I wish I had posted this last night. If I had, I could have proven, once and for all, that I have a fantastic mental power which allows me to predict the future. But I was lazy, so "skeptics" will continue to doubt me.
Last night I knew, as a stone solid fact, that Falcon Heene was not in that balloon. Despite being 1,500 miles away and only seeing it on the TV, I used my fantastic mental power to determine that the boy was safe. This is a power which is latent in all humans and which I can help you develop, for a small fee.
This power is basic math.
Seriously, when I saw the balloon my first thought was, "Can that thing even lift a 6 year old boy?" Years of watching MythBusters and reading the Darwin Awards had shown me what it takes to actually lift a child.
The news said the balloon was 20 ft x 5 ft and disk saucer shaped. A cylinder that big would be about 1,500 cubic ft, but a saucer would have a much smaller volume. Call it about 1000 cubic feet. Helium lifts about 1 oz per cubic foot. That gives about 60 lbs of lift.
60 lbs of lift to get the balloon and the boy off the ground? I didn't buy it. There just wasn't enough lift.
My second thought was "Why didn't anyone ask the father if the balloon could even lift Falcon?" NextTenWords may have found the answer to that question.