Balloon Boy Hoax is Popped!

By Amanda Pendolino on October 19th, 2009

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Last week, a Colorado family made headlines as they feared their six-year-old son Falcon was floating across the state in homemade silver balloon. (Turns out he was in a box in the attic.) Investigators began to speculate the ordeal might have been a hoax after the boy made a comment on Larry King Live that it was all “for a show.”

According to MSNBC, that’s exactly what it was. Police say that months-old e-mails have surfaced between the boy’s father, Richard Heene, and his associate, in which they discussed using the stunt as part of a PR stunt to promote a reality show.

Meanwhile, Heene’s attorney told NBC’s TODAY show that his client was “absolutely” innocent and he called on the police to disclose their evidence. 

Investigators want to interview Robert Thomas, a Denver man who claimed Heene had told him he was planning a media stunt to promote a proposed reality show. Thomas sold his story, including the Web site with the e-mail exchanges, to Gawker.com, and said the show would feature Heene as a mad scientist who carries out various experiments. It seems as though his first big experiment – getting famous for no reason – was a huge success.

A snippet from the show’s proposal: “This will be the most significant UFO-related news event to take place since the Roswell Crash of 1947, and the result will be a dramatic increase in local and national awareness about The Heene Family, our Reality Series, as well as the UFO Phenomenon in general.”