San Francisco - A new search was launched Wednesday for missing and presumed-dead adventurer Steve Fossett after hikers discovered personal belongings that appeared to belong to him high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, according to a report Wednesday on FOX News.

The items included a sweat jacket apparently worn by Fossett and two cards with Fossett's name on them that were issued by the Federal Aviation Administration in Illinois.

But there was no sign of the light plane that Fossett, 63, was flying when he disappeared in September 2007. The report said that police in Mammoth Lakes, California were interviewing the ski-shop owner who found the items but there was no indication that the artifacts were fake.

Born in Jackson, Tenn., in 1944, Steve Fossett grew up in Garden Grove, Calif., and climbed his first mountain as a 12-year-old Boy Scout and got his pilot's license in college.

He became famous and cheered across the world for his staggering records. He managed to become the first person to single-handedly fly a balloon (2002) and airplane (2005) around the globe without any intermediate landings or refueling.
In 2006, Steve Fossett set a new record for “distance without landing” after 76 hours and 43 minutes of dramatic flight across 41,467 kilometers. He took off his ultra-light plane the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer from Florida and flew over the Atlantic twice before landing in a tourist resort on the south coast of England.

As an aviator, pilot and adventurer, the Californian broke and set over 100 world records, half of them still ruling the statistics.
Fossett has survived numerous near-misses and harrowing crash landings over the years, including a 9,000-meter (29,000-foot) plummet into the Coral Sea off Australia because of a storm-shredded balloon.

In another incident he managed to walk for almost 50 kilometers and get help after making an emergency landing.

Steve Fossett has been declared legally dead in February by a Chicago court, five months after the airplane he was flying with disappeared over Nevada desert.