Jack Hitt

And he cuts loose and then poof, he just disappears into the night.

It's even sort of a mystery to him as to what he would find when he went up this high at night.

Of course, remember, this is before the invention of the electric bulb.

So when night fell, it was a night.

So he could look down a mile or two or three, and of course, he saw nothing.

And up above him, he just saw stars and some moon, right?

And while he's up there, he's doing his tests and measurements in this little basket beneath this hydrogen gas filled balloon.

And out here at the edge of the then-known universe for humans, he discovered the oddities of being there.

He is just humming along at these amazing speeds that no one had ever reached at this time.

But he's stunned to discover that, you know, inside his little basket, he's not moving at all.

He says...

Everything around me was perfectly quiet and still, so still that I could have carried a lighted candle without any protection, and I let loose sheets of paper without fear of them being disturbed.

The reason for this may not be quite clear to my readers, but I was floating with, as well as in, the undisturbed atmosphere that was not the slightest sense of motion whatsoever."

So Lowe sort of discovers that he's not only in the wind, he is the wind, right?

The next morning he comes down and sees an open field and there's a man at a plow and he lets off some gas and comes down low enough that he can shout out, what state is this?

And the man, he looks left, he looks right, far off into the woods, but it doesn't make any sense that the sound would come from the woods.

And does it see anybody?

And he keeps looking around.

Lo shouts it again.

What state is this?