Posted on 10/15/2009 11:45:55 AM PDT by Arec Barrwin
Rescuers are tracking and chasing a "homemade flying saucer" that is in flight with a 6-year-old, by himself, on board.
The incident started this morning in Fort Collins when the boy got into the balloon-like device, which was built by an adult, and it came loose from a tether, according to the Larimer County Sheriff's Office.
The contraption could rise as high as 10,000 feet, the sheriff's office said.
The home-made flying saucer was last seen in flight over Weld County.
The sheriff's office is working the Federal Aviation Administration to determine how to best get the boy down.
The homemade airplane was tethered in Fort Collins when the boy got onboard and it floated away. (Lisa Ecklund via 9News)
The six-year-old boy was by himself on board the hommade aircraft. (Courtesy Lisa Ecklund, via 9News)
The craft could fly as high as 10,000 feet, according to the Weld County Sheriff's Office. (Lisa Ecklund via 9News)
Battery compartment?
They think maybe a box was attached to the bottom...and that a police officer might’ve seen it fall off.
News said the gondola was 5’ across. When I saw it on the ground it was more like 4’. If it would hold weight, an adult could curl up in there.
Helium leaked out.
It was a "planned event" to put a 6 year-old in basket that's attached to a balloon the size of a large hot tub? Are they retarded? If that's true, those parents need to be beaten - severely.
Watching the live Fox 31 feed; a neighbor was out with his kids and shot the video or the ‘flying saucer’ going over.
Hopefully, they are enhancing the neighbor’s video to determine if the basket was still attached...and they can search back from there.
Police looking for boy in a couple square mile area where they think a police officer saw something fall. It is scrub and police are on ATV’s according to local fox affiliate...http://www.kdvr.com/news/livestreaming/
The People on the news are sometimes just out there.
So what is the update, getting worse/better for the hopes of finding the boy alive, I am confused.
Fox 31 showing a video shot by a bystander in a Fort Collins park shortly after takeoff. Reporter description “Chilling.”
Storm chaser
The boy's father, Richard Heene, is an amateur scientist, according to a 2007 Denver Post article on weather chasers. He joined another man, Scott Stevens, to form a Fort Collins-based weather-research team they called The Psyience Detectives.
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Had to leave for a bit. What’s the latest? Any word on the boy’s location/condition?
What I’m calling the gondola is 4’ across with a door. It needed nothing else for holding whatever weather equipment was planned.
Also it was intened to be no more than 20’ off the ground.
I don’t see any reason for another basket.
Sheriff’s department saying the balloon landed in the same condition as when it took off, there was no basket. They are now focusing the search on a park southeast of the boy’s home.
“It came down without a kid in it how could it taken off with him in it?”
The desperate child jumped.
Someone just called Hannity’s show, and did some rough math on the volume of the balloon, looked up the lifting capacity of helium, and suggested that it was HIGHLY UNLIKELY that that balloon ever carried that boy anywhere at all- since it didn’t have anything like the capacity to lift the average six year old boy.
Witnesses notwithstanding, I think the caller might be on to something there.
A planned event?
The interviewed neighbor said the plan was for it to hover about 20 feet up. No mention about whether kid was in the balloon or not.
#1191
it said 20feet by five feet. 20 foot diameter by about 5 depth wise. Dome shaped. at 20 foot diameter ballon with nelium could lift about 260lbs. But this is a circular balloon. A dome shaped balloon with a 5 foot depth cuts that significantly lower. I dont think its possible given the measurments they are describing, but I could be wrong.
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