You're listening to Radio Lab from Public Radio, W-N-Y-C and NPR.

Okay.

I want to start the show today with a truly remarkable story, which at least initially involves this girl right here.

Hello, I'm Laura Buxton. Laura Buxton is her name. Remember that name. I should have my hair back. And Laura, let's do this like a movie, okay? Like a movie? Yeah. Okay. Okay, it's June 2001. Yeah. Where are we? We're in a little town in Northern England called... Stoke-on-Trent. Stoke-on-Trent. Yep.

Imagine a little English house in this town and the camera zooms in and there standing in the front lawn...

...is little Laura Buxton. She's 10 years old.

Yeah, well, almost 10.

Whatever. She's a tall girl.

Pretty tall for my age.

Big tails, and in her hand, she's holding a balloon. A red balloon. You with me so far? Yeah. Okay, so earlier that day, Laura had taken a little card and stuck it to the balloon and on one side written. My name. Plus a little message. I just said, please return to Laura Boxton. And then on the other side, it had my address. Okay, so cut back to the outdoor scene.

There she is, standing on the lawn.

It's very windy.

She's got this red balloon with her name on it

and she holds it up to the sky

to the heavens.

And I just let it go.

And the wind took it.

We were laughing and joking because we just thought it'd get stuck in a tree

but further down the road somewhere.

But that's not what happened.

The balloon kept going.

All right, now I'm looking at a map here of England, and Stoke-on-Tranton is at the top,

...