Before the dawn of human aviation, before the Wright Brothers demonstrated powered flight at Kitty Hawk, conventional wisdom held that “if man were meant to fly, he’d have wings.”
Many doubters have made the same claim about hot tubs, but these too were proved wrong on an early spring day this year, when multiple residents of the city of Mesa, Ariz., reported seeing a portable spa flying above the city. According to a National Weather Service report, the flight was not a groundbreaking feat of engineering, but the result of a small freak cyclone that sprang up suddenly producing 85 mph winds. It launched the tub skyward and sent it spinning over Beverly Park and a local apartment complex before coming back to earth and landing, upside down.
The official governmental report confirmed that “at least four observers reported seeing the hot tub aloft in the cloud.” Always precise in its measurements, the NWS stated the hot tub’s maiden flight covered exactly 1,300 feet. Unfortunately, the flight will not count as an official world record as it was “wind-aided.”
