Up, Up and Away!

A Roman Catholic priest is missing after floating away with hundreds of helium party balloons off the southern coast of Brazil.

He was using the stunt to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil's second-largest port for agricultural products.

A video posted on the G1 website of Globo TV shows the smiling 41-year-old priest - Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli - slipping into a flight suit and being strapped to a seat attached to a huge column of red, blue, white, green and yellow balloons.

He then soars into the air to the cheers of the crowd.

Denise Gallas, the treasurer of Carli's Sao Cristovao parish, said by telephone that 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, 750 kilometres northwest of his parish.

The only problem was that above a certain altitude the winds were blowing the wrong way!

Carli had a GPS device, a satellite phone, a buoyant chair and is 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."

Your "wrong way" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com