Limousine driver launches himself in rocket he built to prove Earth is flat – his story circles back to where it started

In February 2020, a few weeks before COVID-19–mandated shutdowns, an American daredevil pilot, Mike Hughes, set out to prove one thing: the earth is flat. But instead of doing what his contemporaries do — go on Joe Rogan and have a three-hour discussion about it — “Mad Mike” decided he would prove it using a steam-powered rocket.

BBC reports that Hughes’ rocket went up and then very quickly came down in a ball of flames, killing the flat earther. Hughes had given interviews before his planned expedition to space, where he hoped to finally be the person who proved the conspiracy theory that the earth is actually flat. And considering all the recent conspiracies that have actually been proven, we decided that perhaps we should take another look at the quintessential conspiracy about the shape of the earth.

Hughes, 64, told reporters that he had been “looking into” the shape of the earth for “3 or 4 months,” and something didn’t quite add up. So he started building an entire rocket in his garage on a tight budget. And surprisingly, the thing actually went up 1,875 ft. Hughes’ goal was originally 5,000 ft, but the fact that these things can just be built by someone with a little bit of knowledge and willpower should really be of concern whenever you read those reports about permanently destroying the missile capabilities of a country with 92 million people who have a lot of willpower.

Anyway, Hughes’ mission actually got a couple of supporters within the press, including Space.com, which was more interested in his dream of building a rocket than in any actual curiosity about whether the shape of the earth has been flat all along. The video of Hughes’ crash is unfortunately immortal on the internet, much like Mad Mike’s reputation. In the video, you can clearly see Hughes’ emergency parachute getting deployed, but that sadly was not enough to save his life.

Then the statements followed. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department was the first to release one. They revealed that they had been called to a makeshift rocket launch in their county, but moments later “a man was pronounced deceased after the rocket crashed in the open desert.” Then followed Hughes’ publicist, who announced the death of the daredevil-cum-scientist. The final statement came from Space.com, which declared that a man had died in San Bernardino while chasing his dream.

So far, nobody has been able to prove that the earth is flat, despite even putting their lives on the line. But what remains fascinating about this story is how Mad Mike was able to build a rocket with a ragtag group of willing assistants and $18,000. The rocket reportedly only used steam ejected through the nozzle for propulsion.

Hughes had long been a mainstay in the daredevil community, making a name for himself with a Guinness-record-holding 103-ft jump in a stretch limo in 2002. Before he died, he was actually making considerable progress with his rocket, and in March 2019, when he was asked about another near-death experience in his rocket, he responded: “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. At least I can go home and have dinner and see my cats tonight.”