The Crackpot Scale

Check yourself before you boil over

Mike Hughes last moments, Saturday, February 22, 2020, twenty seconds to dead

The Crackpot Scale

by Charles White

Since I'm also a retired taxonomist, I'm well qualified to create a category and associated rating level for that category of a long needed but undefined scale. A calibrated scale for measuring degrees of unhinged belief or conspiratorial thinking, from perfectly reasonable to dangerously delusional.

Here we go...

Level 0: Stone Cold Sane

“Not a crackpot at all.”

This is your evidence-based, peer-reviewed, scientifically grounded thinker. They verify sources, ask intelligent questions, and accept when they’re wrong. They don’t repost memes without checking facts, and they understand that not every coincidence is a conspiracy. This is the person who brings the thermometer to the barbecue and actually knows how to use it.

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Level 1: Warm and Whimsical

“Maybe there’s something to it…”

This person enjoys a good “what if” over coffee. They might muse about Bigfoot or suggest the pyramids could have had advanced engineering techniques. They don’t believe it, but they like to entertain the mystery. Think of them as curious, not committed—still grounded, just with a playful imagination.

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Level 2: Simmering Sceptic

“They don’t want you to know this…”

Here we cross into mild crackpot territory. They’ve got “questions” about the moon landing, vaccines, or chemtrails. They start sentences with “I’m not saying it’s true, but…” They follow conspiracy influencers online and think the mainstream media is “probably lying.” They might still pay taxes—but only because they haven’t figured out how to opt out yet.

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Level 3: Bubbling Over

“Wake up, sheeple!”

They believe in the Deep State, think lizard people run the government, and are pretty sure the moon is hollow. They don’t trust doctors, scientists, or thermostats. They post diagrams with red circles and arrows on Facebook at 2 a.m. They use the phrase “do your own research” like it’s a PhD. This is the person who thinks they’re Neo in The Matrix, and you’re all NPCs.

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Level 4: Full Boil Unhinged

“I built this hat to block the government mind rays.”

Now it’s serious. This is the realm of QAnon, sovereign citizen movements, and magnetic vaccine myths. They’ve got charts, codes, bunker plans, and possibly an Etsy store for their home-forged proof. Friends and family are either “waking up” or “part of the problem.” They’ve lost jobs, relationships, and maybe a few teeth to the cause. They don’t question the "narrative", they live in it.

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Level 5: Lid-Blown Catastrophe

“I’ll prove it myself—with this homemade rocket.”

This is terminal crackpot. Rationality has long since evaporated. This is where someone literally straps themselves into a self-built missile to disprove the curvature of the Earth. It’s obsession, martyrdom, and occasionally, fatal physics. You can’t talk them down. The pot is scorched, the contents are toxic, and the kitchen burned down hours ago. RIP

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My Public Service Message

Before you go full crackpot simmer, take a breath. Not every rabbit hole leads to truth, some lead to ruin. Check yourself. Cross-reference.

Invite a trusted friend to challenge your thinking (this is the hard one).

If you find yourself building a rocket to prove the horizon is lying, you may have already passed the point of no return.

Let Mad Mike Hughes be a cautionary tale:

Don’t die trying to prove the Earth is flat. Reality doesn't need defending. But sometimes, we do. Turn back while you still can. There’s still time to take the crackpot lid off.

Twenty seconds later… consequences.

In front of 80 observers, Mike Hughes launched himself in a self-made, steam-powered rocket for the third and final time on Saturday, February 22, 2020, near Barstow, California.

He did not survive.

His abandoned truck is still there in the Mojave Desert.

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