The Terrifying True Story Of How An Innocent Balloon Festival Crippled A City For Weeks

By Qunki Team | wtf

Balloons are fun unless something like this happened. In 1986, a mass balloon release in Cleveland went really, really wrong, when 1.5 million helium-filled floaters were let loose into the sky, got caught in a storm, drifted down to earth, and caused a hell of a lot of problems.

1 Cleveland Balloon fest Was Supposed To Be A Huge Fundraiser

Cleveland decided to make the news by being the city that released the most balloons at once. 1.5 million balloons were inflated to be released at once.

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Random Joke

A blonde was speeding

A blonde was speeding in a 35 mile per hour zone when a local police officer pulled her over and walked up to the car.

The officer also happened to be a blonde and she asked for the blonde's driver's license.

The driver searched frantically in her purse for a while and finally said to the blonde policewoman, "What does a driver's license look like?"

Irritated, the blonde cop said, "You dummy, it's got your picture on it!"

The blonde driver frantically searched her purse again and found a small, rectangular mirror down at the bottom.

She held it up to her face and said, "Aha!

This must be my driver's license" and handed it to the blonde policewoman.

The blonde cop looked in the mirror, handed it back to the driver and said,

"You're free to go. And, if I had known you were a police officer too, we could have avoided all of this."

2 1.5 Million Balloons Were Place Under A Net

Volunteers from United Way of Cleveland inflated the 1.5 million balloons and placed them under a net.

3 There Was A Bad Weather Warning But A Decision Was Made To Release The Balloons

For sometime everything looked like it was going according to plan

4 The Storm Came And It Became A Horror-Film Urban Infestation

The huge storm came into the city and pushed all of the released balloons back into the city.

5 People Drown And A Huge Mess

As a result of the storm a boat capsized. Rescue helicopters could not get near the river because of the balloons. Then the asteroid field of airborne debris clouded the sky, shut down a runway at a local airport, interrupted Coast Guard attempts to rescue a pair of fishermen, spooked some prize-winning horses, and made a mess of garbage. Good intentions went terribly wrong

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