It started as a casual chat on a sunny evening in Bristol and ended with one of the most iconic special shapes in ballooning history landing in my collection. Here’s the incredible story of how the legendary Jesus balloon, now known as the Miracle Man, made its way from a dusty crate in Albuquerque to a sunrise inflation at Ashton Court.
As you’ve probably seen if you follow MJ Ballooning, I revealed the latest addition to my growing collection of special shapes last weekend as the iconic Jesus balloon. It was an incredible moment and there’s quite a story to it, so wanted to put something together as I hope it will be an interesting read. So, here we go!
Credit: Sarah Claridge
As with many of the special shapes to be built around the world, I was aware of the Jesus balloon as it was a regular attendee of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta from 1999 to 2007, but never researched it too heavily as thought there would never be a chance for me to see it.
That was until the summer of 2024 when I met Bryce Risley who lives in Albuqerque and was visiting Bristol for a couple of months to oversee his Zozobra special shape project at Cameron Balloons. He contacted me through the Facebook page in the spring telling me of a 135ft tall shape that was due to be built by Cameron’s and that it would be great to meet when he arrives.
A glorious sunny evening in June meant balloons were flying, so I headed to Ashton Court to meet up with a few friends and watch the balloons take off, and of course document the launch with photos and videos to share on the website. Bryce had just arrived in the UK and that evening and over the next few days met me, Tom Gouder, Liam Whitelock and many other familiar faces. It’s always an exciting time of the year with the fiesta around the corner and my shapes being announced to the public one by one.
One of those evenings whilst we were all sat at Ashton Court waiting for the balloon teams to start their inflation fans, we were talking about my balloons and in particular the J&B whisky bottle I had just bought. That lead onto speaking about which shapes would be next to join the collection and Bryce suddenly said something like, “Oh, the Jesus shape is sat doing nothing back home right now”. Interesting, I thought… Bryce explained how it was one of the balloons he remembers fondly from his childhood, just like Slick was for me. And it was a proper showstopper – none of the round “add-on” nonsense we see far too much of these days, a true special shape, just what I like. The hands alone are 20 feet long!
Credit: Ben Bläss
The Jesus balloon had been stored away at Aerco, a balloon repair station in Albuquerque, for 10 or more years, basically collecting dust with no future plan for it. It sat in a large plastic crate which would be perfect for shipping. The envelope itself weighs 408kg. For comparison, Action Man is 358kg. Built by The Balloon Works in 1998 and registered N148RV, it is regarded by many as one of the most detailed special shapes to ever grace the skies and it made our top 25 shapes blog series at the start of the year. After speaking with Aerco over email they confirmed they just wanted the balloon out the way and there would be no charge.
Also, one evening a group of us went round to Tom’s place to catch up ahead of the much anticipated fiesta week and ended up looking through a book of Albuquerque special shape photos. You guessed it, one of the first pages we looked at, there he was, Jesus, staring back at me! Was it a sign?!
This all happened at a very busy time of the year with the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta coming up, as well as Oswestry, Telford and Longleat in our event schedule. I decided to wait until the end of the season to seriously consider getting the balloon over when we were less busy.
During this time, I thought back to a memory I shared with the late Ian Pillinger, a great photographer, who lived in Bristol and who I was lucky enough to get to know over the years whilst at Ashton Court on early mornings watching test inflations. I can’t remember the year exactly, but I would guess summer 2018, I arrived early anticipating some balloon activity when Ian offered me a lift to save me from the walk up the hill. He too was early, and we had a nice chat for about 15 minutes before the balloons arrived, mostly about our shared passion of special shapes. I asked him what the best shape he’d ever seen was. He replied something like, “Jesus on a cloud. Absolutely spectacular”, which he’d seen fly from Albuquerque. I really valued his opinion on shapes as he had seen so, so much over the years. I never forgot that chat and it made me realise it was a balloon worth getting. Thanks Ian, you are missed.
The season was fizzling out by the time October came around and I revisited the whole Jesus thing, asking the keepers of the balloon about the dimensions and weight etc ready to get some shipping quotes. Bryce told me it was in good condition and didn’t smell at all from opening the top of the crate and looking at the brown fabric at the top. By the time January arrived and with great help from James of Slipstream Management, as well as Aerco, all the shipping documents had been finalised and Jesus was ready for his 3 month journey on the ocean waves to England.
