Nearer, my God, to Thee...

Sometimes, when life gets a little challenging, or when one feels a little down, one's behaviour can be affected; one might consider an action without, perhaps, considering all of the possible consequences of said action. A similar situation can occur when one has lost one's way or when one is maybe a sandwich or two short of the full cricketers' afternoon tea.

On April 20th 2008, Adelir de Carli, a Brazlian Catholic Priest, decided that he would harness himself (strapped in a chair) to 1,000 party balloons in order to raise money to 'provide a spiritual rest-stop for truckers'. He left the ground as planned and drifted skyward in - and I am obviously guessing here - a similar manner to which one would expect in this situation, which is quite quickly heavenwards. He had planned to fly 465 miles, an undertaking which an individual with even the most rudimentary knowledge of aviation would imagine requires some sort of forward propulsion. The Reverend de Carli eschewed such prosaic means of control and relied solely upon the wind.

Surprisingly, he reached an altitude of 6000 metres before losing contact with authorities. Later, bits of balloon were discovered floating in the sea. Before he disappeared, his final message was to say that the phone battery was running low and that he could not work the GPS device he had taken with him, presumably before learning how to operate it.

A candidate I fear for The Darwin Awards...