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There is no sign of a six-year-old boy who is believed to have climbed into a balloon resembling a flying saucer and floated helplessly thousands of metres above Colorado, as officials scrambled to try and rescue him.
The bizarre scene played out live on television and prompted fears that the flying saucer-shaped balloon would crash with the young child inside. The balloon rotated slowly in the wind, tipping precariously at times.
The local sheriff’s department has confirmed the child is not in the balloon and efforts to find him are continuing.
Television pictures from the scene showed the balloon had landed in farmland, but there is no sign of the six-year-old, who has been named as Falcon Heene.
Reports that observers saw something fall from the balloon are being investigated by local law authorities, butthe area has been searched and nothing found.
Click here to watch the video .
Officers have also searched the child’s home and surrounding area for signs of him.
“The bottom of (the balloon) is contained and hasn’t been breached,” Eloise Campanella of Larimer County Sheriff’s Department told CNN shortly after the balloon landed.
The balloon travelled for more than two hours. He has to be somewhere on the ground close to his home.
“So at this point we are thinking he did not fall out of it. .”
National Guard helicopters were scrambled and were monitoring the balloon when it landed.
Cathy Davis of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department told reporters the experimental balloon was owned by the boy’s parents and tethered behind the family’s home.
Cathy Davis of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department told reporters the experimental balloon was owned by the boy’s parents and tethered behind the family’s home.
He hosts a documentary series and radio showinvestigating the mysteries of science, The Science Detectives.
Falcon’s father, Richard Heene, is a ‘science detective’ and storm chaser according to his My Space site.
Click here to watch Falcon rapping with his brothers .
Last year, his site entry says, he flew into Hurricane Wilma to take magnetic field measurements and this yearrode a motorcycle into a mesocyclone.