1.
Balloon boy hoax
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Falcon was nicknamed Balloon Boy by some in the media. After more than a flight that covered more than 50 miles across three counties, the balloon landed about 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport. Authorities sent several National Guard helicopters and local police in pursuit, later that afternoon the boy was reported to have been hiding in his homes attic the entire time. Suspicions soon arose that the incident was a hoax and a publicity stunt engineered by the Heenes, in response to a question about why he was hiding, Falcon said to his father, You guys said that, um, we did this for the show. On October 18, Larimer County sheriff Jim Alderden announced his conclusion that the incident was a hoax, Richard Heene pleaded guilty on November 13,2009, to the charge of attempting to influence a public servant. On December 23,2009, Richard Heene was sentenced to 90 days in jail and Mayumi Heene to 20 days of weekend jail, Richard was also ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution. The story gained great popularity on the Internet and Twitter, and was adapted into a musical comedy called Balloon Boy. Richard Heene and Mayumi Iizuka first met at a school in Hollywood, California. Heene had pursued careers in acting and stand-up comedy without success and, for a time, he, Heene is a handyman and an amateur scientist, whom associates have called a shameless self-promoter who would do almost anything to advance his latest endeavor. Heene is a storm chaser who started in the 1970s after a storm ripped the roof off a building he was working on, Heenes storm chasing has included riding a motorcycle into a tornado and reportedly flying a plane around the perimeter of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. He regularly involved his children in his endeavors, taking them along on UFO-hunting expeditions, the Heenes have three sons named Falcon, Bradford and Ryo. The family had been featured on the reality television show Wife Swap on two occasions, the time as a fan-favorite choice for the shows 100th episode. During his time on the show, Heene expressed his belief that humanity descended from aliens, Heene had unsuccessfully sought the medias interest in a proposed reality show called The Science Detectives, which he envisioned as a documentary series to investigate the mysteries of science. Months before the incident on October 15,2009, Heene pitched a reality show idea to the television channel TLC. After the balloon incident, the producer of Wife Swap said that a show involving the Heenes had been in development, the producer declined to provide specifics. The Lifetime channel had been set to air one of the Wife Swap episodes involving the Heenes on October 29,2009, but the station pulled the episode because of the balloon incident. He also stated that, once the high voltage timer was switched on, the balloon measured 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet in height, and was constructed from plastic tarps taped together, covered with an aluminum foil and held together with string and duct tape. The base of the balloon, which Falcon allegedly crawled into, was a utility box made from a thin piece of plywood
2.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and he is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the countrys earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a difficult life. Poe was born in Boston, the child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year, thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but Poe was with them well into young adulthood, tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money, Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at time that his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with the anonymous collection of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems. With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement, however, Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and he ultimately parted ways with John Allan. Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the several years working for literary journals and periodicals. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, in Richmond in 1836, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem The Raven to instant success and his wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal The Penn, Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, a number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre. He was born Edgar Poe in Boston on January 19,1809 and he had an elder brother William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister Rosalie Poe. Their grandfather David Poe Sr. had emigrated from Cavan, Ireland to America around the year 1750, Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeares King Lear, a play that the couple were performing in 1809
3.
Thomas Monck Mason
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Thomas Monck Mason was a flute player, writer, and balloonist. He wrote concerning the balloon trip and on theology and he was impoverished after renting London theatres to stage opera. Monck Mason was born in 1803 and he spent some years studying the flute abroad after he completed his formal education at Trinity College in Dublin. He composed a number of works as well as being a professional flautist. Monck Mason is shown in a painting preparing for a journey in a balloon with Charles Green and they travelled a record distance of 500 miles in 18 hours. In 1836, Thomas Monck Mason wrote an Account of the Late æronautical Expedition from London to Weilburg which detailed the journey and this book was dedicated to Hollond. The book contained illustrations of the balloon and its journey, the engravings were said to be based on sketches made by Mason. Mason describes the journey which took eighteen hours and how after landing they started to return to England. He notes that it took hours to procure fourteen helpers. These were required to get the balloon to the nearest town of Weilburg, Mason notes that the precise location where they landed was by a mil called Dillhausen in the valley of Elbern, two leagues from Weilburg. This is interesting as he says this is also the place where Jean-Pierre Blanchard landed in an earlier balloon trip when he set out from Frankfurt in 1785. Besides the painting and the book, the humorous poet Thomas Hood also wrote a poem to celebrate the epic journey to Nassau. The court case over the losses was to drag on for 23 years, for over thirty years after 1845 Mason published books on theology. His first book argued for the infallibility of the bible, masons book on the balloon trip was the model for a famous hoax told by Edgar Allan Poe. He published accounts of a man called Monck Mason who had just crossed the Atlantic by balloon in three days, Monck Mason Aeronautica, or, sketches illustrative of the theory and practice of aerostation - digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library
4.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
5.
