Friday, April 29, 2011

Balloon Man

If a butterfly flaps its wings in China, will it cause a hurricane in Texas? Probably not. Nevertheless, sometimes even our most innocuous actions produce consequences we could scarcely have dreamt of.

Take Tongmuan Pochailoet, for example. When he found a discarded helium-filled rubber doll trapped in the branches of a tree in August 2005, his only thought was that it might make a good scarecrow for his garden. So he took it home and tethered it outside his house in Doi Kam Village, Thailand.

The orange doll stood a metre tall and boasted an oversized head and tiny arms and legs. It kept stray ducks and chickens from invading Pochailoet's vegetable patch, and even frightened the local children away when its head nodded eerily in the breeze. Then on August 29, a storm swept through the village and blew the lurid scarecrow away.

Days later, Pochailoet heard that a diminutive orange alien had been seen romping through the rice fields of nearby Huay Nam Rak Village. And something about the little humanoid with the big bald head and tiny limbs sounded strangely familiar...

[Click here to read full article]

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