Pale Blue Dot flags

Last modified: 2025-09-20 by tomislav todorovic
Keywords: earth | proposal | disc (blue) | pale blue dot | kanellopoulos (philip) | kennedy (erik) | wayland (dean c.) |
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    images by Dean C. Wayland, 28 Jun 2017 (left) and Pete Loeser and Tomislav Todorovic (right), 24 Aug 2025

• Introduction
• Pale Blue Dot Flag by Dean C. Wayland and its variants
• Earth Flag by Erik Kennedy
• Common Earth Flag by Philip Kanellopoulos

• Earth flags

• Pale Blue Dot photo at Wikipedia

Introduction

The Pale Blue Dot flag design displays a blue disc on black field, representing Earth in the universe. Several variants of the design exist with the details varying somewhat, their authors often claiming to be inspired by the famous Pale Blue Dot photo of Earth, taken by the Voyager 1 space probe on 14 February 1990 from a distance of over 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU). Even though not all of the authors claim the same source of inspiration, their creations are all preceded by the photo, so it cannot be excluded as the common source of inspiration for all of them.
Tomislav Todorovic, 26 Aug 2025

Pale Blue Dot Flag by Dean C. Wayland and its variants

Back in 2013 I came up with a flag design for which my partner and I now own a dedicated website, which we are presently in the process of publiscising and promoting.
I have placed the flag design itself in the public domain, free to anyone to use or abuse as desired.
My site is a non-comercial philosophical venture, its objective is hopefully to get people talking and more importantly thinking.
The flag was inspired by the work of the famous cosmologist Carl Sagan, and in particular the image of the Earth known as the "Pale Blue Dot" taken by the Voyageur space probe in 1990 from a distance of 6 billion kilometres, just beyond the orbit of Neptune, the outermost planet.

The Website's homepage (link broken)
Large image of the flag 1500x900 pixels. 3.9 Mb (link broken)
Medium image of the flag 455x270 pixels. 360 kb (link broken)
The page that introduces the flag and the ideas behind it (link broken)
The page dealing with the technical aspects of the design, including numerous variations upon the theme (link broken)

Dean C. Wayland & Mary R. Gentle, 28 Jun 2017

The Pale Blue Dot website has disappeared from the Web so thoroughly that it was not saved e.g. by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
Another report [on the flag]:

The concept of the Pale Blue Dot flag, also known as the Flag of Earth, or the Pale Blue Dot Home Flag, was inspired by Dean C. Wayland. He feels it is a perfect iconic image and emblem for our home planet. The design finds its origins in NASA's Pale Blue Dot image, inspired by Carl Sagan and Carolyn Porco in 1990, and earlier flags such as James Cadle's 1969 Flag of Earth. Wayland feels it is the "perfect icon beneath which to make our stand and set our sights upon the stars."
Wayland adds on his website that "After some 70 years of unprecedented relative peace, the world is entering a potentially deadly era of disunity, wherein people of small minds and narrow vision are seeking to divide humanity into warring camps. Some are even beginning to think the unthinkable - once again."
There are several very similar "pale blue dot" designs being used, differing with the size of the dots and using different shades of pale blue. Type #2, for example, sports a very small pale blue dot and reportably was used in the United States by a female demonstrator who was seen waving this particular design.

Pete Loeser, from Historical Flags of Our Ancestors

Earth Flag by Erik Kennedy

The earliest known variant of the Earth flag displaying a blue disc on black field is currently the one created by Erik Kennedy, a US-born resident of New Zealand [1]. The flag has been presented online since at least March 2009 [2]. Unlike most of the later promoters of this design, Mr Kennedy has not cited the Pale Blue Dot photo as his inspiration; as his presentation suggests [1, 2], he might actually have been inspired by the work of James W. Cadle, having simplified his flag design by removing Sun and Moon and shrinking the size of Earth disc somewhat, as well as by the novel The Holy Terror by H.G. Wells, where the flag of Scotland, from which he borrowed the shade of blue, was described as being used as the world flag. The flag of Japan was also cited as the source of inspiration, especially regarding the proportions applied to the design.
Regarding the design details, the flag ratio is 2:3 and the disc radius is 3/10 of the flag width. The colors are "a sensible black" (RGB 0-0-0) for the field and Pantone 300 (RGB 198-114-0) for the disc.
While no information on intellectual property is given by the author, the fact that the SVG drawing of the flag is linked to the presentation page suggests that he has no requirements in that regard, wishing to spread the flag use as much as possible.

Sources:
[1] Erik Kennedy's website - Earth flag
[2] Erik Kennedy's website at Internet Archive - Earth flag (saved on 2009-03-12)

Tomislav Todorovic, 25/30 Aug 2025

Common Earth Flag by Philip Kanellopoulos

Another variant, allegedly created in 2011 [1], but presented online since February 2025 under the name Common Earth Flag [2, 3] was created by Philip Kanellopoulos, a member of environmental activist group Knights of Gaia and promoter of a "modern Pagan" religion named Perístanom (could be classified as a New Age belief system). The source of inspiration has not been specified yet. The design was placed in the public domain in order to "ensure free and open access for everyone" but, unlike several other flags designed by the same author, has still not been offered for sale online [1]. Regarding the design details, the flag ratio is 3:5 [2] - now defined as 6:10 [1] - and the disc diameter is 2/5 of the flag length; shades of black and blue are defined either as Pantone colors PMS Black 6 C and PMS P 115-7 C, respectively or as web colors #000000 and #00AAFF, respectively [1, 2].

Sources:
[1] Perístanom website - Heraldry - Common Earth Flag
[2] Perístanom website - Heraldry - Common Earth Flag (saved by the Internet Archive on 2025-02-08)
[3] Perístanom website - Heraldry (saved by the Internet Archive on 2025-01-20)

Tomislav Todorovic, 26 Aug 2025