Biggest Screeching Halt

May 16, 1958 - Air Force Captain John “Eli” Beeding climbed aboard a rocket sled at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for one of the most brutal human endurance tests ever attempted.

The sled blasted down the track before slamming into a water brake system that brought it to a near-instant stop. The deceleration was so violent that Beeding experienced approximately 83 g's — meaning his body briefly weighed 83 times its normal weight.

Beeding later described the sensation this way:

“It felt like Ted Williams had hit me on the back... with a baseball bat.”

He suffered tunnel vision, dizziness, and blacked out shortly afterward. Beeding spent several days recovering in the hospital with severe bruising and back injuries, but remarkably, he survived without permanent disability.

Initially, researchers suspected the instruments had malfunctioned because the recorded deceleration seemed almost impossible. Follow-up tests — including grim experiments using bears — confirmed that the readings were accurate.

The experiment became legendary in aerospace medicine and remains one of the greatest decelerations ever survived by a human in a controlled test.