Gas balloon
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A gas balloon is a balloon that flies in the air because it is filled with a gas less dense than air or lighter than air. It is tied to a thread to prevent it from flying up in the air and it is also sealed at the bottom to ensure that the gas doesnt escape. A gas balloon may also be called a Charlière for its inventor, today, familiar gas balloons include large blimps and small rubber party balloons. Blimps have displaced zeppelins as the dominant form of airship, the first gas balloon made its flight in August 1783. Designed by professor Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert, it carried no passengers or cargo, on September 19,1784 the brothers and M. Collin-Hullin flew for 6 hours 40 minutes, covering 186 km from Paris to Beuvry near Béthune. This was the first flight over 100 km, gas balloons remained popular throughout the age before powered flight. They could fly higher and further than hot-air balloons, but were dangerous as they were filled with hydrogen or coal gas. Gas ballooning has been popular in Europe, most notably in Germany, several gas balloon clubs exist throughout the country with well organized launch sites and well defined infrastructure making flights relatively easy to do. Rough estimates show 150 active gas pilots in Europe, in stark contrast, gas ballooning in the USA might have at most 30 active pilots who typically fly only once a year at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October. This is primarily due to the high cost of helium. This is starting to change with the introduction of hydrogen as a lifting gas, the German gas community has been a valuable resource in helping the US pilots gain skills in flying gas balloons and working with hydrogen as a lifting gas. Many US gas pilots have been and are participating in training flights in Germany. A gas balloon can also be tethered, on October 24,2014, Alan Eustace, a former Google executive, made a jump from the stratosphere, a shepericarp ballon, breaking Felix Baumgartners 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from a runway in Roswell, New Mexico. He reached a maximum altitude of 135,908 feet. The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using a device to separate from the helium balloon. The altitude record for a balloon is 53.0 kilometers
6.
Hoax
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A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as the truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences, although practical jokes have likely existed for thousands of years, one of the earliest recorded hoaxes in history was the drummer of Tedworth in 1661. The communication of hoaxes can be accomplished in almost any manner that a story can be communicated, in person, via word of mouth, via words printed on paper. However, hoaxes could also be spread via chain letters, which became easier as the cost of mailing a letter dropped. The invention of the press in the 15th century brought down the cost of a mass-produced books and pamphlets. During the 20th century, the hoax found a market in the form of supermarket tabloids. Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, whose origin is disputed, robert Nares defined the word hoax as meaning to cheat, dating from Thomas Adys 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. T. Barnum, whose Fiji mermaid contributed to his wealth—often acquire monetary gain or fame through their fabrications, one of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708. Swift predicted the death of John Partridge, one of the astrologers in England at that time, in the almanac. Partridges reputation was damaged as a result and his astrological almanac was not published for the six years. It is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context, political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections. A hoax differs from a trick or from fiction in that the audience is unaware of being deceived. A hoax is often intended as a joke or to cause embarrassment. It can also emerge from a marketing or advertising purpose, a resulting video clip of Chloe and Keiths Wedding was uploaded to YouTube and was viewed by over 30 million people and the couple was interviewed by numerous talk shows. Viewers were deluded into thinking that it was a clip of a real accident at a real wedding. A borderline case between fiction and hoax is a 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles describing a Martian invasion of Earth, many people who tuned in without hearing the introduction of the program as fiction were concerned that the invasion was real. Governments sometimes spread false information to facilitate their objectives, such as going to war, the Iraq dossier is an example of this, there is often a mixture of outright hoax and suppression and management of information to give the desired impression. In wartime and times of international tension rumors abound, some of which may be deliberate hoaxes, examples of politics-related hoaxes, Belgium is a country with a Flemish-speaking region and a French-speaking region
7.
