Rescuers Fail to Find Priest Carried Aloft by Party Balloons

Posted by Matt Cipriano | 1 Comment

The headline says it all for this one.

Sometimes I love having a blog, my friends email me a ton of stories, some worth posting, some not so much, some so random that I really have no other choice but to post*.

A Roman-Catholic priest in Brazil was trying to set a world record, you’d think it would be like holiest man or most confessions heard in a day or something, but no, he wanted to break the record for longest time in the air by way of party balloons (the helium variety of course). This wasn’t his first time either, on January 13th, he had done the same thing. At the time he had spent 4 hours in the air. You’d think that this is so random he would be competing against his own record right? Nope apparently the record holder was aloft for 19 hours (I would tell you who that was but it isn’t the easiest thing to find on the internet) so he had quite aways to go.

This was not just some Sunday outing for Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli. He is an experienced sky diver and went up prepared with “a helmet, an aluminum thermal flight suit, waterproof coveralls and a parachute” plus a GPS device and satellite phone. Unfortunately he lost contact with port officials and has not been seen since. His balloons were found “floating intact in the sea off Santa Catarina State,” 2 days after his take off, but still no sign of him. Folks are starting to give up hope that he will turn up, at this point it would take a miracle.

*Thanks to Amy for this randomness

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