The Fan Man

From the James Miller (parachutist) wiki page:

James Jarrett Miller also known as Fan Man (October 28, 1963September 22, 2002) was a parachutist and paraglider pilot from Henderson, Nevada, known for his outrageous appearances at various sporting events.

The Fan Man Fight

Miller’s first and most famous stunt happened on November 6, 1993 during the heavyweight title fight between Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield. Miller descended into the second minute of the seventh round of the fight, after circling Caesar’s Palace for 10 minutes. The lines of his paraglider became tangled in the overhead lights. He landed on the top rope of the ring with his parachute still tangled in the lights. He tried to hang on with one foot and one hand on that top rope for a few seconds until he either fell or was dragged down into the crowd by spectators, his parachute ripping away from the lights above. Fans and the fighters’ security detail swarmed around him immediately and began attacking him. He was knocked unconscious during the attack. One security officer reportedly struck Miller twenty times. He was rushed to a nearby hospital as spectators cut his paraglider into pieces for souvenirs. After his release from the hospital, Miller was taken to the Clark County Detention Center, where he was charged with dangerous flying and released on $200 bail.

“It was a heavyweight fight,” Miller would joke later, “and I was the only guy who got knocked out.”

The media immediately dubbed Miller “Fan Man,” for the paramotor (lightweight engine and propeller) attached to his harness.

Fox Sports Net ranked this incident as the #1 “Most Outrageous Sports Moment”.

Other stunts

A few weeks after the stunt, Miller used a powered paraglider to get on top of Buckingham Palace after painting himself green and covering his private parts with glow-in-the-dark paint. British authorities evacuated the palace in seven minutes, then came for Miller, who was arrested on the roof. They charged him with terrorism, believing he had connections with the IRA.

“What was funny was I was trying to make a point to the Irish that they didn’t need to use violence to protest British policies,” Miller told Valdez newspapers years later.

British authorities interrogated Miller in an effort to learn who had helped him. He was threatened with a life sentence but refused to reveal his accomplices.

Less than a year after his Fan Man crusade began, Miller was convicted in Great Britain of “flying without a ticket of air worthiness,” fined ₤600, held in prison for forty-two days, branded an international terrorist by Interpol, and banished from the United Kingdom for life.

“When the judge said I was deported for life, I asked if my ashes could be buried in England,” Miller told a Valdez newspaper. “The judge just looked at me and said, ‘No.’”

Death

Miller was reported missing on September 22, 2002. On March 9, 2003, a group of hunters bushwhacking through the woods on the Kenai Peninsula found a decomposing body identified as that of James Miller. Police said he had chosen the remote Resurrection Pass Trail in Chugach National Forest, veering deep off-trail to a spot that might not have been discovered for years, if ever. Miller had hanged himself from a tree, and the death was ruled a suicide.[2] Miller had been suffering from a debilitating heart disease and was overwhelmed by medical bills.[3]

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