[2] The aircraft rose to an altitude of about 16,000 feet (4,900 m), drifted from the point of liftoff in San Pedro, California, and entered controlled airspace near Long Beach Airport.

Lawrence Richard "Larry" Walters had often dreamed of flying, but was unable to become a pilot in the United States Air Force because of his poor eyesight.

He was in contact with REACT, a citizens band radio monitoring organization, who recorded their conversation: After 45 minutes in the sky, Walters shot several balloons with a pellet gun, taking care not to unbalance the load.

"[9] Walters initially was fined $4,000 for violations under U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations, including operating an aircraft within an airport traffic area "without establishing and maintaining two-way communications with the control tower."

[15] The lawn chair used in the flight was reportedly given to an admiring boy named Jerry, though Walters regretted doing so when the Smithsonian Institution asked him to donate it to its museum.

[16] Twenty years later, Jerry sent an email to Mark Barry, a pilot who had documented Walters's story and dedicated a website to it, and identified himself.

[20] Later in his life, Walters hiked the San Gabriel Mountains and did volunteer work for the United States Forest Service.

[21] In 1937, Al Mingalone, an American photographer for Paramount News previously used 32 weather balloons for a feature photography assignment at Old Orchard Beach in Maine.

While he hung suspended from the balloons by a parachute harness in order to take aerial film footage, Mingalone's mooring rope broke and he was lifted approximately 700 feet (210 m) into the air.

A clergyman, Father James J. Mullen, spotted the incident, and after a chase of some 13 miles (21 km), used a .22-caliber rifle to shoot out two of the balloons, thus allowing the photographer to return safely to the ground.