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That Time People Rioted Over a Hot Air Balloon · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our super producer, the
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Speaker 1: one and only Max Williams. Give it up for folks.
0:37
Speaker 1: And Uh, my name is Ben. I'm a I'm a
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Speaker 1: fan of a balloons snol. It's it's kind of birthday
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Speaker 1: season for you and me, isn't it Leo season s
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Speaker 1: z n as the kids say on the internet. Uh,
0:51
Speaker 1: and I am no. I don't think I introduced myself
0:52
Speaker 1: in the last episodes. If anyone's confused, it's me no.
0:56
Speaker 1: And yeah, my birthday is August eight, And I think
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Speaker 1: you're just right around there. Matt Frederick, our compatriots from
1:01
Speaker 1: Stuff that It Wants you to Know, also has one
1:03
Speaker 1: like I think we're in like a three or four
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Speaker 1: day span of each other. Yeah, yeah, I don't know
1:08
Speaker 1: if Matt wants me putting his birthday out on the airways,
1:11
Speaker 1: but I have the same birth whole Colgan has the
1:15
Speaker 1: same birthday as me, August eleven. That's been a sore
1:18
Speaker 1: point for him in our relationship. And Hulk Hogan is
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Speaker 1: from my hometown of Augusta, Georgia. So it all comes
1:23
Speaker 1: back around. It always goes back back to Hogan, except
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Speaker 1: for today's episode, which is, yeah, he has nothing to do,
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Speaker 1: he has nothing to do with. But it's kind of
1:31
Speaker 1: birthday related because you know, when you're when you're celebrating,
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Speaker 1: uh you on many parts of the world, just celebrating
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Speaker 1: a birthday or some important event, you get a balloon.
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Speaker 1: And nowadays we see balloons in general as something innocuous,
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Speaker 1: is something fun and interesting, whether we're talking about a
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Speaker 1: little helium balloon that says happy Birthday on it, or
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Speaker 1: whether we're talking about a hot air balloon, which I
1:54
Speaker 1: can't I can't wait to get in one once I
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Speaker 1: feel safer about the steering, right, Yeah, I think they're
2:00
Speaker 1: still working on that. It's pretty rudimentary still to this day,
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Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, Like a lot of it has
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Speaker 1: to do with ballasts and you know, getting rid of
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Speaker 1: sandbags and all of that. I I don't know that
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Speaker 1: just maybe they've made advancements in in hot air balloon technology,
2:12
Speaker 1: but it used to be the absolute height of exploration technology.
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Speaker 1: Um when yeah, not even on purpose, But thank you
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Speaker 1: for pointing that out, because back in you know, the
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Speaker 1: early days the nineteenth century, the air the sky was
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Speaker 1: a total mystery, in the same way that like the
2:32
Speaker 1: deepest depths of the ocean, you know, were for a
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Speaker 1: long time, and now we would probably make it a
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Speaker 1: little more akin to like the deepest reaches of outer space.
2:40
Speaker 1: As far as they were concerned, it was a weird
2:43
Speaker 1: bizarro land out there. They there was a pretty widespread
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Speaker 1: belief that there were sky monsters, massive like pterodactyl type
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Speaker 1: birds that could, you know, swoop a man up with
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Speaker 1: his talents and drop him from great heights, like the
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Speaker 1: weird dragons at the Ring Wraiths ride and Lord of
3:00
Speaker 1: the Rings. That's always a cool flex when you pick
3:02
Speaker 1: somebody up and fly them up him and drop them
3:04
Speaker 1: to their death, or the rock like the ro oc
3:08
Speaker 1: It goes on and on, it sure does. But we
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Speaker 1: are talking specifically today about the early days of not astronauts,
3:15
Speaker 1: but aeron nots. These were some super intrepid people that
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Speaker 1: were kind of putting themselves on the line, their lives
3:23
Speaker 1: on the line for the at the time really more
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Speaker 1: entertainment purposes. It wasn't even really considered to be a
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Speaker 1: scientific pursuit until a little bit later, And there certainly
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Speaker 1: was that exploratory spirit, but it really became this thing
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Speaker 1: that people would like mob around to check out the
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Speaker 1: latest hot air balloon um flight because chances are someone's
3:44
Speaker 1: probably gonna fall to their death, Yeah, exactly. And there
3:48
Speaker 1: was a common belief that even if they didn't fall
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Speaker 1: to their death, they would die in the atmosphere because
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Speaker 1: the sky was also thought to contain disease causing vapors,
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Speaker 1: so folks and folks also validly feared that the aeronauts
4:04
Speaker 1: would die of oxygen deprivation. But there were two French
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Speaker 1: brothers and s where our story really begins, who bucked
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Speaker 1: those common misconceptions are common beliefs. Joseph Michelle Montgolfier and
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Speaker 1: Jacques Etienne mount Golfe. These are the folks who on
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Speaker 1: November one three launched the first piloted hot air balloon.
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Speaker 1: And this a lot of this comes to us from
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Speaker 1: our pals over at Mental Floss over the BBC and
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Speaker 1: excellent little article in Lyster Mercury dot co dot UK.
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Speaker 1: Also Smithsonian mag there's a fantastic article the true History
4:45
Speaker 1: of the Aeronauts who transformed our view of the world above,
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Speaker 1: and that was written by Jennifer Tucker for the Conversation.
