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On April 20, 2008, Father Adelir Antônio de Carli flew above Brazil in a chair fastened to 1,000 party balloons, also known as cluster-ballooning, in an attempt to raise money for a chapel.

To prepare for the flight, the priest took paragliding, mountaineering, and jungle survival lessons to be prepared for every contingency.

Unfortunately, strong winds diverted his journey to the Atlantic Ocean, and his body was found months later off the southern coast of Brazil.

If you’re looking to raise money, you have a few options in today’s internet-connected world. Most would opt for a GoFundMe —the go-to platform for raising capital for altruistic causes. Have the next best product in mind? You could always try a Kickstarter. But in April 2008, a year or two before those platforms ever existed, Brazilian priest Adelir Antônio de Carli decided on a more headline-grabbing approach.

De Carli was hoping to raise the funds necessary to develop a spiritual rest stop for truck drivers in the Brazilian port city of Paranaguá, where long-haulers could sometimes be stuck days waiting to receive freight for transport. The idea was simple, if dangerous: de Carli would attempt to capture the world record for cluster-ballooning by attaching 1,000 party balloons to a chair and flying for 20 hours from Paranaguá to Dourados, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, reaching altitudes as high as 19,000 feet.

De Carli didn’t attempt this daredevil flight without significant preparation. In addition to (perhaps expected) paragliding training, he took jungle-survival and mountaineering courses to be prepared for any circumstances he might encounter upon landing. But despite the upfront work, as often happens with notably risky endeavors, things didn’t go according to plan.

Within an hour of starting the flight, which de Carli undertook on April 20, 2008, unexpected winds had driven him far off course. “He told us he was beginning to descend over the ocean, but never said he was about to crash into the water,” a team member involved with the flight, Carlos Bom, told CBS News. “There was never any panic in his voice.”

Then, roughly eight hours into the flight, de Carli lost contact with the Paranaguá port authority, and a massive search for the “balloonist priest ” was soon underway. But after four days of fruitless scouring of southern Brazil and the outlying waters, the country’s air force eventually called off the search. De Carli had disappeared, but people held on to hope.

“Without a doubt they will find him alive ,” Denise Galla, treasurer of de Carli’s São Cristóvão parish, told NBC News at the time . “He’s alive somewhere out there.”

Unfortunately, de Carli would never be seen alive again. But his body was eventually located. On July 30, 2008—nearly three months after the flight—a tugboat at sea near the coastal city of Macaé found a body matching de Carli’s description floating in the water. “We were almost certain that it was the priest due to various elements, such as the clothes and material used in the balloon trip,” Macaé’s chief of police, Daniel Bandeira, said during a press conference as reported by the Associated Press . “The DNA only confirmed our suspicions.”

While de Carli’s daredevil journey ended in tragedy , his remains were eventually transferred back to his hometown of Paranaguá, where he received a hero’s welcome.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.

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