Larry Walters had always dreamed of flying, but bad eyesight kept him out of the Air Force. So in July 1982 he bought 45 weather balloons, filled them with helium and tied them to a lawn chair, hoping to float 100 feet above his backyard.

It didn’t work out that way. When his friends severed him from his Jeep, Walters rose to 16,000 feet and began to float toward Long Beach airport. Desperate to get down, he began shooting the balloons with a pellet gun, eventually descending into a power line and causing a local blackout. The FAA fined him $1,500.

After the flight, a reporter asked Walters why he’d done it. “A man can’t just sit around,” he said.