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Speaker 1: So this has already started out on a really weird
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Speaker 1: note with an opinion from the French monarch Louis the sixteenth,
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Speaker 1: because he had a concern He said, you know, I
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Speaker 1: don't want to be responsible for fatalities when these aeronauts
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Speaker 1: go up into the sky, because they're obviously gonna die, right.
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Speaker 1: And he looks around at his court and he's like,
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Speaker 1: they're gonna die, right, and nobody's like, yeah, they're gonna die.
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Speaker 1: Probably are good. Yeah, And so they had to they
5:23
Speaker 1: had to figure out who could pilot the balloon knowing
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Speaker 1: that they might die, and how how to make sure
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Speaker 1: that this wouldn't be a pr disaster when they inevitably
5:34
Speaker 1: passed away. So what what did he go with? Noel,
5:37
Speaker 1: you know, criminals? He just figured, hey, why not? You know,
5:40
Speaker 1: their their lives are forfeit anyway. Uh, these are talking
5:43
Speaker 1: we're talking about ones that were, you know, likely scheduled
5:46
Speaker 1: to be executed. But thankfully some of the more science
5:50
Speaker 1: minded individuals in uh Louie's entourage talked him out of
5:53
Speaker 1: the idea of taking completely you know, skill less at least,
5:57
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they had some skills, you know, certain
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Speaker 1: set of skills just criminals, probably not piloting murder, petty larsony,
6:04
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, but definitely not piloting hot air balloons,
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Speaker 1: which is a very cutting edge technology. So uh, it
6:11
Speaker 1: turned out that a scientist by the name of Jean
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Speaker 1: Frescois Pelote de Rosier and uh an aristocrat named Francois
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Speaker 1: Lauren dr Lands were chosen by the Mongolfayer brothers to
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Speaker 1: pilot a balloon, and on November twenty one three, they
6:27
Speaker 1: did just that, and they flew for twenty minutes and
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Speaker 1: became the first people to experience sustained flight. So the
6:36
Speaker 1: Mongolfier brothers, what was their deal? They launched a hot
6:41
Speaker 1: air balloon, but it was it didn't like the flight
6:43
Speaker 1: didn't last for very long. Well, they first did a
6:45
Speaker 1: series of animal experiments similar to what we seen space exploration.
6:50
Speaker 1: They launched, Uh, they launched the hot air balloon with
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Speaker 1: a rooster, a duck, and a sheep. That's right, ridiculous historians.
6:57
Speaker 1: There should be a Pixar movie on the way. And
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Speaker 1: they did that just like just a few months earlier,
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Speaker 1: September night three. Uh, and they thought they had a
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Speaker 1: logic to it, they thought cheaper similar enough to people
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Speaker 1: that will see how altitude affects land lover and ducks
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Speaker 1: and roosters can already fly to what degree or another,
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Speaker 1: and so we'll see, we'll see how they do when
7:22
Speaker 1: they're not flying on their own power. And that balloon
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Speaker 1: was only it was tethered, so it wasn't flying free
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Speaker 1: and was only up for about what eight minutes? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and I think because I mean, we talked about this briefly.
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Speaker 1: This is the idea of the spectacle because the technology
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Speaker 1: was very rudimentary and oftentimes the balloons would spontaneously deflate
7:41
Speaker 1: and air. Uh, they would drift over the ocean and
7:45
Speaker 1: deflate in the air. They would occasionally catch fire for
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Speaker 1: various reasons. But the duck and the sheep were unharmed.
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Speaker 1: It gives me serious like monkeys and space kind of vibes,
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Speaker 1: you know. Yep, and the rooster made it through as well.
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Speaker 1: They forgot about the it's uh yeah, you know, maybe
8:02
Speaker 1: the crowd was there chanting here they come to snuff
8:05
Speaker 1: the rooster. Alison Chains album is based on this story. Yeah,
8:11
Speaker 1: total facts. Um. So again, there there was this sense
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Speaker 1: of danger. Um. So there was a an absolute kind
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Speaker 1: of almost bread and circuses vibe to these events because
8:23
Speaker 1: these aeronauts and their passengers often did fall to their
8:27
Speaker 1: death if the balloons were untethered, and people wanted to
8:31
Speaker 1: hang out and see if anything would go horribly horribly wrong.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the Smithsonian mag points out that Charles Dickens
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Speaker 1: felt like this was an absolute hideous form of entertainment.
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Speaker 1: He compared them to public executions. Yeah, I kind of
8:44
Speaker 1: like the people who would go to watch motorsport race
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Speaker 1: purely waiting for an accident to occur. So the British
8:53
Speaker 1: Association for the Advancement of Science in eighteen sixty two
8:57
Speaker 1: they say, we're gonna We're gonna fund this, We're gonna
9:00
Speaker 1: see us We're gonna have a series of flights to
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Speaker 1: study the upper atmosphere, which means these balloons are going
9:07
Speaker 1: to have to fly as high as they possibly can
9:11
Speaker 1: and we're talking airplane commercial flight light heights. Uh. Yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: the closest they could get to it. I think they
9:18
Speaker 1: managed to. They get over twenty thousand feet pretty quickly.
