Bill’s Lost Site

I have to fess up by saying that I am not a hot air balloon expert. However, a little research can go a long way.

During the interrogation Henry mentions that when his balloon is in the air that it contains 550,000 cubic feet of helium and 100,000 cubic feet of hot air. Is he bluffing? Seriously, those numbers sound good. But do they jive with typical hot air balloons?

Over at thinkquest.org they have a section on balloon dimensions. If I am reading this right it appears as if the capacity for a balloon that would carry between 1 and 5 people would be between 14,000 and 32,000 cubic feet. That is way off from the numbers provided by Henry.

But … I found an article describing Steve Fossett - the nut job who tried to fly around the world in a balloon solo style (I can’t recall if he did finally make it). Anyway, here is a description of his balloon:

Fossett will fly a helium and hot-air balloon combination, known as a Roziére. The balloon envelope will be much larger than the one used in his August 1998 flight - containing 550,000 cubic feet of helium, as opposed to 450,000 cubic feet before, and it contains 100,000 cubic feet of hot air. The balloon envelope is 140 feet tall and 60 feet wide. Click HERE for the link.

So this matches up exactly with what Henry was saying. Did he have a similar balloon to Fossett? Did he simply use Fossett’s dimensions for his bogus trip story? Hopefully we will find out soon.

OK - so we know the counter hit zero. We also know that the numbers changed into pictures. However, I couldn’t find a good screen cap until now. Here is what it looked like.

The word over on the Fuselage is that the images are really hieroglyphics. We can clearly make out 4 of the images - the 5th one never cycled through clearly enough to tell for sure what it is (although some people believe it is the symbol for a child).

There is endless debate over the translation of the hieroglyphics (if that’s really what they are). However, the consensus seems to be that translated the message is something like, “Cause to Die” or “You Will Die” or “Go Die”. The excellent post at the Fuselage can be accessed HERE. I have to warn you, at the time of this writing the post was already 38 pages long. It would take a solid hour to read everything but it is a good read.

So, assuming that it is hieroglyphics and assuming that the translation is correct I have a problem. Why use hieroglyphics? Why not just say, “Your Screwed” or something to that effect. If you are going to give a warning it seems odd that you would use Egyptian symbols to convey that thought. Also, when the symbols were appearing there were other symbols that we see for just a second. The best analogy that I have read is think of the clock like a slot machine. It cycles through many options - the numbers 0 through 9 and some symbols. For some reason the clock set to the symbols in the picture posted above.

What does it all mean. Well, if the translation is correct then it doesn’t sound like good news for our Lostie’s. I guess time will tell.