Thursday, October 15, 2009

Colorado Balloon Boy Falcon Heene, The Amazing 6-Year-Old In Balloon Found...In Garage



Crazy news from Colorado today, as a mischievous six-year old with a penchant for Macguyver styled antics crafted some sort of massive helium balloon and had his neighbors buzzing.

Colorado authorities were alerted to a massive helium balloon that had reached an altitude of 15,000 feet, and was seen soaring by many through the skies of Eastern Colorado. Wonder turned to terror as reports surfaced that the creator of the balloon, a six-year-old named Falcon Heene, may have been in a basket attached to the ballon when it took off from his yard.

With a child's life potentially on the line, Colorado officials immediately ordered two helicopters to pursue the balloon and after it finally made descent, terror turned into massive concern as the the basket was found empty. An international headline was born as everyone wondered what happened to Falcon Heene? Had he fallen from the balloon?

As the story continued to gain steam throughout the day, it was revealed that Heene's family was featured on popular television show "Wife Swap" and are no strangers to bizarre scientific experiments. As reported by KDVR TV, the Wife Swap site reported the following about the family:

"they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm."

The only storm that culiminated to the end of the story, fortunately, was an argument about finances in the court of public opinion. Falcon Heene was anti-climatically, and thankfully, found safely sleeping in his family home's garage. The media circus died down with the story of a young boy who launched a balloon and decided to lay low while everyone went wild with theories of tragedy and disaster, diverting massive resources into the impromptu search of a young child.

A good question is how on Earth does a six-year-old have access to build such a floating contraption in the first place? There is science, then there is mad science and that's exactly what we have here.

Speaking of mad, many people are now quite mad in thinking how much tax money was spent in the search for Heene. There is a poll on KDVR, asking if Heene's family and father Richard Heene should have to pay for the search and rescue. You may partake and vote here.

Should they or shouldn't they, who knows? What is for sure is that young Mr. Falcon Heene is probably grounded this coming weekend, no pun of course, and may have his science play-time cut down just a smidge. Falcon Heene is going to get his wings clipped. And we're out.

No comments:

Post a Comment