This beautiful picture of a hot air balloon was posted recently by the Marion County Sheriff’s office on Facebook in an effort to solve a crime. The huge balloon was stolen from Indiana and the sheriff asked people to keep an eye out for it at the The Villages Hot Air Balloon Festival being held at the Florida Horse Park. It worked. Raising into the air, the hot hot-air balloon was spotted and eventually recovered.
The office simply commented that “You’re going to think we’re full of ‘hot air’ when you read this, but for the first time in our 175 years of existence, we recovered a stolen hot air balloon!” the sheriToff’s office said.
It is a curious object for crime since, to enjoy it, you must fly it over hundreds of thousands of people over long distances. There is no chop shop for hot hot-air balloons and you cannot just paint the stolen vehicle.
What is interesting is that the owner said that the did not want to press charges. Why?
No word on the culprits . . . but they must be real basket cases.