Skydivers recently descended on the Las Vegas Strip and landed near Caesars Palace to commemorate a certain piece of history. The hotel wanted to celebrate its “brave heritage”. This inheritance usually refers to the name. Evel Knievel.
Almost 50 years ago, Knievel stood in front of the new Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino. He convinced them to let him jump over the 151-foot fountain on a Harley-Davidson. He failed. He crashed. However, the story stuck.
Knievel has had better success elsewhere. In 1975, he cleared 14 buses. That was a 133-foot distance. It made a record. This record lasted until 1999.
But this is the part that most people miss. A Canadian stuntman named Rick Rojattt actually surpassed Knievel long before 1999. He accomplished it in 1977. Rojatt attempted to ride a rocket-powered Harley on 26 buses. He crashed around bus 19.
Technically, he was further than Knievel in the field of buses. The problem with Rojatt is that we don’t know much about him. Does his name really exist? Is he also a stuntman? He claimed he worked in Hollywood. No records. But he must be in Canada.
The origin of mythology
Rojatt was born in Montreal in the mid-1970s. He works with two sausage makers. They like to participate in adventurous projects. They don’t want to jump. They just wanted to beat Knievel’s goal.
They found Rojatt. It’s his first time in this city. A chancer. He owed money to one of their cousins. Michael Odell writes about this at Esquire.com.
Rojatt needed a brand. He adopted an alter ego. He became The Human Fly.
The suit was red spandex from head to toe. Sometimes he wears a white cape. He claimed that most of his body was metal. He said he was practically unbreakable.
His debut was in June 1976. He stood on top of a DC-8 jet. The plane was flying low over the Mojave Desert. The speed is about 300 miles per hour. The audience loved it.
Marketing superhero
It quickly became a sensation. He was featured in People magazine. Appeared on “That’s Incredible”. He was interviewed by CBC’s “90 Minutes Live.”
Marvel Comics has licensed the human fly. They published a series of comic books. The claims are aggressive. “The wildest superhero ever because he’s real!”
This cartoon ended in 1979. Rojatt never breaks character. He never showed his face.
Some believe he was a dreamer. Maybe he really wants to be a superhero. He told people about the time he was attacked by a gorilla. He was shattered. He needs to be rebuilt. Hence the metal frame.
Others called him a liar. An idiot.
Ky Michaelson knew him well. Michaelson built Rojatt’s rocket bike. He is nicer about it. He calls Rojatt “Rocketman”.
“I don’t want to call it ‘fruitcake,'” Michaelson said. “But at the time, I thought he was just one of ‘those guys.’
Michaelson has been building rockets for over 60 years. In 2004, he led the team that launched the first civilian amateur rocket into space. He’s still working on a rocket-powered backpack in his Minnesota studio.
Rojatt’s legacy is ghost stories. does he exist Or is he just a man in red who knows how to sell dreams? The bus he jumped on disappeared. The jet has been retired. But the idea of a human fly is still there. A blur of red spandex over the desert. A record that has never been officially recognized.
The question is not whether Rojatt is real or not. It’s why we prefer the myth to the man. Knievel had the crashes. The crowd loves this pain. Rojatt had the mystery. The silence.
We’re still talking about jumps. We are still measuring the distance. But we rarely ask who was really holding the handlebars. Or if the handlebars even existed.
Eric Michaelson had no intention of building weapons of mass destruction. He just got a call.
It was 1977, and while Michelson was in California, Robert Rojatt, better known as “Rocket Man,” contacted him. The premise was insane. Rojat wanted to jump thirty-six buses.
That wasn’t just a big stunt. That was an attempt to obliterate Evel Knievel’s record by a landslide.
Michaelson said no. Instantly.
“I don’t think he knew what he was doing,” she said.
There was a reason for the hesitation. Rojatt claimed he was bulletproof. He told Michaelson that he had been in a serious accident several years ago and had rebuilt it with metal parts. Half his body was steel.
“I don’t know if that’s a promotion or if it’s real,” Michaelson said with a laugh.
It was clearly promotion. When Marvel licensed the Human Fly character, the backstory was significantly updated. Esquire’s Odell quoted from the first issue of Marvel’s The Human Fly.
“We have to start with a car accident in the early 70’s. That serious accident forced him to spend four years in the hospital, with his legs and hip bones completely shattered, half of his stomach removed and his arm torn off… He really wanted to be the greatest Daredevil of all time!… To everyone’s surprise, he left the hospital 60 percent male, but 60 percent of his body. could stop this man.”