The Sun (New York City)
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The Sun was a New York newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a paper, like the citys two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. The Sun was the most politically conservative of the three, in New York, The Sun began publication September 3,1833, as a morning newspaper edited by Benjamin Day with the slogan It Shines for All. This was a penny press newspaper, the Sun was groundbreaking in its content, being the first newspaper to report crimes and personal events such as suicides, deaths, and divorces. Day printed the first newspaper account of a suicide and this story was significant because it was the first about an ordinary person. It changed journalism forever, making the newspaper an integral part of the community, prior to this, all stories in newspapers were about politics or reviews of books or the theater. Day was the first to hire reporters to go out and collect stories, prior to this, newspapers relied on readers sending in items, and on making unauthorized copies of stories from other newspapers. His focus on crime is the beginning of the craft of reporting and storytelling, in addition, The Sun was aimed not at the elite but at the common masses of working people. Day and The Sun recognized that the masses were fast becoming literate, prior to The Sun, printers produced the newspapers, often at a loss, making their living selling printing services. An evening edition was introduced in 1887, Frank Munsey bought both editions in 1916 and merged the Evening Sun with his New York Press. On April 13,1844, The Sun published as factual a story by Edgar Allan Poe now known as The Balloon-Hoax, the story told of an imagined Atlantic crossing by hot-air balloon. Today, the paper is best known for the 1897 editorial Is There a Santa Claus, but if a man bites a dog, that is news. In 1926, the Sun published a review by John Grierson of Robert Flahertys film Moana, the series served as the basis for the 1954 movie On the Waterfront. The Suns first female reporter was Emily Verdery Bettey, hired in 1868. The 1952 film Deadline – U. S. A. is a story about the death of a New York newspaper called The Day, loosely based upon the old New York Sun, which closed in 1950. The original Sun newspaper was edited by Benjamin Day, making the newspaper name a play on words. The masthead of the original Sun is visible in a montage of newspaper clippings in a scene of the 1972 film The Godfather and they were recognized as a New York City landmark in 1986. In 2002, a new broadsheet was launched, styled The New York Sun and it was intended as a conservative alternative and local-news focused alternative to the more liberal/progressive The New York Times and other New York newspapers
8.
Hot air balloon
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A hot air balloon is a lighter than air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket, which carries passengers, the heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it has a lower density than the colder air outside the envelope. As with all aircraft, hot air balloons cannot fly beyond the atmosphere, unlike gas balloons, the envelope does not have to be sealed at the bottom, since the air near the bottom of the envelope is at the same pressure as the surrounding air. In modern sport balloons the envelope is made from nylon fabric. The hot air balloon is the first successful human-carrying flight technology, the first hot-air balloon flown in the Americas was launched from the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia on January 9,1793 by the French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than simply drifting with the wind are known as thermal airships, early unmanned hot air balloons were used in China. Zhuge Liang of the Shu Han kingdom, during the Three Kingdoms era and these lanterns are known as Kongming lanterns. Later that same day, Pilatre de Rozier became the human to ascend into the air, reaching an altitude of 26 m. The first free flight with passengers was made a few weeks later. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, the first military use of a hot air balloon happened in 1794 during the battle of Fleurus, when the French used the balloon lEntreprenant for observation. Modern hot air balloons, with a heat source, were developed by Ed Yost, beginning during the 1950s, his work resulted in his first successful flight. The first modern hot air balloon to be made in the United Kingdom was the Bristol Belle, presently, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation. Hot air balloons are able to fly to extremely high altitudes, on November 26,2005 Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest hot air balloon flight, reaching 21,027 m. He took off from downtown Mumbai, India, and landed 240 km south in Panchale, the previous record of 19,811 m had been set by Per Lindstrand on June 6,1988, in Plano, Texas. With a volume of 74 thousand cubic meters, the envelope was the largest ever built for a hot air craft. Designed to fly in the jet streams, the Pacific Flyer recorded the fastest ground speed for a manned balloon at 245 mph. The longest duration record was set by Swiss psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, Auguste Piccards grandson and it was the first nonstop trip around the world by balloon. The balloon left Château-dOex, Switzerland, on March 1,1999, the two men exceeded distance, endurance, and time records, traveling 19 days,21 hours, and 55 minutes
Works related to The Balloon-Hoax at Wikisource
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 1 public domain audiobook at LibriVox