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Speaker 1: There's a guy who who have founded the British Meteorological
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Speaker 1: Society named James Glacier who volunteered to perform these flights
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Speaker 1: between eighteen sixty two and eighteen sixty six. This dude
9:36
Speaker 1: alone made twenty eight cents and uh, you know these
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Speaker 1: were funded by the association, not him. He had a pilot,
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Speaker 1: so he's kind of a long for the ride to
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Speaker 1: monitor stuff. And this pilot is a guy named Henry Coxwell,
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Speaker 1: at this point with this, you know, with the age
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Speaker 1: of this technology, he's automatically a world class expert. Their
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Speaker 1: first flight, they reached the height of twenty six thousand
10:02
Speaker 1: That's insane. It gives me vertigo just reading that on
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Speaker 1: a page. Yeah, can you imagine being in that little basket.
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Speaker 1: And they certainly wouldn't have had any like oxygen support,
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Speaker 1: you know, masks or anything at the time. And as
10:13
Speaker 1: we know, you know, the air gets very thin up
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Speaker 1: there and and he and also very very very cold.
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Speaker 1: They made another ascent on September five in a balloon
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Speaker 1: that was dubbed the Mars Chickin a lot of this
10:24
Speaker 1: gives me kind of precursor to space travel type bub um. Yeah,
10:28
Speaker 1: and they got up to thirty thousand feet, but it
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Speaker 1: was an absolute disaster. Glass Year went blind for a
10:34
Speaker 1: time while he was up there due to the atmospheric pressure,
10:37
Speaker 1: I imagine, uh, and he lost consciousness and coxwell due
10:42
Speaker 1: to like some sort of issue with the rigging. Had
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Speaker 1: to climb up into the bat into the balloon area
10:48
Speaker 1: and free a tangled valve line. And he wasn't even
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Speaker 1: wearing gloves, and his hands were so cold they were
10:56
Speaker 1: essentially borderline hypothermic that he had to rip the valve
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Speaker 1: court free using his teeth, his bare teeth. The valve lines,
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Speaker 1: you know, again, like I was talking about, it would
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Speaker 1: measure barometric pressure and be able to detect when they
11:12
Speaker 1: had reached a certain height and then would start to
11:14
Speaker 1: ease down their descent. But with a malfunction and that equipment,
11:18
Speaker 1: they would have just continued to rise and rise and rise. Thankfully,
11:22
Speaker 1: he got it free and they did descend. But if
11:25
Speaker 1: he hadn't, they absolutely would have died from freezing to
11:28
Speaker 1: death hypothermia or from lack of oxygen. They would have
11:33
Speaker 1: just suffocated and in the atmosphere. Yeah, it's absolutely true. Specifically,
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Speaker 1: they we believe they reached the height of about thirty
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Speaker 1: seven thousand feet and just for comparison, Smithsonian in those
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Speaker 1: magnificent and dot CO Dot you can make a great
11:47
Speaker 1: comparison here, thirty seven thousand feet is eight thousand feet
11:52
Speaker 1: higher than the summit of Mount Everest. So they have
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Speaker 1: literally gone higher into the atmosphere than any human being
12:02
Speaker 1: ever before throughout the span of history. And they, like
12:06
Speaker 1: you said, old, they barely came back to tell the tale.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting because you would think there there are a
12:19
Speaker 1: couple of different responses to this. If you survive, you
12:22
Speaker 1: might say, Okay, that's enough air for me. I have
12:25
Speaker 1: feet and I will keep them on the ground. Or
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Speaker 1: you might think how much further can I push the envelope?
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Speaker 1: Henry Coxwell was the latter. He decided that he would
12:37
Speaker 1: doubled out, he made another highly publicized flight, or he
12:41
Speaker 1: prepared for another highly publicized fight. In eighteen sixty four,
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Speaker 1: he was gonna launch his balloon, like we said, in
12:49
Speaker 1: front of a crowd. This was publicized. Dickens was not
12:52
Speaker 1: exaggerating when he said. This drew lots of crowds. So
12:56
Speaker 1: because he had had that close brush with death, he
12:59
Speaker 1: was kind of like an evil Kinevil character, you know,
13:02
Speaker 1: kind of like a stunt man, like is this the
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Speaker 1: time he dies? Probably by some considered to be a hero,
13:10
Speaker 1: a real pioneer, you know, of of the air, but
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Speaker 1: by many also probably seemed as being an idiot who
13:16
Speaker 1: was destined for doom any second, and they were hoping
13:20
Speaker 1: to maybe witness that firsthand. And this took place in
13:24
Speaker 1: Leicester in the United Kingdom, and uh it got a
13:27
Speaker 1: little rowdy, go a little rowdy. Around fifty people showed
13:32
Speaker 1: up to see this launch and some things went some ways. So, yes,
13:38
Speaker 1: this reminds me. This feels like a Tim Robinson sketch
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Speaker 1: from I think you should leave now. So Coxwell is
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Speaker 1: giving a million balloon together. He's working, he's doing his best,
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Speaker 1: you know, he's he's good, his ballue together, he's good,
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Speaker 1: ready to launch. There's some guy in the back who's like, hey,
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Speaker 1: it's small blue. Was that sure about that? That's the
14:00
Speaker 1: reason why sure about that? That's the reason why. Yeah.
