Podcast 364 – The Strange Disappearance of Professor King

In Episode 364 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head back to the year 1873 to attend the county fair in Hyde Park, Vermont. The guys witness the launch of Professor Frank King in his hot air balloon. King was in the air about an hour before the spectators lost sight of him.

Read the episode transcript.

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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd

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Lamoille County Fairgrounds, Vermont

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.

[DRIVING]
RAY: Hyde Park, Vermont, is picture-perfect small-town New England.
JEFF: It is! We’re pretty far up here in northern Vermont. We’re just about 30 miles south of the Canadian border.
RAY: There are some rolling hills in the distance. And we’re coming up on… it looks like the fairgrounds.
JEFF: Yup, that’s our destination, Ray. You can pull in up here.
RAY: Got it.
[CAR STOPS / DOORS CLOSE]
RAY: I can see some barn-like buildings, a concession stand, a gazebo, plenty of wide-open fields, some fenced-in areas for animals, though there’s no animals here today. It looks like a big fairground.
JEFF: It is! It’s a place to gather and see the local spectacles. It’s also place where something significant happened at one of those famous county fairs. We’ve come to Hyde Park, Vermont, to search for a missing hot air balloon.
[INTRO]
JEFF: Hi, I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger, welcome to Episode 364 of the New England Legends podcast. Thanks for joining us as we search for ghosts, monsters, UFOs, roadside oddities, true crime, and weird history in the northeastern United States. Be sure to visit our Web site to contact us with your story ideas, and to see dates for Jeff’s fall story tour and to see my band the Pub Kings.
JEFF: We’ll go looking for this missing hot air balloon right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Hot air balloons are big things, Jeff.
JEFF: They are.
RAY: I feel like it would be tough to lose one.
JEFF: It would.
RAY: So here’s a little more background on Hyde Park. The town got its charter back in 1781, and it’s the county seat for Lamoille County. The town’s population today is about 3,000 people. It’s a quiet area with plenty of farms.
JEFF: So events like the county fair would be a big deal.
RAY: I can imagine it would be an event no one around here would want to miss.
JEFF: True today, and true a century-and-a-half ago… back when they lost a hot air balloon.
RAY: Just to be clear, we’re talking about a hot air balloon that can carry people up into the sky?
JEFF: That’s the one.
RAY: The first balloon flight happened back on September 19, 1783. A French scientist launched a hot air balloon with a sheep, duck, and a rooster as the passengers. The balloon remained airborn for 15 minutes before crashing into the ground. About two months later, on November 21st, two French brothers became the first people to fly in one. They took off from Paris and flew for about 20 minutes before landing safely. Hot air balloons have been part of our skylines ever since.
JEFF: They have.
RAY: But you don’t hear about losing them. They’re huge!
JEFF: That’s true. To find out how this one was lost, let’s head back to the year 1873.
[TRANSITION]
[CROWD NOISE]
[BRASS BAND IN BACKGROUND]
RAY: It’s July 4th 1873 here at the town fairgrounds of Hyde Park, Vermont. Ulysses S. Grant is in the White House, the American economy is recovering now that the Civil War is almost a decade in the past, and folks in Lamoille County, Vermont, are celebrating America’s birthday!
JEFF: The fairgrounds are a lively place today. Even though it’s cloudy, that’s not dampening the spirits of anyone here. There are animals, pony rides, vendors selling all kinds of food.
RAY: It looks like there’s an Ox pull happening over that way.
JEFF: Yup.
RAY: This place is mobbed! I think everyone in northern Vermont is here!
JEFF: No doubt. This is the biggest event of the year.
RAY: Hey, look over there! There’s a hot air balloon filling up.
JEFF: The balloon is creating quite a stir here at the fairgrounds. Everyone is crowding to get a closer look. Balloon flight has been around for almost a century, but it’s a rare site around northern Vermont. In fact, for most of the people here, this is the first one they’ve ever seen.
RAY: With the balloon full and the basket attached, the crowd eagerly awaits the flight.
JEFF: Oh look! Here comes the pilot. Professor Frank King is climbing into the basket below the balloon. He’s packed a lunch, and brought his overcoat. Inside the basket are three bags of ballast. I can see King is waving to the crowd who are pushing as close as possible to try and get a closer look.
RAY: The police have their hands full holding back the crowd.
JEFF: What time is it, Ray?
RAY: Ahhhh… two o’clock on the nose.
[BRASS BAND PLAYS]
JEFF: And with that, the band is playing. And Professor King just dropped a bag of ballast over the side. I see the balloon shifting a little, but that’s it.
RAY: Okay, he just threw another bag of ballast over the side. Now the balloon is drifting upwards… but only six feet or so.
[THUMP]
RAY: Annnd he just threw the third bag of ballast overboard. Now he’s rising up!
JEFF: There he goes up into the air!
[CROWD WOAH!]
[CHEERS]
JEFF: This is exciting! King is rising higher and higher and heading north.
