Sure, a mongoose will take on a cobra, but it is doubtful that either creature is having any fun.  People, however, get a kick out of being scared.  All over the world, otherwise sensible individuals pay hard-earned money to engage in death-defying acts of seeming folly just to fight that old ennui of Cole Porter fame.

BASE jumping, heli-skiing and big wave surfing are a few of the extreme sports that seem to be the antidote to the relative calm of life in the 21st century.  Tell a human being that it can’t be done, and like Icarus, she’s strapping on wings and heading for the sun.  Just don’t tell her HMO.

High on the list of risk-takers are those who think it droll to leap from heights that are tall enough to insure that the parachute will actually open.  BASE jumping is the sport of using a parachute to jump from fixed objects, i.e. buildings, antennae, spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs, gorges), hence the acronym.  The question does arise as to exactly how records are set for this sport.  Is it a leap from the highest place or the lowest that would get one into Mr. Guinness’ little book?

Speaking of world records, the largest mass sky-dive took place on Feb. 8, 2006 when 400 people stepped out of 5 airplanes at 7,200 meters, and in 83 seconds assembled a spiral formation and held it for 4.5 seconds—a feat even more impressive when you consider that it took them five minutes to form the same pattern practicing on the ground.  This example of folie a quatre-cents was performed for the 60th anniversary of the reign of King Bhumipol Adulyadej of Thailand.  We do hope he was amused.

The grandma of all these daredevils was a schoolmarm named Annie Taylor who, on October 24, 1901, wearing a long black dress and flowery hat, was sealed into an oak keg along with a mattress and became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.  It was her 46th birthday.  Emerging from the barrel, she uttered what one may assume was the understatement of that year: “Nobody ever ought to do that again.”  Oh Jackass cast, do we hear a challenge?

At FootageBank HD, we are suited up and ready to take you to the edge with adrenaline-pumping High Definition images of extreme sports and adventure in air, water, snow, and on land.  To view and download extreme sports clips, click here.