14:04
Speaker 1: So he's like, we get ripped off, we get ripped off. Sure,
14:08
Speaker 1: that's the ripe balloon. I thought it would be the big,
14:11
Speaker 1: big balloon. And then everybody else is like yeah, yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: see when it was there's a mini balloon. Yeah. And
14:19
Speaker 1: so not to like neg the British people, that's not
14:22
Speaker 1: what we're here to do. But I mean this was
14:25
Speaker 1: these were largely working class, you know, soccer hooligan types,
14:29
Speaker 1: you know, who were very much getting riled up, and
14:31
Speaker 1: we're there to see a show, and they felt i mean,
14:34
Speaker 1: presumably it was free. So it's sort of to me
14:37
Speaker 1: is sort of the equivalent of like why people get
14:39
Speaker 1: so cranky and podcast reviews about like ads or whatever
14:43
Speaker 1: for your free podcast. You know, I don't fully understand.
14:46
Speaker 1: I've never left a review for anything, let alone something
14:49
Speaker 1: that was free. Um, so I'm confused as to how
14:52
Speaker 1: they felt so entitled as to what the show should
14:55
Speaker 1: be or would be. And again, this guy was approaching
14:58
Speaker 1: it very scientifically, and he was approaching it, you know,
15:00
Speaker 1: with the expertise of a seasoned aeronaut, a seasoned balloonist.
15:04
Speaker 1: Right yeah, yeah, And so later Coxwell says that someone
15:11
Speaker 1: mentioned the balloon that he was using was not his
15:16
Speaker 1: largest and newest balloon, and that's how the rumor kind
15:19
Speaker 1: of spread, and that's how people, uh, that's how the
15:22
Speaker 1: conversation got primed. And he said this was this was libel,
15:27
Speaker 1: and that people were saying that he was somehow swindling
15:30
Speaker 1: them from the spectacle they expected. So the crowds getting sour.
15:34
Speaker 1: The they're gathering closer and closer to the balloon. There's
15:38
Speaker 1: maybe like a couple of cops on duty. They have
15:41
Speaker 1: no chance to control this, and people break into his space,
15:45
Speaker 1: his launch space, and they're like, well, at least take
15:48
Speaker 1: off now, at least take off now. And uh, he's
15:51
Speaker 1: Coxwell is freaking out because some people had paid to
15:55
Speaker 1: sit in the balloon with him and fly the friendly skies.
15:58
Speaker 1: But there were so many people my you know, and
16:01
Speaker 1: he thought, uh, rightfully, I would think that those that
16:04
Speaker 1: paid the money would maybe be a little more civilized.
16:07
Speaker 1: But that wasn't true either. They were. They were like
16:09
Speaker 1: clamoring to get in there and actually held up his
16:13
Speaker 1: launch even further. We have some really amazing quotes from
16:16
Speaker 1: Coxwell himself from the BBC article of Victorian Strangeness the
16:21
Speaker 1: Great Balloon Ride of eighteen sixty four. It's a it's
16:24
Speaker 1: just a collection of blog posts. It's not credited to
16:26
Speaker 1: any one individual writer, but we have these were great quotes,
16:29
Speaker 1: and one of them goes like this, I'm not gonna
16:31
Speaker 1: do a voice. I'm just gonna go for it. Those
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Speaker 1: who had paid their money and obtained tickets pounced into
16:35
Speaker 1: the basket in such a rude and unceremonious manner that
16:38
Speaker 1: all operations were stopped, and the passengers themselves were preventing
16:42
Speaker 1: their own departure. One person seated in my car was
16:45
Speaker 1: a disgrace to his town, as by his gestures and
16:49
Speaker 1: foul language, he excited the mob and induced the belief
16:52
Speaker 1: that there existed on my part a disinclination to ascend.
16:57
Speaker 1: The pressure of the mob was now so great that
16:59
Speaker 1: my car was damaged, the network broken in several places.
17:03
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you're talking about the hatchwork of literal lines
17:06
Speaker 1: and all of that exactly broken in several places, owing
17:09
Speaker 1: to persons hanging onto the lower meshes, and a bottle
17:13
Speaker 1: was thrown into the balloon. These people were just starting
17:17
Speaker 1: off in a bad mood. Uh, animals. Yeah, let's let's
17:21
Speaker 1: let's jump forward here. Coxwell says. He tries to reason
17:25
Speaker 1: with the crowd and then threatens them with the idea
17:29
Speaker 1: that he'll release the gas in the balloon if they
17:33
Speaker 1: will turn this car around and take you home right now, children.
17:36
Speaker 1: If they don't calm down, and uh, that doesn't work,
17:40
Speaker 1: they just start saying, you know, like a pox on you,
17:43
Speaker 1: you fiddle stick or whatever, and so he as he says,
17:47
Speaker 1: I forthwith executed my threat. So the balloom collapses. Uh.