[CROWD FADES]
JEFF: For close to an hour the crowd watches the balloon get smaller and smaller as it drifts high in the sky to the north. By 3 o’clock, no one can see it anymore.
RAY: The plan is for him to return and touchdown in the fairgrounds again.
JEFF: 4 o’clock comes and goes. 5 o’clock. But there’s no sign of King or his balloon.
RAY: Folks around here are nervous. This was not part of the plan. Still, some figure maybe he was blown a bit off course and landed in the next town of something like that. There’s no cause for alarm.
[NIGHT CRICKETS FADE IN]
RAY: As night falls, there’s still no word from professor King. No one has seen the balloon either.
(PAUSE)
[ROOSTER CROWS]
[CHURCH BELLS RING]
JEFF: It’s now July 5th. The church bells are ringing to call folks in to the town square. They’re going to form a search party to look for Professor King.
RAY: Within a few hours, hundreds of men have gathered from Hyde Park, Morrisville, North Wolcott, and Eden. Soon, the search party heads north.
[WALKING IN WOODS FOR A BIT]
JEFF: We’ve been walking for hours heading north of the fairgrounds.
RAY: Yeah, this is tough going. I’m not sure…
JEFF: Wait… look up there.
RAY: Where? I don’t see anythi….
JEFF: Over there in those trees!
RAY: It’s the balloon! Or what’s left of it.
[RUNNING IN WOODS]
RAY: I can see the basket is hanging by the balloon that’s stuck between two trees. There’s nothing left in the balloon, just the fabric. I don’t see any sign of Professor King.
JEFF: And the basket is totally empty. He had a few items with him when he took off. If he had fallen out, you’d think there would still be his things in the basket. Maybe he’s nearby?
RAY/JEFF: Professor King! Professor!
[WALKING IN THE WOODS]
JEFF: It’s going to get dark soon. We better head back to town.
[NIGHT CRICKETS
RAY: Professor King has been missing for a day and a half now. At least it’s summer and the temperatures have been pretty mild.
JEFF: It’s July 7th. Professor King has been missing for three days now. People are losing hope. Maybe he fell out and his body is far from where we found the remains of the balloon. Or maybe he ran off?
RAY: That wouldn’t make much sense. He’s not in any trouble that anyone knows of. Why would… Wait a minute… look over there!
[WALKING IN WOODS]
JEFF: There’s a disheveled man walking into town! I think it’s him! Professor King!
RAY: Wow, he looks pretty rough. He’s clearly been bitten by many mosquitoes. His pants are ripped up too.
JEFF: He’s haggard and scratched up, but seems to be okay. Professor, what happened?
PROFESSOR KING: After I had been ascending for close to an hour, I had spectacular views of the fairgrounds. Suddenly, I encountered a thunderstorm. An updraft quickly carried me higher into the clouds. The wind pulled my balloon two and a half miles higher to where the rain turned to snow because it was so very cold. As snow stuck to the balloon, the weight began to carry me downward at a high rate of speed. I threw my lunch overboard and anything else in the basket to lighten the load. I soon found myself over a forest unfamiliar to me. The balloon wabbled on the descent until it struck some trees and exploded. I was sprung from the basket and managed to grab ahold of a branch and slide to the ground. I had been so concerned with my landing that I failed to notice my surroundings. I had no idea in which direction to walk!
JEFF: Professor King goes on to describe how we walked the entire following day. He found a clearing, followed a ridgeline, and then at the end of the day found himself back at his balloon wreckage. The day after that he found a mill and followed the trail until it turned into a road. He finally encountered four men who were searching for him who gave him some much needed food, and then brought him to a nearby house where he regained his strength before returning to Hyde Park. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Professor King wrote about his survival experience in the July 9, 1873 Lamoille Newsdealer newspaper. He professed his gratitude for the local people doing so much to help a stranger.
RAY: I love when you hear stories like this. A tragedy strikes and everyone comes together to try and help. Thankfully this one also had a happy ending.
JEFF: That it did. Today with cell phones, GPS, drones, and radar, losing a balloon like this wouldn’t really happen. Professor King truly was an intrepid explorer rising up into the air where not too many had gone before. Knowing the dangers, but going anyway. We take all flight for granted today. We expect those who go up, whether in a balloon, airplane, or rocket, will come down safely. But we also know from endless news headlines that we don’t always reach our destinations. But this I do know: if the worst should happen there will always be perfect strangers who step up to help because they know it could have been them or someone they love.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: So true. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course like Professor King’s balloon.
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To see some pictures of the fairgrounds of Hyde Park, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our Web site and click on episode 364.
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Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.

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