
On Saturday, a video posted to Twitter by journalist Justin Chapman showed a rocket being launched. Eight seconds later, a parachute is seen deploying too early, and the rocket plummets to the ground.
“Mad Mike Hughes just launched himself in a self-made steam-powered rocket [yes, you read it right] and crash landed. Very likely did not survive,” Chapman wrote alongside the clip.
Mad Mike Hughes just launched himself in a self-made steam-powered rocket and crash landed. Very likely did not survive. #MadMike #MadMikeHughes pic.twitter.com/svtviTEi8f
— Justin Chapman (@justindchapman) February 22, 2020
There is no footage of Hughes — who’s a so-called “flat earther” — actually getting into the rocket, nor are there crash site images.
The usual-suspect Lugenpresse are all over the “Mad Mike” story. Naturally, they’re pursuing the “science denialism” hoax — ahem, I mean narrative. Of course, the psyop also targets the “radical doubters,” such as regular Winter Watch readers. And of course instilling more magical cartoon world thinking in the population is a goal. The cognoscenti on the Tweeter comments above bought this hook, line and sinker and without question.
Read: Was the Sea-Tac Baggage Handler’s Aerobatics Show a Giant Staged-Deception PsyOp?
And, whodathunk, the self inflicted ill fated Mad Mike offered this little gem of advice.
“I just want people to question everything. Question what your congressman is doing, your city council. Question what really happened during the Civil War. What happened during 9/11.”
The mishap was reported at 1:52 p.m. on private property in the Barstow area, San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said in an email to NBC News. She did not identify Hughes.
“A man was pronounced deceased after the rocket crashed in the open desert during a rocket launch event,” she said.
The sheriff’s department did not identify the victim, but Hughes’ partner Waldo Stakes, who was at the rocket launch, confirmed to the Associated Press that Hughes was killed.
Indeed, following Hughes’ supposed death at age 64, came this quote from the PR rep in a Buzzfeed article:
“We used flat Earth as a PR stunt. Period,” Shuster told BuzzFeed News. “Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept going! I know he didn’t believe in flat Earth and it was a schtick.”
shtick (Yiddish: שטיק)
noun INFORMAL
a gimmick, comic routine, style of performance, etc. associated with a particular person.
Despite the schtick confession, Hughes had promoted a bogus flat Earth psyops.
Read: The Flat Earth Psyop and Canard Against Religion and Pre-Modern Civilization
“A plan to prove the Earth flat or round will be presented to an International audience,” reads a promo for the two-day event. “The list of topics to be presented include flat Earth and other controversial subjects. The full list of speakers is yet to be determined.”
There, Hughes will announce a “’rockoon’ launch to the edge of space” and “an Antarctic expedition with the goal of reaching the edge of the world … to prove once and for all that this Earth is flat,” according to the event’s promotional declaration.
According to the Associated Press, Hughes built his first crewed rocket on Jan. 30, 2014, and flew 1,374 feet (419 m) in just over one minute over Winkelman, Arizona.
Again, there was no video of Hughes entering the rocket, and there were doubts that he was in it when it launched.
According to CBC News, Hughes collapsed after the landing and it took him three days to recover. Hughes stated that the injuries suffered from the flight put him in a walker for two weeks.
After professing his belief in a flat Earth later that year, Hughes gained support within the flat-Earth community. His post-flat-Earth fundraising campaign made its $7,875 goal. He had said he intended to make multiple rocket journeys, culminating in a flight to outer space, where he believed he would be able to take a picture of the entire Earth as a flat disc.
He then claimed in November 2017 that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had given him verbal permission more than a year prior to launch his rocket, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
However, a BLM spokesman said its local field office had no record of speaking to Hughes at the time.
The untested initial rocket was intended to reach a speed of 500 mph (800 km/h). Further rocket trips, which were to be launched from a balloon 20 miles (32 km) up were intended to reach above the atmosphere into outer space. Hughes acknowledged there were risks.
“It’s scary as hell,” he told the Associated Press. “But none of us are getting out of this world alive.”
A fundraising campaign to cover the costs of the delay raised around $100 of its $10,000 goal.
An alleged successful launch on March 24, 2018, resulted in his reaching a height of 1,875 feet (572 m) and a “hard landing” in the Mojave Desert. The steam-powered rocket launched at a sharp angle to avoid falling back to Earth on public land, and landed about 1,500 feet (460 m) away from the launch point. Hughes’ team reported a maximum speed of 350 mph (560 km/h). Hughes reported no serious injury from the landing.
Winter Watch Takeaway: a psyops hoax
“I just want people to question everything. Question what your congressman is doing, your city council. Question what really happened during the Civil War. What happened during 9/11.”
Probably no more bogus than the moon landing hoaxes, but still good advice.
This good advice is all now associated (implanted) with suicidal Mad Mike.
Totally! Truthers and anti-vaccers now associated with mad flat-earthers, so when we object to the mandatory Corona virus vaccinations, there will only be crickets when they use the military to round us up and throw us in prison or re-education camps.
Brilliant programming! Like the plane crash thrillers Arnon Milchan made prior to 911. Works like a charm!
“His post-flat-Earth fundraising campaign made its $7,875 goal”
That’s all I needed to see. My guess is that there is no need to read any further into this. The dude is probably living in an RV Park off the 60 and needed a quick out as a result of some IRS or related debt collection/charges.
A lot of Riff Raff out there in the desert. The rocket in the picture looks like spent munitions or some ex military trash laying along the desert floor. Wonder if the Home Depot blue tarp is covering dents or holes
the bottle rocket he launched had no real fuel/energy behind it..More like a science project.
A very insignificant effort for a psyop. The flat earthers were/are just too fringe to discredit anything let alone bring credit to anything
I read this blog daily now and agree Often with many of the articles and the opinion of winter watch author. It’s kind of depressing though to be mocked about my own belief in flat earth, by the author and readers who I imagine th8nk of themselves as truthers. . I have a difficult time being sure 9f anyth8ng anymore or at least try to leave open the possibility I am wrong. I would invite anyone who reads this to come on my youtube channel. To speak about flat earth and hear why i bel8eve it is true. Email me at David@zoomtruth d o t c o m. If u like. Mad Mike put my flat earth people finder website on his limo for the cost of the sticker only, not a penny more; with that said. Some of the video did seem strange to me.
Just the facts: Mad Mike was an admitted fake flat earther as well.
My post on this subject: The Flat Earth Psyop and Canard Against Religion and Pre-Modern Civilization
https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/01/the-earth-is-flat-psyop-and-canard-against-religion/
Let’s keep it simple. If there is no curvature there is no globe earth, but rather a relatively flat plane earth. Numerous YouTube videos show photographic examples of objects being visible tens, if not hundreds, of miles beyond what should be hidden by the globe earth’s curvature. Here’s just one example:
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5RJhRNWCMo
I would add only that the flat earth “community” is infected with so-called “flat earthers” (like Mad Mike) who serve to distract from and ridicule any objective analysis.
Yep. No curvature means no globe. Everything else is details.
Any so called “conspiracy theorist” is lumped into the bat shit crazy category, flat earther or not. “Quantum of Conscience” tells us why that is.