Boy in a runaway helium ballon over Colorado...

[armyjunk2]

anyone remember the guy in the lawn chair with the balloons attached in Southern Calif in I believe the 1970's?? Airliners were seeing and reporting him to LAX........He said afterwards "A man has gotta do what a man has to do"

[RickH]

Sure, Mythbusters did a segment using surplus ballons. They were old and had a tendency to pop unexpectedly.

The Australians mad e movie using the same scenario, it was called Danny Deckchair.

[A2C]

The dad could've saved himself a lot of trouble by looking for his kid first before panicing and calling the police.

[K5DH]

New news film will probably show the daddy spanking the kid, with police and rescuers lining up for their turn !

Nah. If they show the father spanking the child, the next faces you'll see will be those of Child Protective Services agents coming to "rescue the child from an abusinve environment", followed by the police coming to arrest the "abusive father".



At least that's the way it'd go down here in Big D. . .

Cheers,

[airnutz]

The dad could've saved himself a lot of trouble by looking for his kid first before panicing and calling the police.

As I understand the sequence of events, another kid who was there..maybe a brother, insisted the
6yr old had entered the ballon before it lifted off. He was questioned numerous times, but stuck to his story.
Searches were made at the location and in the neighborhood, regardless. IIRC, when he wasn't at the landing site,
another, presumably more thorough search was made where they found him hiding in a box, in the atttic. It's not like he made it easy on the searchers.

Kids can be little sh*ts to adults sometimes...I scared the h*ll out of a college age uncle one time to get him in
hot water with my grandma. Neither of us won that day!

[airnutz]

The Australians mad a movie using the same scenario, it was called Danny Deckchair.

There was also an American movie released in 1963 by the title of, "A Ticklish Affair" filmed in San Diego.
A kid takes off in a cluster balloon and has to be saved by the Navy. It's an okay sappy Shirley Jones, Gig
Young, Billy Mumy feelgood flick but what's really neat about it, is it's in color and the USN obviously got
alot of great PR with their participation. Helicopters, patrol planes and boats, a carrier and the kicker was
a rescue of the kid by lowering a guy on a liferaft from a Navy blimp to snag him. Great footage! I saw it
on TCM again last year and it'll more than likely be around again.

The Wikipedia has a section dedicated to various folks in the past...some good...some not so good! , Search, "Cluster Balloning"

[Matt Sharkey]

Do you think the Dad gets his balloon back? If so, does the wife lets him keep it?

[airnutz]

Do you think the Dad gets his balloon back? If so, does the wife lets him keep it?

He may get it back...but a Sheriff's deputy slashed it multiple times with a shovel after it landed to deflate it!!

Somebody's going to have a hole in their allowance for awhile!

[Lynn Allen]

Can't wait to hear when dad gets the bill for the effort by all who were running after it....

[TEN]

Uh yeah, there's the rub...the father won't be getting ANY bill. This according to the Sherriff in an interview this afternoon. Also, the father said that the boy won't even be grounded for his actions! Hmmm, how much do you suppose it costs to round up the rescue teams, get all choppers in the air, put northbound flights out of DIA on hold, etc., etc? If I had done something like that as a kid, I would have probably nerver seen the light of day again. I guess times change.

[Dave Homewood]

This story was followed by news broadcasters here in new Zealand too, but tonight there was a report from a US source claiming it may all have been a publicity stunt. The family has appeared on TV before in Wife Swap USA, the father is well known for self-promoting himself, the kids all regularly make movies of themselves and post them to Youtube, and in an interview the six year old all but admitted his Dad told him to hide in the attic.

Sounds very fishy. Still, the news broadcasters made some ratings out of it.

[Pat Carry]

The media sure had a field day with this "story".

[Kyleb]

The media sure had a field day with this "story".

The media needs to do a better job fact checking before they go live with something like this. If you saw pictures of the balloon, it was obvious that it wasn't a hot air balloon as several sorces indicated. A little math would also have told them that it was physically impossible for a balloon that size to carry a 6 year old to that altitude, and probably incapable of lifting a 6 year old off the ground in the first place.

But the media inclination is to run with the sensational story. Lots of viewers mean they can set their ad rates higher.

[A2C]

The media needs to do a better job fact checking before they go live with something like this. If you saw pictures of the balloon, it was obvious that it wasn't a hot air balloon as several sorces indicated. A little math would also have told them that it was physically impossible for a balloon that size to carry a 6 year old to that altitude, and probably incapable of lifting a 6 year old off the ground in the first place.

They may have been incapable of doing math! They would hav had to break out the buoyancy equation anyway.

[tom d. friedman]

the kid's parents might be in for a snoot of trouble!! local law / cap / military, all called out on your dime in what is suspected as a publicity stunt. from the mouths of babes....... the kiddie talked to the news media, said the wrong thing & now the authorities are starting an investigation. if they used that kid on the premise of a lure to the media then let them pay!! that balloon looked like something out of a grade b 50's movie anyway!!