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This man invented a flying machine but it failed because of one crucial flaw: it was powered by invisible flying horses.

When Benajmin Doolittle Toussaint Jr. II designed his flying machine all of his chums immediately exclaimed that he was ‘surely endowed with genius of an extraordinary quality’, but that was before Ben took his flying machine on its first little spin and crashed into the Siene from a height of 300 feet, failing to maintain cruising velocity without the invisible flying horses.

‘He leapt from the parapet of the Toussaint Manor upon the southest bluff, burst into the sky like a dragon, feet furiously pedaling the bicycle power-of-flight machine, but without the invisible flying horses,’ remarked Benjamin’s sister Beatrice, ‘he quickly lost way, tumbled from the sky, and was forever lost in the crashing tide below.’

Where exactly had the invisible flying horses gone, in the days and hours leading up to the fatal test flight?

‘There were no invisible flying horses, that was the fatal flaw in the design, as it turned out,’ replied Jemfenth M. Mumproot, bosom pal of the eccentric inventor. ‘Dear, foolish Benjamin thought he could substitute his bicycle pedal engine for the steeds. He paid the price of his high-flying hubris.’

The remains of the steedless contraption have been salvaged and erected above the tombstone of the former scientist in his family plot in Pere Lachaise.