earth is round like the Moon.”

The representative also told Buzz News that “even though our planet is a sphere, it is not a perfect sphere.”

“Because of the force caused when Earth rotates, the North and South Poles are slightly flat,” they added. “Earth's rotation, wobbly motion and other forces are making the planet change shape very slowly, but it is still round.”

Buzz News has also reached out to Nikon via email as well as the creator via TikTok comment.

@corporate_tarzan33 #greenscreenvideo #globe #nikon #nasa #eclipse ♬ Occult/Mystery/Horror Suspense(844669) – ｍｍ