There Are Black Hole Truthers

​Black holes have been theorized about for centuries, and actively observed by astronomers for decades. Hundreds of them have been detected in our own galaxy and beyond it, and some have even been observed feeding on the universe's earliest star systems.

Yet as I learned today, there is a subcommunity of conspiracy theorists who do not believe in the existence of black holes, which are gravitational deformations from which nothing—not even light—can escape. My editor tipped me off to this glorious group of singularity denialists while fact-checking this post about the Milky Way's supermassive black hole's interaction with a passing gas cloud.

Astronomers were surprised when the cloud wasn't swallowed by the black hole when it made its closest approach, and took photos of it emerging from the encounter intact.

But you know who wasn't surprised? The black hole denier behind the YouTube account Zeno Effect. Apparently, this dude predicted the cloud would not be swallowed, and the reason is that there is no supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, "if that is even the center of the Milky Way," the denier notes. Checkmate, physicists.

Black holes don't exist. Credit: Zeno Effect/YouTube.

The video is light on the details of what actually is at the center of the galaxy, if not a supermassive black hole, or why we would be confused about the location of the galactic core. The main thesis is simply that black holes are an "anti-scientific" part of "modern mythology," whatever that entails. "When I predicted that, in 2014, black hole theory would go down in flames, I didn't realize it was going to be this bad," Zeno Effect ruminates.

What is most perhaps fascinating about this black hole denier is how much other crazy crap he throws into the mix as he goes along. At one point, he says "if you believe in light years" as if clear units of distance are inherently suspicious, and he also made the obligatory "climate change is a scam" aside, because that's just a must-hit.

Zeno Effect has posted about the non-existence of black holes as recently as Tuesday of this week, and he is far from the only denier out there. In 2008, amateur scientist Steven Crothers wrote a paper arguing that black holes don't exist, concluding that all observations of them are fudged. He has lectured widely on the subject, even though several scientists have rebutted his claims. It's worth noting that Crothers seems to be a bit of provocateur, even by his own account.

Stephen Crothers lecturing on the non-existence of black holes. Credit: Global Unification International/YouTube.

Real scientists have also questioned the veracity of black holes from time to time, as evidenced by the shitstorm unleashed by a paper uploaded on arXiv last September. Authored by theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton, the paper argued that black holes couldn't mathematically exist because star collapse patterns prevent their formation.

Mersini-Houghton was then basically roundhouse-kicked by the entire internet as scientists enthusiastically raced to debunk her paper (again, and again, and again). The basic problem was semantics: Mersini-Houghton wasn't arguing that black holes couldn't exist full stop, she was suggesting that there are some major problems with the way in which we understand the formation of stellar-mass black holes. Plenty of scientists disagree, and details are still being hashed out. But in the meantime, black holes continue to be spotted and studied in the skies.

Indeed, every time a reputable scientist appears to deny the existence of black holes, it's usually a case of misquoting or hype. For example, in January 2014, Stephen Hawking said that "the absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes, in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape."

He didn't mean that there were literally no black holes, but rather that theories about event horizons needed to be adjusted to help explain the behavior of these holes on the quantum scale. Regardless, you better believe that the headline that many outlets went for was, "Stephen Hawking says there are no black holes."

The glorious panopticon of the internet has revealed that there is a conspiracy theory for practically everything out there, and black holes are no exception. Indeed, diving deep into the abyss of crackpot ideas from these fringe groups is kind of like falling into your own virtual black hole of tin-foil madness. So beware the gravitation forces of the black hole truthers, for they might tear your mind asunder.