Boy in balloon captivates news-hungry Web
(Credit:
Ustream)
Twitter was bombarded on Thursday afternoon by the shocking news that a six-year-old boy had climbed into a homemade hot-air balloon and taken off over Colorado--the microblogging service's timeline temporarily slowed to a crawl and its trending topics were filled with tags like Colorado, Denver, and #balloonboy.
He was never actually in the balloon, apparently: CNN reported later on Thursday that he was found, safe, hiding in a box in the attic of his family home.
Live video streams from news outlets' helicopters showed the saucer-shaped balloon speeding through the air and then making a relatively soft landing. But then those same news outlets began to report that there was no one inside--sparking even more debate and speculation on Twitter.
My colleague Stephen Shankland ran a test and found that in a 30-second span, 836 tweets mentioned the word "balloon."
The boy reportedly lives in Fort Collins, Colo., and the balloon was built by his parents, who are avid storm-chasers.
It surfaced somehow amid the Twittering mess that the family had appeared on reality show "Wife Swap," and a video of its three sons singing a rap song has begun to rack up views on YouTube (mildly not-safe-for-work due to lyrics).
This post was updated at 3:17 p.m. PT.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
Jorge A. Baudouin
The boy was not inside of the compartment. There is news conference currently going on and from I am gathering there is a piece missing from the balloon, perhaps the actual passenger compartment. Still a lot of missing info and confusion.
I hope for the best possible ending and that the boy is found safe and unharmed.
Even if it is helium filled, not hot-air as quoted, a 12 foot SPHERICAL balloon should generate about 57 pounds which would have to lift weight of the balloon as well as a passenger. See:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/helium2.htm
This balloon is nowhere near spherical and not much more than 12 foot across.
I suspect and sincerely hope the lad was not in there and just did a runner once he realised he'd let his dad's balloon loose.
RGDS
"The dome-shaped balloon, about 20 feet long and 5 feet high, appeared to be a Mylar-coated helium balloon,"
Anyway ..how'd the kid make out?
In another vein, when people do risky things (honestly so, unlike this case) they should be required to carry specially insurance that covers them. It's not the rest of society's responsibility to pay millions of dollars in searches for those involved in accidents associated with risky, elective thrills such as mountain climbing, spelunking, and other expensive hobbies...
David
- by gardnecd October 16, 2009 2:32 AM PDT
- Glad the lad is OK even if it is a stunt.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(11 Comments)I think PatPratt you have dropped some decimals or got the volume calculation wrong. The volume of the envelope would be about 1,500 cubic feet that's 44,000 litres. giving a theoretical limit of about 44kg of buoyancy. That's a great deal of lift - but probably not quite enough to send its own weight and "payload" thousands of feet up.
It's enough to make it a very dangerous plaything though. The father would have done the (correct!) calculation and known that.
Didn't see Larry King as I'm I'm the UK so can't comment on their motivation or acting skills though.
RGDS