Inventing delusions.

And so the saga of Fournier ends with an errant balloon worth hundreds of thousands of euros drifting away into the sky, untethered from its gondola. If you have been following along at all you will know that Fournier is the French adventurer who aimed to jump from the edge of the earth’s atmosphere 40 km up, has attempted to do so 2 other times (both of which were thwarted by weather and/or equipment failure – not unlike this third attempt), and has spent his entire life savings plus millions more dollars in the process. Stated purpose? Well scientific research of course. Apparently his main interest was to gather data to help astronauts and others in aerospace careers who may have to survive a freefall from high altitude. Though you would think that if there was any real merit in discovering this information NASA or some other agency would be funding it.

Although Fournier isn’t an inventor, something about his story in the past few days has made me think again of Troy Hurtubise, the Canadian inventor whose Ursus bear suit inspired the National Film Board documentary Project Grizzly. (If you want the song version of the documentary – download the Flying Folk Army’s Troy and the Bear here.) Done more than a decade ago, the documentary is considered a cult-classic and has been widely enjoyed by many over the years. Except Hurtubise himself who felt the film made him look foolish, and didn’t take him seriously as an inventor. And that’s a fair criticism really, though having heard Hurtubise interviewed on a number of occasions (CBC does almost annual interviews with him) I can’t say that he doesn’t sound half-crazed most of the time when he talks. Between that and the testing his projects on himself to the degree of suffering serious injury, and you’ve got a classic case of self-obsession that’s hard to witness without snickering.

From bear suits onward, Hurtubise now fashions himself as an inventor of military technologies, despite the fact that he has been bankrupted at least once and lost his scrap metal business as a result of his failure to sell more than the occasional prototype. By far his strangest claim to date is the invention of an “Angel Light” device that could not only see through solid metal walls, but also detect stealth technology. Though he claims to have created and tested this device, he also maintains that he had to dismantle it and has since sold it to the French (though his recent bankruptcy seems to belie this fact).

A lot of fringe inventors seem to have the same characteristics – mostly men, they possess an obession bordering on mania, a willingness to give up everything in pursuit of their own vision, a huge capacity for self-denial when it comes to the critiques of others… and for some reason extremely poor business judgement also seems to come with the territory. My Great-Great-Uncle Gustave (inventor of the world’s first airplane before the Wright Brothers even) was one of these people. He obsessed, he bankrupted his family, he injured himself repeatedly, he lost all of his belongings in lawsuits against him (including his airplanes), and he ignored his family responsibilities for most of his life.

Now granted, he was successful in creating what he set out to, but he still died a bitter and broken man unrecognized for his achievements. Which is exactly what will happen to Hurtubise after he has destroyed all of his significant relationships, exactly what has probably already happened to Fournier since I can not believe that someone who cared about his significant relations would choose such a death course adventure. What is that impulse anyway? To be the first? To be famous? A refusal to grow up and take responsibility? I’m not sure, but it’s interesting/odd/infuriating/funny/sometimes depressing to watch these men in their continual quests for attention. (“Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!”)

Since I don’t really have a conclusion for this post, I am going to leave you with this clip from the TV show American Inventor. Marc Griffin is the epitome of deluded and obsessed inventor, a man who lost his marriage and is living in his car in a quest to make “Bulletball” an Olympic sport. Fournier may be painted as an intrepid adventurer, but he is no less deluded or juvenile in his quest for recognition than the Griffins and Hurtubises of this world.