The balloon arrived into Liverpool, then was driven to Dartford and finally delivered to me in Bristol on 9th April at 10am. And yes, it was pretty big! That evening a group of 5 of us gathered to hurl the balloon out of the crate it had been sat in for more than a decade and into its original envelope bag, which had been laid on top of the fabric for shipping.
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The American manufacturer of this enormous special shape was The Balloon Works, also known as Firefly Balloons, who build their balloons and baskets to work on a three-point system rather than the usual four-point system we have in the UK. Basically, the basket has three sides, and envelope has three bunches of flying wires. I was fully aware that this could be an issue when rigging onto the basket for inflation in this country, so felt a bit of dread and anxiousness to uncover the wires as we reached the bottom of the crate. See below image of the flying “wires”.
Wooden blocks are no good for us in the UK as the wires must loop onto metal carabiners. Solution: smash it to pieces. Seriously, that’s what we did. The wires were in three groups of four, meaning we could switch them around to instead become four groups of three. Luckily, this all worked out perfectly.
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Over the next few days, I published a few close ups of the fabric as seen above to get people guessing the identity of special shape number 12. The multicoloured people on the cloud I thought were good to use for this to try and trick people! If you guessed it first time, very well done!
Then, just as I was closing the storage, Tom said about getting it out on Saturday morning. We spoke about hiring a van as there was no way it would fit in my trailer, Liam was down to inflate it following his flight on Friday evening and I was super keen to see Jesus come to life! So, we did it.
On Saturday 12th April we arrived at Bristol’s home of hot air ballooning, Ashton Court Estate, at 6am for the first ever UK inflation of Jesus, or the Miracle Man as we are now calling him. It would also be its first inflation for I believe 18 years, since the last logbook entry is Albuquerque 2007 and there are no online images since this date.
It was a chilly start but soon warmed up as the sun appeared. We got the groundsheet laid out, tether point set up, basket set up, fan in position (and extra 8hp fan thanks to Doug at Kubicek Balloons UK) and were ready for the balloon! A group of around 10 of us pulled the envelope bag out of the rental van, onto the sheet and started sorting out the wires.
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As I gave the thumbs up for fans on, and the cloud, people and body began filling with air, the excitement and happiness of seeing this shape in real life for the first time made the long wait for its arrival from the USA all worth it. I felt like that balloon obsessed kid again who once dreamt of looking after these giants of the sky when he was older. I can’t believe this is now my 12th special shape and I have to say, one of the best.
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Once we were all happy and sure the many Velcros were sealed, Liam fired up the burners. And after a few minutes, there he was, looking over his new home of Bristol UK. He must have thought he got lost! It’s still in fantastic condition and is probably still airworthy, although we have no plans to explore this.
It has an unusual deflation system, which operates using one deflation panel in each shoulder. As you pull the line, it pulls the two panels vertically letting the air out and when released these panels sit back horizontally, re-sealing the Velcro. You would expect a shape such as this to have a rip panel with rip locks, one in the back and one in the head, as is the case with Snow White and Action Man. It is not possible to walk into the head part of the balloon during cold inflation. It also has a American-style skirt rather than the usual UK scoop.
One thing I noticed was it looked like he broke his left arm as it was folded back on itself, and Andy did a great job of hooking one of the crown lines around the fingers to gradually move the arm and hand forward into its correct position. I had to get that perfect picture!
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I must say at this point that I am not a religious person and while there is no hiding that this balloon is of Jesus Christ on a cloud, I didn’t want this to become a religious thing, hence naming it the Miracle Man across the website. Of course, most people, me included, still refer to it as Jesus most of the time! It’s a bizarre-looking balloon, I will admit, but I love it. He joins our other character favourites Snow White, Ralph, Slick, Sonic and Action Man and will make his UK event debut at Ragley Hall for the 2025 Midlands Air Festival.
I am very lucky to have this famous shape in the collection and big thanks from all of us who will enjoy seeing the Miracle Man over the coming years must go to our good friend Bryce for bringing it up in conversation all those months ago.
From a crate to the clouds, it’s been one unforgettable ride.
Thanks for reading. Until next time - Matt
