A boy in a balloon
Yes.
A boy was reported to be in a home-made balloon that was sailing thousands of feet in the air at over 20 miles an hour. When the balloon landed, the boy was not found to be where everyone had assumed he’d be.
The worst was feared, that he’d fallen out. Shortly after contemplating this, the next answer was that maybe he was scared for letting the balloon go and had hidden, or that the entire thing was a publicity stunt by an admittedly eccentric family.
I got very sad when I heard the latter, not because I felt it was true, but because I didn’t like the truth of how quickly our society jumps to that kind of conclusion. “HOAX” they scream. “PUBLICITY STUNT” they yell, and turn it into a media circus, either way.
I guess I don’t believe it was a PR stunt or anything of that sort, because, well, I like to think people are better than that. I’m probably wrong.
But I think I’d prefer to be the kind of person who’s wrong about this kind of thing than to be the kind of person who’s right about it.