Conspiracy theorist: You can't fall off flat Earth edge due to 'Pac-Man effect'

NOTE: 7:16 p.m. PDT: This story has been updated to reflect that Kyrie Irving walked back his assertions that the Earth was flat several months after making them.

Anti-spherists gathered at Britain's first Flat Earth Convention last weekend to hear the latest flat theories, including one that was explained in terms of a 1980s video game.

According to IFL Science, more than 200 believers attended the conference at a three-star hotel in Birmingham.

The conventioneers addressed a problem that has challenged flat Earth enthusiasts for years: When you reach the edge of a disc-shaped Earth, what happens?

One long-held theory is that the Arctic is the center of flat Earth with Antarctica, a 150-foot-tall wall of ice forming the rim. Supposedly NASA guards the wall to keep people from climbing it and falling off the edge. Yes, the space agency is protecting Earth edge explorers from themselves.

But the frozen rim wall theory does not account for how someone traveling east from say, New York, could eventually wind up back in the city without changing direction.

This is an artist's conception of flat Earth. There are no similar photos of flat Earth seen from space as they would imply that spacecraft taking photos exist. Flat Earthers insist that the space program is hoax, a conspiracy to keep NASA funded. less This is an artist's conception of flat Earth. There are no similar photos of flat Earth seen from space as they would imply that spacecraft taking photos exist. Flat Earthers insist that the space program is ... more Photo: Cokada/Getty Images/iStockphoto Photo: Cokada/Getty Images/iStockphoto Image 1 of / 59 Caption Close Conspiracy theorist: You can't fall off flat Earth edge due to 'Pac-Man effect' 1 / 59 Back to Gallery

At the conference, Flat-Earther Darren Nesbit suggested another explanation, The Age reported.

"We know that continuous east-west travel is a reality," Nesbit said.

Instead of running into a wall or walking off the edge, Nesbit theorized that when you reach the end of the Earth, space-time is distorted.

MORE: Video shows 'snowstorm' on a comet

"One logical possibility for those who are truly free thinkers is that space-time wraps around and we get a Pac-Man effect," he said.

Encountering this phenomenon at the end of the world, a traveler would immediately be whisked — teleported, worm-holed or whatever — to the opposite end of of the map, just as Pac-Man or Pac-Man's ghosts arrive on the right-hand side of the screen as they exit on the left-hand side in the old-school video game.

Have your doubts? Maybe you're not as free a thinker as you thought you were.

If Flat Earthers weren't swayed by the "Pac-Man effect", they could jump on speaker David Marsh's Assault on the Laws of Planetary Motion bandwagon instead.

Marsh, a manager at the NHS Supply Chain head office in Alfreton, Derbyshire, told about his year-long research of moon movements tracked with a Nikon camera and a mobile phone app in his backyard garden.

"My research destroys Big Bang cosmology," Marsh declared. "It supports the idea that gravity doesn't exist and the only true force in nature is electromagnetism."

MORE: Why '2001: A Space Odyssey' is still fascinating at 50

The rise in conspiracy theories on social media and growing distrust in government have led to a resurgence in flat Earth interest. Citing Google Trends, The Age noted that online searches in Britain for the phrase "flat Earth" have risen tenfold over the past five years.

Former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal appeared to back Flat Earthers in a podcast last year:

"The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind: what you read, what you see and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, 'Oh, Columbus discovered America,' but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn't discover America."

But Shaq later disavowed his comments, saying he was "just joking, idiots."

In February 2017 podcast, Boston Celtics superstar Kyrie Irving repeatedly maintained that Earth was flat:

"Anything that you have a particular question on, 'Okay, is the Earth flat or round?' I think you need to do research on it. It's right in front of our faces. I'm telling you it's right in front of our faces. They lie to us," Irving said.

He doubled down on that statement several times before walking it back last fall.

Irving said he never believed in the theory -- which he learned from Instagram(!) -- he was just trolling the media to create "an open conversation."

"It literally spinned the world, your guys' world, it spinned the world into a frenzy," Irving said on a radio show at the time.