A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons is missing off the southern coast of Brazil.
Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found.
Reverend Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.
He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.
Gallas said by telephone that the priest wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil's second-largest port for agricultural products.
Some American adventurers have used helium balloons to emulate Larry Walters - who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons.
A video of Carli posted on the G1 website of Globo TV showed the smiling 41-year-old priest slipping into a flight suit, being strapped to a seat attached to a huge column green, red, white and yellow balloons, and soaring into the air to the cheers of a crowd.
According to Gallas, the priest soared to an altitude of 6,000 metres then descended to about 2,500 metres for his planned flight to the city of Dourados, 750km north-west of his parish.
But winds pushed him in another direction, and Carli was some 50km off the coast when he last contacted Paranagua's port authority, Gallas said.
Carli had a GPS device, a satellite phone, a buoyant chair and was an experienced skydiver, Gallas said.
"We are absolutely confident he will be found alive and well, floating somewhere in the ocean," she said.
"He knew what he was doing and was fully prepared for any kind of mishap."
Aetherfukz wrote:LOL. I'm sure he was trying to get closer to god.
I wonder if he's found dead, does that mean there is no God?
I think it would mean that launching yourself into the atmosphere at the whim of a bunch of balloons with no mechanism for control is a fatally dumb idea.
you see, they were talking about him almost every day here on the news, but i dont hear about i anymore. i don know if they've found him either... the balloons were found on the sea hundreds of kms from land n he wasnt nwhere near o.o
well, it's afunny idea and he had already done that for the same purpose, but do you believe he didnt know how to use the GPS he had?? :S:S:S last contact of him was asking instructions about the GPS (ok, maybe it was acting strangely, i dont know)
