Some question Grylls' claims

What really happened miles above the earth? Skeptics have jumped all over Bear Grylls' claims that he became the first person to soar over Mount Everest with a paraglider.

At 29,035 feet high, Mt. Everest is so massive that it creates its own microclimate. Hurricane force winds of up to 200 mph blow. Snow and ice are permanent features above 17,000 feet and temperatures often drop to -80 Celsius.

The controversy over Grylls' claims is all over the Internet. It's also being played out among pilots' organizations and the extreme sports community.

Grylls, who at 23 became the youngest British climber to scale Mount Everest in 1998, and Giles Cardozo took off from the small Himalayan village of Pheriche, about 20 miles south of Mount Everest in eastern Nepal.

Upon his return to Kathmandu, Grylls described his journey. He said a fault in Cardozo's engine forced him to abort about 980 feet below the summit. Grylls claimed that he continued to ascend until he reached 29,494 feet.

Skeptics immediately jumped on Grylls' claims, accusing him of misleading the media and pointing out that he has no on-board photos of the mountain and no data recordings.

They further point out that no one on the mountain saw Grylls flying above them, and that his claimed altitude record -- 10,000 feet higher than the previous record - is unbelievable.

To add fuel to the controversy, Grylls told one interviewer that his flight was not over the summit of Everest, but in clear airspace some miles from the peak. "The dangers were too great," he is quoted as saying. "I changed the plan."

A spokesman for the Aeronautic Federation International said it is unlikely the record claim will be ratified.