Michaelson wasn’t buying it.
He confessed to Rojat, “You crash and you die.”
“With the speed it needed to, it could have hit the wall on the other side of the building,” Michelson explained. ”
Physics doesn’t care about your comic book backstory.
Rojatt backed down. He settled for twenty-six buses.
Still a massive number. Still well over Knievel’s feat. But doable.
Michelson agreed to build a rocket bike.
Rojat took the black 1977 Harley-Davidson XL-1000 Sportster to the repair shop. Michelson removed the stock engine. Instead, it installed two hydrogen peroxide rockets with 1,500 pounds of thrust.
Turns out it’s not a motorcycle. This is a two-wheeled guided missile.
Michelson writes on his website that at full power the car can travel “more than 300 miles per hour in the quarter mile.”
This is not a jump. This is an execution.
A lamp that does not exist
The script is very simple. Rojat fires a rocket and climbs the hill screaming, holding on until his bike cuts through the cavity and reaches the landing pad.
It was October 1977, and the game was being played at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
This is not true.
The engineer leaves
Bob Michelson, who built the bike, said it was all a design failure. When he arrived in Montreal, he found the project broken. The take-off and landing ramps were changed without his involvement.
He called it a stunt. revoke.
“I’m not going to let that happen,” Michelson said. “That bike was well over 3,000 pounds. It had twice the horsepower.”
He was looking at the wrong angle. he said no. No one listened.
Wrong geometry. But the human element is even worse. Rojat had never ridden a motorcycle. He didn’t even test it in the air.
“We had never tested a motorcycle,” Michelson recalls. “He never rode. He never rode.”
Rojatto approached Mikaelson before the show. Ask how to do this.
Mikaelson looked him in the eyes. I said that person is not here. Drunk? expensive? who knows.
“Get on your bike and hit the red switch. Turn on the throttle.”
Mikaelson walked away. Rojat gets into the car.
Car accident at the bus stop
A small crowd watched the Manfly speed up the slope. The music starts. White smoke was coming out of the exhaust pipe.
he started.
The bike started. For a moment it seemed almost elegant.
At that moment, gravity remembered its mission.
Rojat crashed into the line of buses below. The bike fell over. It hit him hard. The pair skidded across the roofs of several buses as sparks flew before crashing into the landing pad at high speed.
Why didn’t he die?
From Michaelson’s point of view, Rojat opened the gas too late. The bike does not come off the ramp fast enough.
“I think this is a blessing in disguise,” Michelson said.
If Rojat had been faster, he could have closed the gap. Or at least go faster. The result would be complete disaster. There is no survival.
Rojat survived. He makes Man of Steel’s claims less outlandish by bringing the story to life. Fully disguised. swinging from a stretcher.
He left the stadium in an ambulance.
He never appeared in public again.
Missing person
Evel Knievel becomes king. Rick Rojatto is his enigma.
Some say Keyser Sozen.
Rojat did not disappear. He completely disappeared from the public eye.
is he dead Did he move to a farm in Nebraska? I don’t understand.
My bike is missing. The slope is gone. The video is still there.
Be careful. watch him fly
Then watch him fall.
Michaelson never forgot the man who walked into his store.
It was just a stranger. His hands were covered in motor oil. Working on a Harley. The man claimed to be an engineer. He said he worked for Rick Rojatttt. Michaelson still thinks about that visit.
“I don’t even know if that engineer was…Rick Rojatttt,” Michaelson said. “This guy always wears a mask…you don’t know who he’s with.”
Meeting in Montreal. Then silence.
Michaelson was clear about what happened next. He was convinced from the beginning that everything was rotten. Suspicious transaction. hidden agenda. He believed that Rojattt was dead. Not missing. Not hiding. Dead.
He mentioned life insurance.
“There are a lot of things I won’t talk about, but let’s do it,” Michaelson said. The words hung in the air. He hints at lawsuits. Witness Protection. Shut up.
But then he smiled.
“I’m telling you, it’s going to be a great movie, it’s a true story. It’s incredible.”
Others are trying to tell this story. Over the years. Projects keep disappearing. IMDb lists 2017 as the last known situation. Ghosted.
Two years after Rojattt’s disappearance, his partner told the Montreal Gazette that The Human Fly quit his stunt work to pursue a singing career. Unlikely pivot.
They added one crucial detail. Rojattt could not be reached for comment.
silence.
