As regards your note [4] - you might be interested to know of the Maxwell's Fisheye Lens, where you can construct a flat surface with a carefully designed refractive index profile, so that light rays will travel in circles (as they would on great circles around the earth). See e.g. wikipedia, or the same thing in water waves at https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0003
So the (light steering) "mirage" part of LE's idea can be made formally correct, even if all the other physics (gravity, etc) would make it fail as a workable flat earth scheme. So let us hope LE eventually makes their way to discovering the field of transformation optics...
As regards your note [4] - you might be interested to know of the Maxwell's Fisheye Lens, where you can construct a flat surface with a carefully designed refractive index profile, so that light rays will travel in circles (as they would on great circles around the earth). See e.g. wikipedia, or the same thing in water waves at https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0003
So the (light steering) "mirage" part of LE's idea can be made formally correct, even if all the other physics (gravity, etc) would make it fail as a workable flat earth scheme. So let us hope LE eventually makes their way to discovering the field of transformation optics...
Now I need to read this. Sounds awesome though! I guess people should watch out for LEs applying for optics PhDs in around 11 years!