Topics: World News, Guinness World Records, US News, Space, Conspiracy Theories
Despite the idea of a ‘flat Earth’ being scientifically disproven, thousands of conspiracy theorists across the globe are still convinced our planet is a smooth plane.
The specific cohort of people who think our home is totally flat and has an edge you could fall off from are called ‘Flat Earthers’.
But this wild theory isn’t new, in fact, ancient poets such as Homer and Hesiod, as well as several pre-Socratic philosophers, have all previously described the Earth as ‘flat’ in their archaic writings.
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According to the Carsey School of Public Policy, around 10 percent of US residents agree with these conspiracy claims - but one daredevil wasn’t just content with nodding along.
Instead, the late ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes wanted to go the extra mile after professing his pseudoscientific beliefs in 2016.
The Californian limo driver - who believed the world was ‘shaped like a Frisbee’ - announced he would be making multiple trips to the stratosphere in a homemade rocket.
While up in space, he would take a picture of the entire planet as a flat disk to prove the naysayers wrong.
Ahead of his experiment, Hughes claimed he was well aware of how dangerous his mission would be.
"It's scary as hell. But none of us are getting out of this world alive,” he told the Associated Press in 2018, as quoted by Sky News.
Despite some initial run-ins with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Albert Okura, who owned Amboy, granted Hughes permission to launch and land in his privately owned town.
After a successful fundraising attempt, the self-taught rocket man blasted off from Earth in March 2018, launching 1,875 feet in the air.
During the flight, he reached a speed of around 350mph before pulling out not one, but two parachutes, and landing hard in the Mojave Desert, injuring his back in the process.
According to the Independent, the rocket broke it's nose in two places when he hit the ground, but stated he was ‘glad’ to have made it up in the air.
“This thing wants to kill you 10 different ways. Am I glad I did it? Yeah, I guess. I’ll feel it in the morning. I won’t be able to get out of bed." he said. "At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.”
Hughes, who'd planned to run for governor of California one day, never managed to take his ‘flat Earth’ image though as he died during the launch of another homemade rocket in 2020.
It’s reported that the star was filming as part of Homemade Astronauts, a TV series about amateur rocket makers which aired on the US Science Channel and Discovery+ in 2021, according to the BBC.
Space.com reports that Hughes was trying to reach an altitude of 5,000ft while riding his steam-powered rocket but that a parachute was deployed too early.
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department confirmed that a man was ‘pronounced deceased after the rocket crashed in the open desert’ while Hughes’ publicist confirmed it was his client who had met his fate.
Despite never proving his flat Earth theory correct, the specialist did manage to set a Guinness World record in 2002.
He wrote his name in the history books by performing the longest limousine jump - over 103 ft in a Lincoln Town Car stretched limo.
