“Mad Mike” Hughes, a self-proclaimed daredevil and reported flat Earth enthusiast, died after a homemade rocket that he constructed crashed in California.
The crash was captured on video, and he failed to activate a parachute before the crash, said a witness.
“Everyone was stunned. They didn’t know what to do,” Justin Chapman, a freelance writer who saw the launch, told the LA Times. “He landed about a half a mile away from the launch pad.”
Chapman said that he believes Hughes went unconscious during the launch, without elaborating. “The parachute ripped off at launch,” he told the paper. “So the rocket went straight up in an arc and came straight down.”
An official with the San Bernardino County coroner’s office told the LA Times that an investigation is underway, adding that they “have no facts at this point.”
Hughes had previously told The Associated Press that he believes the Earth is flat “like a Frisbee” and wanted to fly to space to prove it, but Shuster told the paper that he’s not so sure.
“I don’t think he believed it,” Shuster remarked after his death, referring to the flat Earth claim. “He did have some governmental conspiracy theories. But don’t confuse it with that flat Earth thing. That was a PR stunt we dreamed up.”