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Vociferous Flat Earth daredevil “Mad” Mike Hughes has died in a rocket crash.
The 64-year-old adventurer reportedly plummeted straight down after a launch into space Saturday afternoon, TMZ reported.
Alarming video shows a parachute separating from the vessel after the launch before plunging hundreds of feet nose-down.
Hughes reportedly sought to reach an elevation of 5,000 feet on Saturday in a steam-powered rocket.
Hughes’ representative, Darren Shuster, who wasn’t present at Saturday’s launch, lamented his client’s demise.
“When God made Mike he broke the mold,” Shuster told TMZ. “The man was the real deal and lived to push the edge. He wouldn’t have gone out any other way!”
Hughes was a hero among Flat Earth adherents and had launched himself numerous times into the atmosphere to confirm his theory.
“I don’t believe in science,” Hughes told The Associated Press in 2017. “I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air. . . . But that’s not science, that’s just a formula. There’s no difference between science and science fiction.”
Saturday afternoon, deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department were called to the crash scene near Barstow, Calif., where a man was pronounced dead, reported The Sun.
In 2018, Hughes managed to ascend 1,875 feet over the Mojave Desert, reported BusinessInsider.com.
Hughes also appeared in “Rocketman: Mad Mike’s Mission to Prove the Flat-Earth,” a 2019 documentary that chronicled the adventurer’s attempt to soar high enough to confirm his Flat Earth beliefs.