17:52
Speaker 1: This made people think that Coxwell wasn't punishing them, that
17:56
Speaker 1: they had somehow exposed the big secret that he had
17:59
Speaker 1: a crap balloon, and the Lyster Chronicle reports reports the
18:04
Speaker 1: moment in a contemporaneous style. They say, to the astonishment
18:08
Speaker 1: of everyone, the canvass, which a few moments before appeared
18:11
Speaker 1: every inch of it to be well filled with gas,
18:13
Speaker 1: began to hang loose and flapped in the wind so
18:15
Speaker 1: much that it was soon apparent that the gas was
18:18
Speaker 1: fast escaping. All doubt on this point was soon dispelled,
18:21
Speaker 1: more especially in regard to those people immediately surrounding it,
18:25
Speaker 1: for the stench became intolerable, and every moment the size
18:28
Speaker 1: of the balloon became less and less, the wind filling
18:31
Speaker 1: its loose folds and causing it to pitch and toss
18:34
Speaker 1: about considerably and threatening every moment to fall upon the
18:37
Speaker 1: heads of those who stood near it. Finally, the whole
18:40
Speaker 1: structure fell into a shapeless mass on the ground. The
18:44
Speaker 1: crowd who stood around immediately seized upon the net work
18:47
Speaker 1: and material of the balloon and tore it into a
18:50
Speaker 1: hundred shreds, and then they set the they set the
18:54
Speaker 1: basket the car. They call it on fire man. People
18:57
Speaker 1: shu it right, good back then, didn't they You really
19:00
Speaker 1: see it, You can really picture the scene now, it's
19:02
Speaker 1: really well, well, well they're well written. Um, it's true.
19:05
Speaker 1: And again there were very few security officers on site,
19:09
Speaker 1: so they had to actually call in the heavies at least,
19:12
Speaker 1: you know, as many as they could get their hands on.
19:13
Speaker 1: And that was too and Inspector Hayes Haynes rather and
19:17
Speaker 1: a sergeant Chapman who got there to try to do
19:19
Speaker 1: some crowd control. But if I'm not mistaken, then that
19:22
Speaker 1: we're talking about fifty people here. Yeah, how are you
19:25
Speaker 1: how are you gonna do? How are you gonna do
19:26
Speaker 1: crowd control with like two two cops? That doesn't make
19:30
Speaker 1: us very poorly planned? Well, they thought people would be
19:32
Speaker 1: better behaved, noal, I guess so. Well, anyway, they very
19:36
Speaker 1: quickly realized they couldn't control this throng, so they just
19:39
Speaker 1: decided we gotta get coxwell the hell out of here
19:41
Speaker 1: because they're gonna tear him limb from limb like they
19:43
Speaker 1: tore his poor balloon basket. Yeah, yep, and uh this
19:48
Speaker 1: they finally the sergeant Chapman leads Coxwell away while the
19:54
Speaker 1: crowd is screaming for his blood and literally tearing his
19:58
Speaker 1: clothes off of him, and they're yelling stuff like rip
20:01
Speaker 1: them up, finish him, just like Immortal Kombat, which is
20:05
Speaker 1: also him on the head like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
20:08
Speaker 1: And so they're on the run. Coxwell hides out in
20:12
Speaker 1: the town clerk's house, which is nearby. And while just
20:17
Speaker 1: to give you a sense of how chaotic this is, folks,
20:21
Speaker 1: some of those people who had ripped parts of Coxwell's
20:24
Speaker 1: clothing off immediately turned around and start selling pieces of
20:28
Speaker 1: that and pieces of the torn balloon as souvenirs of
20:32
Speaker 1: this this disastrous riot. It's like, uh, I, I just
20:36
Speaker 1: I don't know about people selling riot memorabilia mid riot.
20:41
Speaker 1: I think that takes that takes some hustle, for real. Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 1: it's a special kind of awful. And again, from that amazing,
20:48
Speaker 1: amazing BBC collection of you know, reports from this event,
20:52
Speaker 1: there is a quote from a letter writer who wrote
20:56
Speaker 1: into the chronicle kind of describing the scene and you know,
20:59
Speaker 1: complaining about almost being trampled to death. I never witnessed
21:02
Speaker 1: such barbarous ignorance, baseness and injustice in my life. I
21:06
Speaker 1: feared Mr Coxwell would be killed. I was knocked down
21:09
Speaker 1: thrice myself simply for endeavoring to defend him. So this
21:13
Speaker 1: points out about something I think we shouldn't mention. Obviously,
21:16
Speaker 1: of that fifty thousand, surely there was a decent contingent
21:19
Speaker 1: of people who were just fans of the guy and
21:22
Speaker 1: did not distrust him. It was obviously like a certain
21:25
Speaker 1: element that was getting people all riled up, and maybe
21:29
Speaker 1: there was alcohol involved. I I don't know, but it
21:32
Speaker 1: sure sounds like it because I don't understand what they're that.
21:35
Speaker 1: You're right, it is such an absurd ist thing, like
21:37
Speaker 1: from one of those Tim Robinson sketches, like the balloons
21:40
Speaker 1: too small kill him, you know what I mean? It's
21:44
Speaker 1: like absurd And then probably smaller balloon is what you want.
21:47
Speaker 1: I bet like it's more nimble, right, A smaller balloon
21:50
Speaker 1: is probably what you want. Well, there there are you
21:53
Speaker 1: sure about that? Sure about that? But I'm not. They're not.
21:57
Speaker 1: I am not. They're really they think that's a weird
21:59
Speaker 1: to man is they're demanding the balloom be launched and
22:03
Speaker 1: then they started attacking the balloon, and they've tried a lot.
