Word: falconer
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...mysterious metallic balloon thought to be carrying a Colorado boy had scarcely returned to Earth last week when a new website launched, its domain name asking the question that much of the nation was wondering: WhereIsBalloonBoy.com. Inspired by the disappearance of 6-year-old Falcon Heene - which authorities now believe was a hoax - the playful site featured question marks next to a picture of a bird (a falcon, naturally) and was updated twice more as the story developed. It later depicted a falcon poking out from a cardboard box, where the boy was found hiding in the Heenes' attic. Within...
...Thursday afternoon, when anyone watching TV news had to stop whatever they were doing and shudder. The giant, silver, Jiffy Pop balloon was climbing higher over Larimer County, Colorado, and on the ground a 10-year-old boy named Bradford Heene had told the sheriff that his little brother Falcon was inside. Falcon? Was some Greek narrative poet scripting this tragedy? Their father Richard longed to live large, a scientist, storm chaser, wife swapper, aspiring reality-TV star. He had built the vessel in the backyard; they called it his "flying saucer...
...what will surely be one of the strangest stories from the year, 6-year-old Falcon Heene from Fort Collins, Colo., was thought to have taken flight on Oct. 15 in a helium-filled homemade flying saucer that flew as high as 7,000 ft. (2,000 m) before returning to earth some 50 miles (80 km) from his home. Thankfully, Falcon was discovered hours later, reportedly hiding in a box in the family's attic. While his ill-advised adventure never really got off the ground, there is a rich history of do-it-yourself balloon travel - and many...
...fitting coincidence, the first known manned balloon flight occurred 226 years to the day before Falcon's supposed flight. On Oct. 15, 1783, French scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier ascended 84 ft. (25 m) off the ground - the length of the rope attached to the vessel. He followed this tentative milestone with the first untethered flight on Nov. 21, reaching an altitude of 3,000 ft. (900 m). But de Rozier would also have the inglorious distinction of becoming ballooning's first fatality. During a 1785 attempt to cross the English Channel, de Rozier...
...favorite patterns that I think you can see in the Arctic explorers in the 1800s and early 1900s was a very dignified approach to everything they did, even in dying. They were oftentimes amazingly collected in the notes they left behind in their journals. [Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon] Scott is one of the better examples of that. On his return from the South Pole, he was only 15 miles or so from a supply dump that would have saved his life and the lives of his two remaining companions at that time. And they just couldn't do it. They...