Anonymous ID: 0bcf90 March 3, 2020, 10:55 p.m. No.8314317   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4321 >>4324 >>4339

Oopsie!

 

Flat Earth advocate arrested after yelling at Greenville County elementary school students

Ariel Gilreath and Conor Hughes, Greenville NewsPublished 5:19 p.m. ET March 2, 2020 | Updated 8:57 a.m. ET March 3, 2020

 

In a video viewed more than 33,000 times by Monday afternoon, a man approaches students on the Hollis Academy playground in Greenville and reaches over the fence to hand them fliers before yelling out, "Space is fake! You're not on a spinning ball!"

 

A teacher on the elementary school's playground can be seen ushering students away from the man, wearing a blue sweatshirt with "FLAT EARTH" emblazoned across the front, as he yells, "Listen, guys, they're going to teach you you live on a spinning ball — that doesn't make it true. It's not real. The floor is not moving a thousand miles an hour."

 

That man, 34-year-old Nathan Edward Thompson of Coto de Caza, California, was later arrested by Greenville County deputies and charged with public disorderly conduct in relation to the incident.

 

Thompson told The Greenville News that he's been traveling the country for three years, organizing conferences for people who believe the Earth is flat, and working to spread his ideas.

 

He said he went to Hollis Academy on Thursday to share his beliefs with the children on the playground.

 

"I was walking my dog on a public sidewalk and used my First Amendment rights to tell those kids that large bodies of water do not curve," he said.

 

One student calls out, "Are you crazy?" before the man drops a few pamphlets over the fence.

 

In the video, before Thompson walks away, he says, "I'm gonna flat-smack them" — a phrase he said means to challenge the concept of a spherical Earth to people who are not familiar with the Flat Earth movement.

 

"Large bodies of water do not curve — research flat Earth," he yells to the children in the video.

 

Thompson says in the roughly 8-minute YouTube clip he might come back when school lets out to talk to students getting on the buses. He said on Monday that he never returned to the school.

 

A message went home to Hollis Academy parents Friday.

 

"We're concerned anytime someone is reaching across the fence and we don't know what they're up to," said Teri Brinkman, a spokesperson for the Greenville County school district.

 

No matter what Thompson's intentions were, Brinkman said it was inappropriate to yell out to children on the playground and reach over the fence.

 

"It scares children. It frightens the teachers," Brinkman said. "It's not OK."

 

The video shows Thompson continue walking down the road with his dog after he leaves the playground fence.

 

He stops a person driving by in a car to hand out a pamphlet before attempting to approach a couple of women, who appear to have run away from him.

 

"I think they were scared of my dog," he says in the video.

 

https://youtu.be/kjYOlCvpM1U

 

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2020/03/02/flat-earth-advocate-nathan-thompson-arrested-greenville-sc-space-fake/4928578002/