Posted by Howard Richman on October 15 2009 at 24:35:39:
Here´s a selection from the story as reported by a Colorado television station:
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The story line was bizarre, dramatic and terrifying. A 6-year-old boy, trapped inside a helium balloon, racing across the Colorado sky at high altitude with very little chance of survival. Thankfully, it wasn´t true.
The flying saucer-shaped experimental aircraft drifted away from a backyard in Fort Collins Thursday morning, setting-off a media frenzy amid reports that 6-year-old Falcon Heene, whose father built the contraption, had climbed inside.
According to the family, Falcon´s brother, Brad, told his parents that Falcon climbed into a utility basket attached to the balloon and, somehow, the rope holding it in-place became untied, allowing the balloon to drift away around 11:00 a.m.
The boy´s father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon earlier in the day and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft.
Here´s a photo of the family:
The same family was once featured in a "wife swap" episode.
Howard