Why it took so long for someone to send the balloon hot air back is a mystery. Ramsey said that, generally, "responses start coming in after three days, most of them from the Eastern Shore. After about a month they start tapering off." Before the balloons are launched, a weather-resistant tagboard with a hole punched in the corner is tied to the balloon, explaining the launch and asking the finder to put her or his name, address and stamp on the pre-addressed card and drop it in the mailbox.

Explaining why it is unlikely the simply constructed helium balloon could have made the round-the-world trek, Stuart Brown, a national weather meteorologist at Intercon Weather Consultants in Camp Springs, said that while gaining altitude, a balloon of this type "would expand because of the rarefied (less pressure) altitude. Eventually it would burst."

"Going around the world, it would really have to hold up," said weekend weatherman Paul Anthony of Channel 9. "After a day the things fizzle out--they loose their oomph." If it did not fly through the air, how did the balloon, or the card, end up in Jefferson, Ore.? "Maybe it hooked onto a train or something," suggests Ramsey. "I would suspect by means of foul play," said Brown. "It could have been found by someone and carried to Oregon."

Connor, who won't write it off as a hoax just yet, said he is trying to find a laboratory to examine the soil and mineral smudges on the card. As of yet, no one is interested in pursuing the matter.

But even with a complete soil analysis, nothing can substantiate that the balloon hot air actually sailed around the world. "It just can't be proven," Barnes said. Westbrook held this year's annual launch. In the meantime, the mystery of the helium balloon remains unsolved.

They make horses bolt and dogs howl and they can startle people seeing them for the first time -- the sky full of rainbow-colored hot air balloons floating over the California wine country. But what a ride!

Each morning at about 7, Bob Barbarick and his crew of adventurers launches a flotilla of the giant airships from empty vineyards and the parking lot of a Yountville winery. He is counting on enough people wanting to see the vineyards from the gondola of a balloon to allow him to quit his grocery store job so he can spend the rest of his life riding the skies in his wind-driven flying machines.