The Rocket Man Comet(h)!

As is my custom, I'm two months late to the party on the cool internet stuffs.  In this case, there appeared to be a man claiming he could take flight with his kite-like wings.  Jarno Smeets, the Birdman, achieved flight in his video blog that had an obscene amount of hits for being up for only two months.

If the video itself doesn't get you to drop your jaw, the reality of the situation might push you over that edge.  The lovable Jarno Smeets, labeled the Flying Dutchman, was found out to be a fibber not long afterwards.  It turns out that not only does Jarno Smeets not exist, but neither does the technology he made his videos on.  It was all a filmmaker who was trying to see what kind of interest he could get in his story, but didn't bother to tell anyone it was a work of fiction.  Joke's on us then, as every major media source at the time sucked it in and spit it back out of the 24-hour news machine.

The weird thing for me is that I was able to take this fake journey with the man people were now calling the Lying Dutchman which lasted two months in one five-minute burst.  My wonder and awe at his flight was almost immediately replaced with the standard cynicism we've all got a chunk of inside.

It did make me wonder though, what if it could be done? Does it really matter that this was fake, or I should say fictitious?  I have to hope that there's a piece of me that still wants to believe it could be done.

Punch it, Chewie!