The "Balloon Boy" farce is now over. This, after thousands of state and federal dollars were used to chase a UFO-shaped mylar balloon across 50 miles of Colorado skies. After two National Guard helicopters were pressed into service, and Denver International Airport was closed. All in the hope of tracking a small boy, believed trapped in the passenger compartment of the balloon....as he flew along helplessly, carried by strong winds.
With 7 million transfixed viewers in tow.
What gives? Why could no one figure out that a puny milar balloon weighing all of fifteen pounds could not support a 39-lb. boy?
Or that helium, which can support 0.067 lbs per cubic foot, would not do that job, given a roughly 200 cu. foot volume for the balloon.
Simple multiplication:
(0.067 lb./cu. ft) x 200 cu ft. = 13. 4 lbs
discloses the weight of the boy at nearly three times what the balloon could carry. Hence, it would have been physically impossible for the boy to have been trapped inside the balloon.
Yet millions watched their televisions with bated breath, absolutely certain that a little boy was being taken along for a wild "UFO" ballon ride.
As reported in today's Denver Post, the parents now face criminal charges, with two separate counts that carry a $500,000 fine and 6 years in prison each. Evidently, from the Post story, the Larimar Cty. sheriff's office has now found clear evidence the duo (with the help of their kids) staged the hoax in order to get on a new reality TV show.
Not much more can be said for these people, so desperate to gain some sliver of fame and a minuscule fortune they'd pull off a major hoax costing tens of thousands, and commanding state and federal resources. But what about the legions of the gullible?
They clearly lack critical thinking skills. But then, what must one expect given a preponderance of believers who assert with every fiber of their being that:
- a man once stayed three days in the belly of a whale and lived to talk about it
- another ancient managed to stop the Earth's rotation by sounding a horn
- another ancient guy managed to walk on water and raise the dead
- the same guy rose from the dead and is due to come back any day now
I submit that any person who could believe any or all of the above could easily fall for a story line that a boy is trapped inside a UFO-shaped balloon- sailing over 50 miles inside it. And just as the same person would likely not scrutinize too closely the physics behind the balloon story - showing it to be quite impossible- he'd also likely not scrutinize the physics behind the consequences of causing the Earth to cease rotation. Which, as the late Isaac Asimov once pointed out, would mean the entire Earth's crust would be vaporized by the conversion of rotational energy into heat energy.
Again, this shows that serious critical thinking is the element most lacking in American education.
And why so many would prefer to rely on some specious "faith" instead!
That's exactly what I thought about this whole balloon boy story. How could so many people be so stupid to waste an entire afternoon tethered to their Tv sets when it was obviously a hoax?
ReplyDeleteBut then when you got people that believe the Earth is 6000 years old or that Noah got swallowed by a whale, stayed 3 days in its belly then came out alive, you can understand.
People might say, well one is religious faith the other is a hoax. But they don't get that if one is gullible in accepting anything and everything in the stupid bible - especially the dumbest version, the KJV, then they will likely accept any claim in the real world.
Good work on making the connection which no one else in the media has to my knowledge.