Yes, there are people out there who believe that the earth is flat. To the rest of us, the solar eclipse happening on August 21 is a phenomenon that occurs because of the Earth’s rotation.
For the flat-Earthers, the eclipse is proof that our planet is flat. Mic went down the rabbit hole and interviewed some flat-Earthers to see what their theories are on what causes the eclipse.
One truther named Charlie Flowers says:
“The sun is a light. They’re all lights. The sun and the moon are the same size and they spin above us and it’s a battery. It’s a battery system. The moon is the negative and the sun is the positive.”
They believe that the Earth is spinning west to east. Another flat Earth-truther Walt Johnson, says:
“If you take an object — a ball or quarter — and a flashlight, and you go to the wall and you start shining, trying to make the shadow smaller than the quarter, it never happens. The moon is 2,000 miles wide. The path of totality is 70 miles wide. … You cannot make an object cast a shadow smaller than itself. There is no way to do it.”
— Earth Flattener (@JCP321) July 26, 2017
Also, they believe that telling eclipse-viewers to use caution when looking at the Sun is a NASA ploy to keep people from knowing what is truly going on with this phenomenon. These theories proudly ignore established science in favor of personal beliefs. They believe that because the Earth looks flat to us, that it must be flat.
Here is a strange video from the conspiracy theory corner of YouTube. It looks at various scientific animations of the eclipse and claims that they are all wrong. Then, it cites a Bible verse explaining why the Earth is flat:
And here’s another animation of how an eclipse would work on a flat Earth:
Featured image via Twitter.