22:06
Speaker 1: It's very weird, it's very strange. But we we know
22:10
Speaker 1: that the town of Leicster got a really bad name
22:13
Speaker 1: and the press for this, the London Review of Politics, Society, Literature,
22:18
Speaker 1: Art and Science, characterized them as a horde of savages,
22:22
Speaker 1: is fierce and untamed as south Sea Islanders. This was
22:26
Speaker 1: the racism common at the time. And yeah, and then
22:30
Speaker 1: they also said, uh, it's humiliating to think that, after
22:34
Speaker 1: all the civilizing influences they've been exerted upon them, so
22:38
Speaker 1: much of the savage should still linger in the blood
22:41
Speaker 1: of our working classes. So you can kind of see
22:45
Speaker 1: that who this who this review is aiming to communicate with. Uh,
22:49
Speaker 1: so classism goes in in their own way. They're being
22:52
Speaker 1: just as trashy, I would argue, as the mob and Leicester.
22:56
Speaker 1: But over in Leicester Town if you if you walk
22:59
Speaker 1: over there afterwards, you would hear a lot of the locals,
23:02
Speaker 1: some of whom were doubtlessly tearing out this balloon earlier.
23:06
Speaker 1: You'll hear them say no, that was all from out
23:08
Speaker 1: of town ers, or maybe those jerks from what was
23:11
Speaker 1: it Nottingham, which I love that idea. They're like anything
23:15
Speaker 1: bad that happens in this town, it's those those monsters
23:18
Speaker 1: from Nottingham, those fiddlesticks, the town brass like you said
23:28
Speaker 1: that was blaming the folks from Nottingham. Referred to them
23:31
Speaker 1: as excursionists. And then we're gonna get into some nicknames now.
23:34
Speaker 1: It's kind of fun. People from Leicester, by the way,
23:36
Speaker 1: are known as les tri Ends. That's not a term
23:38
Speaker 1: of abuse, but one that was hurled at them. But
23:41
Speaker 1: you know, the greater public was Chisetts don't have an
23:44
Speaker 1: etymology behind that. I'm not quite sure that's referring to.
23:47
Speaker 1: But in eighteen sixty four Punch magazine, which is a
23:49
Speaker 1: fantastic satirical magazine that ran for a very long time
23:53
Speaker 1: if it's not still running, if I'm not mistaken, but
23:56
Speaker 1: they called them balloonatics love It, which sounds like a
23:59
Speaker 1: punk band. They're like a kind of a synth wave
24:01
Speaker 1: kind of tongue in cheek synth wave band. Really cool,
24:04
Speaker 1: the balloonatics. I did. I did find one speculative guests
24:09
Speaker 1: at the etymology of chiset its. Apparently it refers to
24:13
Speaker 1: the phrase how much is it? As one word, as
24:18
Speaker 1: in their cheap as in their low class. Because if
24:20
Speaker 1: you're like upper class and you don't ever ask how
24:22
Speaker 1: much something is, you know that you can either afford it,
24:25
Speaker 1: or you can if you know how to wlask shop. Yeah,
24:30
Speaker 1: so this this, this is uh, this is ludicrous, but
24:34
Speaker 1: it is instructive. And we're happy to report that over
24:38
Speaker 1: time technology improved in the world of ballooning and aeronautics,
24:43
Speaker 1: and as it improved, hot air balloon pilots or aeronauts
24:47
Speaker 1: became more skilled because they have word of an opportunity
24:50
Speaker 1: to gain experience, and then soon enough you could take
24:54
Speaker 1: passengers with you on longer excursions as long as they
24:58
Speaker 1: would pay for the trip. We believe at the time
25:02
Speaker 1: that around the time Glacier himself was just sending the
25:07
Speaker 1: guy who went so many times during that short year period.
25:10
Speaker 1: He was that early balloon evangelists, right, yeah, yeah, the
25:13
Speaker 1: parlamentier of the balloons there at that time. It cost
25:17
Speaker 1: it would cost you about six hundred pounds, which we
25:22
Speaker 1: estimate is somewhere north of nine dollars today to just
25:27
Speaker 1: to build a balloon. So if you wanted to ride one,
25:32
Speaker 1: you would have to pay fifty pounds to hire a
25:36
Speaker 1: pilot and just to rent the balloon and to pay
25:39
Speaker 1: for the gas for a single trip. So this was
25:42
Speaker 1: this was expensive. This was not yet something the middle
25:46
Speaker 1: or working class could do. And people loved people loved it.
