A California couple got quite the surprise visit in their backyard Saturday morning.
Hunter and Jenna Perrin were watching TV and doing yoga in their home off Temecula Parkway when they received a notification from their camera system, which had detected movement in the backyard at around 8:30 a.m. Then, they heard a knock at the door.
“I opened the door, and he goes, ‘They just landed in your backyard.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he goes, ‘The balloon,’” Hunter Perrin told NBC Los Angeles.
The homeowners rushed outside and saw a hot-air balloon with a basket of about a dozen people landing on their lawn.
“They were very friendly,” Hunter Perrin said. “It was like so hard to comprehend what was happening.”
Though the couple has seen some hot-air balloons in the distance during the roughly two years they’ve lived in the neighborhood, they weren’t aware their home was located on the flight path.
“I was amazed that they missed our tree. They missed our house,” Jenna Perrin said. “They’re practically kissing the fence.”
They said the pilot had to make an emergency landing because the winds died down, prompting the balloon to hover and run out of fuel. Everyone had to get out of the basket while additional fuel tanks arrived before they could get the balloon back up and over the house onto its transport truck, which took about two hours.
“It was from Pixar’s ‘Up’ — that’s what it looked like,” Jenna Perrin said. “At one point, they positioned it so well as it was coming up, it looked like our house could just go with it.”
Neighbors — many of whom the Perrins had never met before — came out to see the spectacle unfold.
Luckily, no one was injured in the incident, and there was no damage to the property.
“(The pilot) did a really good job making sure everyone was safe, and we’re just glad that we can all laugh about it now,” Hunter Perrin said.
After the experience, the Perrins say they won’t be going in a hot-air balloon anytime soon.
“Although if they did land in our backyard again, it would be nice,” Hunter Perrin said. “We could just get out there.”
“We wouldn’t have to drive home,” Jenna Perrin added, laughing.
