No kid in the balloon, they say.
A publicity stunt?
What a swizz.
CNN says there is nobody in the balloon.
With a supposed six year old boy in a homemade hot-air balloon? Someone needs to be jack-slapped.
Yes, if so.
Imagine if one of the helicopters crashed or an ambulance flipped over racing to the scene.
I doubt that it was a publicity stunt.
The kid was either never in the balloon, although a sibling reported that he was when it took off, or he’s a splat in a field somewhere and it happened early on. He may have panicked and jumped out or just fell out of the rickety basket.
The only thing (well, maybe not only) was that the father’s first (or one of his first) call(s) seems to have been to the television station to “ask them to help with their [camera equipped] helicopter.”
Hmmmm.
Let’s not get too outraged over an implausible suggestion made on a message board. Nobody could have thought this would be good publicity for anything.
People do weird shit when they are in distress. The first thing one of the Columbine shooter’s mom did when she found out that her son was involved was walk to the hair salon and cancel her appointment for later in the day.
He mobilized the people he knew would jump on watching his kid? Damn, what a horrible thing to do.
But the dude is pretty nuts. Maybe his taste of fame on Wife Swap was to his liking.
I don’t see anything suspicious about calling for a helicopter, especially if the father already has connections to that television station from being a storm chaser. Getting a helicopter up there only makes sense.
Well, I hope it’s a hoax, almost, because . . . .
Mmmm. this isn’t turning out as cute as it started, is it.
I know.
Done.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator, who’s praying like mad for the little guy
If you are a news network and you’re covering the “six year old flies away in a balloon” story, the first thing you ought to know is whether or not the kid is even in the balloon. And it should not be taking this long to figure out if the kid is at his house or not. I hope the kid’s okay, and as a bonus, if he was never in the balloon, you can imagine the field day The Daily Show is going to have with this.
Unless he was in the balloon, then he fell out along the way.
Hm, metafilter. com /85861 /UP#2782136 this is a really good post just up over on Metafilter.
best case is he went to hide real quick so as to not get in trouble after letting the balloon loose