25:51
Speaker 1: People love exclusive stuff, right, so they would just It's
25:55
Speaker 1: kind of like reporting the taste of pineapple during the
25:57
Speaker 1: pineapple craze. There was amazing. You don't know how to
26:00
Speaker 1: describe it. I guess you've just got to go, you know,
26:04
Speaker 1: but you just had to. You just had to have
26:06
Speaker 1: been there. It's had to have been there, and you know,
26:07
Speaker 1: been rich. But thankfully, I mean, yeah, like you said,
26:11
Speaker 1: this really did turn much more towards scientific pursuits. We
26:15
Speaker 1: start to see more scientific reports about the atmosphere, the
26:18
Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere. In eighteen seventy three, we have one scientist
26:22
Speaker 1: describing it as a quote splendid world of colors which
26:25
Speaker 1: brightens the surface of our planet with a lovely azure
26:29
Speaker 1: tent and changing harmonies of various hues that lighten up
26:34
Speaker 1: the world. This is also from that Smithsonian mag article
26:37
Speaker 1: about the balloons and the aeronauts that transformed our view
26:41
Speaker 1: of the world. Absolutely, yeah, and this does help the
26:45
Speaker 1: human species advance understanding of various meteorological phenomena. Scientists get
26:52
Speaker 1: new insight into meteors. They understand more about the relationship
26:55
Speaker 1: between altitude and temperature. A ka, it gets really freak
27:00
Speaker 1: cold if you go up too far. Uh. And they
27:02
Speaker 1: understood how hail and snow and rain formed. They were
27:07
Speaker 1: able to get up into the clouds literally, which people
27:11
Speaker 1: had wanted to do for millennia and uh, totally. And
27:16
Speaker 1: today you can ride a hot air balloon and you
27:18
Speaker 1: have to think of how transformative this would have been.
27:21
Speaker 1: You know, you always hear about astronauts reporting. I mean,
27:23
Speaker 1: maybe not well. Jeff Bezos is officially not an astronaut,
27:26
Speaker 1: but you know, most of his commentary for his brief
27:29
Speaker 1: space flight we're about like how he wants to build
27:31
Speaker 1: factories on the Moon or whatever. But uh, in general,
27:34
Speaker 1: astronauts typically say things like, when you see that view
27:38
Speaker 1: of the planet, you know, disconnected from you know, being
27:41
Speaker 1: on the ground, uh, and you see this disembodied kind
27:44
Speaker 1: of floating or but it really gives you this perspective
27:47
Speaker 1: on your place in the universe and all that. And
27:49
Speaker 1: that would have been true too if people's viewing the
27:52
Speaker 1: Earth to the surface of the Earth from the air.
27:55
Speaker 1: I know every time I take a flight, I still
27:57
Speaker 1: haven't gotten jaded to like looking out the window and
27:59
Speaker 1: seeing like, you know, flying over say Utah for example,
28:03
Speaker 1: seeing all the salt you know, deposits, and just like
28:05
Speaker 1: it looks like you're literally seeing the surface of an
28:07
Speaker 1: alien planet. I still very much am taken by that,
28:10
Speaker 1: and so for this to be very very new, it
28:13
Speaker 1: would have been really really exciting. Yeah, that's a good point, Noel,
28:16
Speaker 1: because I see what you're saying. What what people must
28:20
Speaker 1: have been experiencing is a version of what's known as
28:23
Speaker 1: the overview effect. That's what astronauts are experiencing. And I'm
28:27
Speaker 1: with you. I like a good window seat anytime I
28:30
Speaker 1: can get it. It's just amazing, especially you're flying over
28:33
Speaker 1: like the Grand Canyon or something. It never loses its
28:37
Speaker 1: luster today. If you are someone who wants to ride
28:41
Speaker 1: a hot air balloon, you might be surprised by how
28:44
Speaker 1: close some hot air ballooon festivals are to a town
28:47
Speaker 1: near you. And Noel Max here in Georgia at Callaway Gardens,
28:53
Speaker 1: which isn't too far away. There's a hot air balloon
28:55
Speaker 1: festival this September. If you guys want to go awesome.
28:59
Speaker 1: I think we can probably expense that. Yeah, let's do it.
29:01
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Well, we'll sell those suits. It's it's
29:04
Speaker 1: for research. Max. Are you down you want to go
29:06
Speaker 1: in a hot air balloon with us? Definitely? I'm not
29:08
Speaker 1: going up in the balloon. I'll watch them from the ground. Uh.
29:11
Speaker 1: But y'all, y'all go with God. I wish you the best.
29:14
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely not. I'm afraid of heights. I will not
29:17
Speaker 1: get in a hot air You guys are gonna make
29:19
Speaker 1: me go solo. Okay, I'll wear like a row prow
29:22
Speaker 1: or something and and relay the footage down to you.
29:25
Speaker 1: Is that is that? Will that work? I wish you
29:27
Speaker 1: the best, Ben, Thanks God. I wish I could do
29:29
Speaker 1: it with you, Ben, but you would not enjoy it.
29:31
Speaker 1: If I went with you, I would be like a cat,
29:34
Speaker 1: like cling like like you know you're when you see
29:37
Speaker 1: a dog come in and the cats just like back
29:40
Speaker 1: arched and like claws digging into the guy. Would be
29:42
Speaker 1: like that, but like on the basket, just like flattened,
29:44
Speaker 1: like a cartoon character like Bugs Bunny and that one
29:47
Speaker 1: with the Gremlin where he's on the plane. And I
29:51
Speaker 1: think at one point he gets pushed outside the plane.
29:54
Speaker 1: You see his like heart pumping in his chest and
29:56
Speaker 1: he's literally like clutching the side of the plane. That
29:58
Speaker 1: would be me. I'm fine with flights, I have no
30:01
Speaker 1: problem with that, but but an open bucket in the sky.
30:04
Speaker 1: I barely like riding like ski lifts and things like that.
