YouTube Tuesday: Vertigo Edition

Photo courtesy www.thinkstock.com

There are some who travel to explore new frontiers, to expand their world through encounters with new cultures and lands, and ultimately to broaden their perspective on this great big world in which we live.

Then there are some who travel the world in search of the tallest thing they can find so as to better hurl themselves bodily from it. Guess which group we’re focusing on today?

NYC Freedom Tower B.A.S.E. Jump

Let us begin by saying that the activity performed in this video is TOTALLY ILLEGAL. We do not condone trespassing into a major landmark for the purposes of leaping from it. That said, if you film it we may watch it. As another warning, whoever this guy is, he issues a fair amount of adult language in this video, and that’s before he leaps off a building. Skip to the 2:30 when his buddy leaps, then he follows.

Our favorite part of this video is how he carefully packs up his chute as soon as he lands. Great! Now you look totally inconspicuous walking around lower Manhattan in a flight suit at 4 a.m.

Glider Suit Jumping off China’s Tianmen Mountain

There are few things more tranquil than a gondola ride through high-altitude fog, watching the craggy peaks of mountains pierce the veil of the clouds before drifting silently by you. It’s a serene moment that can only be experienced at OH GOD A MAN JUST FLEW BY THE WINDOW. Skip to the 9:30 mark.

We get that glider suits exist, but we refuse to believe they don’t run on magic. You mean all these millennia man dreamed of flight and all you needed was some extra fabric and rampant disregard for your personal safety? How are we just discovering this now?

World’s Highest B.A.S.E. Jump off the Eiger, Switzerland

Before we even get to 2009 Adventurer of the Year (seriously, it’s a thing) Dean Potter’s historic B.A.S.E. jump off Switzerland’s Eiger, we’d like to draw your attention to his spot-on Wile E. Coyote impression at the :30 mark. Clearly, this man is insane and deserves our attention.

Now that we’ve established how Potter feels about gravity, you’re free to skip the 1:45 mark, where he begins his historic three-plus minute plummet off a Swiss mountain and into the record books.

Cave of Swallows, Mexico

If someone told you there was a giant hole somewhere in Mexico so deep you could fit the Empire State Building inside it, you would probably not be considered strange if you chose to avoid said hole. At this point, we’re not shocked that people are actively hurling themselves into this pit. We’re more shocked that somebody hasn’t put up maybe a fence or something. The fun starts at the :55 mark.

To maniacs everywhere who look out at this great world and see a series of things to potentially injure themselves on, we salute you. Keep those videos coming.