Didn't some mouth-breather on 4chan attach a bazillion helium balloons to a toad and basically send in into the stratosphere?

I seem to recall that.

Problem 1: Tip toward the wood, as the wood will lose more buoyancy from the air than the lead.

As for the extreme case here, let's use the helium balloon. You tie the helium balloon to the right hand side of the scale. Now, to get the bar on the scale horizontal (balanced) you need to hang the lead weight closer to the fulcrum but on the right hand side of the scale too.

Now remove the air.

The balloon was only pulling up because of the air. Without the air it will hang down. So, we now have two things hanging down on the same side of the scale, so it's very obvious which way the scale will swing...

Problem 2: pi*20m Circumference = pi*diameter. Poles increase diameter by 20m. Really not sure where the 'extreme case' comes into this though?

Maybe party balloons should be filled with hydrogen. Could be way more exciting than helium balloons.

edit: guess I should have finished the video before posting.

I agree. A hydrogen balloon would have exploded almost instantly once catching fire. Here the boom doesn't come until the balloon is nearly gone and is likely an electrical explosion.
>> ^shuac:

Looked to me like the balloon itself, the paper-like material, was the thing that caught fire. And the explosion was caused by contact with the power transformer. Therefore, it probably was helium.

>> ^Fusionaut:

Yeah, helium isn't flammable. My first thought was hydrogen but what do I know?


Hydrogen is the only gas that's enough lighter than air to lift a balloon which burns.

>> ^cybrbeast:

Damn, 2:30 kid and parent being hit, you see the helium balloon fly up. Terrible.


When I saw that the first thing I thought was, "I'm going to comment about it!" But... you beat me to it

Damn, 2:30 kid and parent being hit, you see the helium balloon fly up. Terrible.

might've been easier just to attach a couple thousand helium balloons to the steeple.

Isn't tying a burning road flare to a helium balloon then launching it over a FOREST a touch dangerous? I mean, the Japanese sorta did this in World War 2 for the express purpose of burning down the entire pacific northwest.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'very, ufo hoax, Morristown, New Jersey, flares, helium baloons, prank' to 'very, ufo hoax, Morristown, New Jersey, flares, helium balloons, prank' - edited by jonny

>> ^budzos:
Although this movie is terrible in many ways, I have watched the DVD a few times in the fast four or five years. There is a lot to like here, they just took the satirical tone a few degrees too far.


Agreed. But you gotta love Jack's reaction to the aliens sucking down the nuke via helium balloon. Brack brack!

Saw an episode of braniacs where they floated john tickle. they used some very large balloons equal to something like 1000 normal helium balloons each. think it was 33000 ish for a man. so a car is way off.