The plight of a 6-year-old boy transfixed the nation for a while Thursday afternoon.

The boy had vanished when his family's experimental balloon was untethered from the backyard and floated away in eastern Colorado.

CNN and other networks switched to blanket coverage, and Twitter lit up with news alerts and references to "Up" and children falling into wells.

However, after an hour and a half, the balloon descended on its own, and the boy was nowhere to be seen.

Speculation then turned to the notion that perhaps the boy had gotten out of the balloon before it took off, and was hiding somewhere near his house.

Also part of the story: The father is a stormchaser, thus the balloon, and the family was involved in ABC's "Wife Swap."

Stay tuned.

Embedded video from CNN Video [1]