“Stratellites” — giant blimps that could supposedly deliver wireless broadband to land masses the size of Texas — were, for a long time, my favorite BS broadband idea. The obvious pun, that the company behind them was full of hot air, was irresistable. A close second was the concept of putting reusable balloons in the air, where they’d stay for about a day, then fall to earth, where people would retrieve them for a $100 bounty. Like the stratellites, it’s been talked about for a long damn time, but has never really gotten off the ground. The company behind the balloons says it launches 10 of them a day to provide telecom services to truckers and oil companies in the southern US, but in terms of widespread public services, nothing. The challenges of the business and its technology are pretty clear, but the idea just won’t die, and it pops back up every year or so in one for or another.

Now, WSJ claims to have found “people familiar with the matter” that say Google is interested in the idea, and is even thinking of buying the company. The sourcing on this story is, uh, tenuous at best, but of course the CEO of the balloon company doesn’t do anything to downplay the “rumors”. Om Malik hits the nail on the head with his skepticism and his warning that if this actually does prove to be true, it would appear that Google’s got more money than sense these days.

I guess the bottom line is that if you’ve got some wireless broadband tech — and the wackier the better — start making noise that Google’s interested in it, ’cause people will apparently believe anything in the space these days.

Also, if you need to exercise your skepticism muscles (or to test your bullshit meter), check out the comments on Om’s post, featuring gems like this one:

I think that micro satellites will be a better bet. These are about the size of a Coke can, and can be put into GS orbit for about 1/16th the cost of typical data birds. There are several companies that have already flown prototypes, and the industry as a whole is waiting for the private launch revolution to catch up with the business case.