30:07
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm sorry, I know, no worries it all
30:10
Speaker 1: I got, I got your back, guys. Here's what we'll do.
30:12
Speaker 1: We're still gonna tell the network that all three of
30:15
Speaker 1: us are going up, and then we're gonna we're gonna
30:18
Speaker 1: use that other two thirds is just you know, walking
30:20
Speaker 1: around pocket money for our our adventure. Gotta gotta yes, sir,
30:25
Speaker 1: for Max on that one. Um, maybe we could bring
30:27
Speaker 1: a chicken and a goat and a rooster, yes, just so?
30:31
Speaker 1: Can we expense that as well? Oh you know we can? Yeah, yeah,
30:34
Speaker 1: we got we got a rooster guy, don't we know?
30:37
Speaker 1: Do we do? We get a rooster guy? Steve? Oh Steve,
30:41
Speaker 1: that's right, Steve, Steve, the rooster guy. Sheep guys, different guy.
30:44
Speaker 1: But I would I've always wanted to go in a
30:47
Speaker 1: hot air balloon and we'd be glad to relay footage
30:50
Speaker 1: of you. Let me ask you this, Let me ask
30:51
Speaker 1: you this. I know we're at the end of our
30:53
Speaker 1: show here, but where are we at as a group
30:56
Speaker 1: on blimps, dirigibles, airships? Does it matter? I'd be cool
31:01
Speaker 1: with that because it's in close, you know, uh, and
31:04
Speaker 1: there's probably like craft services and stuff, you know, Like
31:06
Speaker 1: I'd be good with that. There's probably like a you know,
31:08
Speaker 1: sleeper car type situation. But I think blimps have largely
31:12
Speaker 1: outlived their usefulness. I think we did a story about
31:14
Speaker 1: blimps how they used to be used for low altitude surveillance,
31:18
Speaker 1: but I think there are probably better ways of doing
31:20
Speaker 1: that a k drones um. Obviously, the good Year blimp
31:24
Speaker 1: will always be a thing, but that's really more just
31:26
Speaker 1: like you know, a visual during sporting events. But I
31:29
Speaker 1: think it would be awesome to go up in the
31:30
Speaker 1: good good Year blimp. I would I would love that.
31:32
Speaker 1: I love the vision of the future that you see
31:34
Speaker 1: sometimes in these stories where it's like everything's you know,
31:37
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna be flying by blimp and they're all tethered
31:39
Speaker 1: to buildings and you have to shimmy down some sort
31:42
Speaker 1: of line to get to the you know, landing pad.
31:45
Speaker 1: I don't know, interesting stuff. It's very Sky Captain in
31:47
Speaker 1: the World of Tomorrow. Yeah, or like Fringe. Oh wait, spoilers. Okay, well,
31:51
Speaker 1: the Rigibles are in that show. It's a good show.
31:53
Speaker 1: Check it out. Uh. So with this we have to say, uh,
31:57
Speaker 1: we can't wait to hear from any Boddy who is
32:00
Speaker 1: a balloonist or an aeronaut who has explored the friendly skies.
32:04
Speaker 1: In this way, it sounds like it sounds like my patriots. Uh.
32:09
Speaker 1: Noel and Max are maybe not on board to fly
32:13
Speaker 1: with you, but we're probably welcome hearing the story. I
32:16
Speaker 1: wish everyone could see just how Max, I'm sorry, I
32:19
Speaker 1: didn't know that, Like I didn't know. I can see
32:22
Speaker 1: how hard you're noping going up there. This reminds me
32:26
Speaker 1: a little bit. No Max's reaction reminds me a little
32:29
Speaker 1: bit of um when we've talked about you being in
32:32
Speaker 1: the open ocean, which is also not your vibe. I believe,
32:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm fine if I'm close to you know, sure,
32:38
Speaker 1: I'll swim in the in the ocean if I'm close
32:40
Speaker 1: to the beach. But I do have some pretty big
32:42
Speaker 1: fears of deep, deep, deep water ocean because of the
32:46
Speaker 1: massive you know, uh Leviathan type beasts that dwell just
32:51
Speaker 1: beneath the placid surface, similar to the way people originally
32:54
Speaker 1: felt about the sky. What's up there? We brought it back.
32:59
Speaker 1: We did it were out of back. We did. We
33:01
Speaker 1: did on a Friday, no less um. Huge thanks to
33:04
Speaker 1: Max you super producer you um and uh Casey Pagram
33:09
Speaker 1: super producer as well Alex Williams who composed our theme. Yes,
33:13
Speaker 1: and big thanks of course to the balloonist of of
33:18
Speaker 1: our hearts. I don't know we'll work out it, but
33:20
Speaker 1: we're talking about Jonathan strictlandk quister. Big thanks to that guy,
33:23
Speaker 1: Christop Brocotis big, big thanks to everyone, honestly everyone who
33:30
Speaker 1: braved those mysterious skies because inspiration aside, they provided some
33:36
Speaker 1: priceless insights to our understanding of science. I can't believe
33:40
Speaker 1: no balloons. Huh. Okay, well, I'm gonna cancel plans. I
33:44
Speaker 1: had the Sunday conclure. We'll see you next time, folks.
33:53
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
33:56
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
33:59
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.