UFO Hoax

Today I played Wii bowling and Super Mario Bros. with my Frick Bros.

I have a bunch of yet-to-be-inflated 17″ balloons at my house that were to be used for a UFO I was going to launch.

A few months ago, I had this plan to send up a UFO over the Albuquerque skies. It contained lights and everything. Oddly enough, the stupid “balloon boy” thing appeared on the news while I was making the thing. Minus the setback for looking slightly unoriginal, I also discovered that the balloons and amount of helium required to lift my UFO was outrageously expensive.

My friend Kevin got super excited about the idea, so we calculated the cubic footage of helium required to lift the thing. It was only after he bought a bunch of balloons that we discovered they wouldn’t do the job.

In reality, we would need over fifty 17 inch balloons to lift my UFO… or around ten 36 inch balloons, or just one 6 foot balloon. It was to cost around $100 for the helium and balloons we needed, and I had already spent about $50 on lights, tape, and batteries for the UFO itself.

I used the Tape Man technique to make the UFO. Without lights/batteries, it weighed only 3 pounds. Then it was probably 8 pounds with lights and batteries. It’s crazy how much helium is required to lift only one pound.

It actually looked quite good with lights. It’s a clear shell, so the inside lit up pretty well. Unfortunately it’s a Hoax that needs investors, because now is the time of year where block laying season has come to a halt.