The Case of the Flying Boy
A strange case here in Colorado. It starts with a rather unusual family from Fort Collins, one Richard and Mayumi Heene. Richard is a tinkering home scientist type, was once a meteorologist (aka weatherman.) They have three boys. The family chases storms for fun and works on science projects in their backyard together. They were once featured in ABC's Wife-swap show.
As our story begins, there is a large mylar balloon, 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet high, filled with helium moored to the side of their house. A box is attached to the balloon for equipment, like the basket on a hot air balloon, but at the moment it is empty. Richard and Mayumi are in the house, the boys are playing outside. Suddenly, an older brother comes running in the house shouting that his little brother, aptly named "Falcon", who is 6 years old, had released the balloon and was inside the box.
The balloon was designed to hover about 20 feet above the ground. They ran out to see it disappearing into the sky where it climbed to over 15,000 feet. Helicopters were scrambled to find it, airport traffic was rerouted around the area, it stayed aloft for an hour and a half before it came back to earth, 50 miles away just north of the Denver International Airport. The box was bent and folded over on itself but no little boy was to be found.
Until later. When they finally found him hiding in another box, in the attic of their home, afraid of the trouble he was in for releasing his dad's balloon.
BTW, the theme of the wife-swap episode was safe homes -vs- risky ones. Guess whose was the risky one? :-)
But seriously, had there been a big floaty thing with a basket in it tied to our house when we were kids, I can almost guarantee the chance of the same scenario, except one of us would have actually BEEN in the box.
As our story begins, there is a large mylar balloon, 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet high, filled with helium moored to the side of their house. A box is attached to the balloon for equipment, like the basket on a hot air balloon, but at the moment it is empty. Richard and Mayumi are in the house, the boys are playing outside. Suddenly, an older brother comes running in the house shouting that his little brother, aptly named "Falcon", who is 6 years old, had released the balloon and was inside the box.
The balloon was designed to hover about 20 feet above the ground. They ran out to see it disappearing into the sky where it climbed to over 15,000 feet. Helicopters were scrambled to find it, airport traffic was rerouted around the area, it stayed aloft for an hour and a half before it came back to earth, 50 miles away just north of the Denver International Airport. The box was bent and folded over on itself but no little boy was to be found.
Until later. When they finally found him hiding in another box, in the attic of their home, afraid of the trouble he was in for releasing his dad's balloon.
BTW, the theme of the wife-swap episode was safe homes -vs- risky ones. Guess whose was the risky one? :-)
But seriously, had there been a big floaty thing with a basket in it tied to our house when we were kids, I can almost guarantee the chance of the same scenario, except one of us would have actually BEEN in the box.
Great story- glad the boy was at home and safe. Ayla agrees that yall would probably put Jeff in the baloon and then released it so he would be the first astronaut from Cloudcroft. lol.
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to those parents!! That was not staged.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine how you might could relate M :-)
ReplyDelete