The family at the center of the infamous 2009 “Balloon Boy” hoax that took the nation by storm has a new excuse for their scam: the media “skewed the narrative to fulfill their need.”
In 2009, the country held its breath as it watched a UFO-like helium balloon drift over Colorado, presumably with six-year-old Falcon Heene trapped inside.
For 90 minutes, the balloon soared higher and higher, peaking at around 7,000 feet, with millions of captivated viewers thinking they were watching a child in flight and a heart-breaking human drama live on television. The balloon landed northeast of Denver Airport with no child inside, raising a worse fear, that Falcon had fallen from the balloon.
Later that day, he was found: he had been hiding in his family’s attic during the entire ordeal. The drama turned to the reality that it appeared to have been an elaborate ruse—busted into the open Falcon himself blurted out on Larry King Live that night, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.”
Now the family have found a new way to decline to take responsibility for scamming everyone who sympathized with them: blame the media for giving them the attention they craved.
Over 15 years later and Falcon’s dad, Richard Heene, insists that “the whole story was not told correctly,” giving People his own theory regarding the media’s captivation with the incident.
“I really feel like the media needed a new bad guy in town after Osama bin Laden,” the amateur scientist said. “And I really think that they just skewed the narrative to fulfill their need.”
“Of course, they made billions of dollars on advertising. I didn’t make anything out of it,” he added.
A now 22-year-old Falcon chalked up the whole ordeal to an “event that got way out of hand.”
“It’s one of those things that people look back at and are like, ‘That’s crazy!’” he told People.
Richard pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and was sentenced to 90 days in prison. His wife, Mayumi Heene, pleaded guilty to making a false report to authorities and was sentenced to 20 days in prison for the misdemeanor. The couple was also fined $42,000.
Richard later stated that their pleas were not admissions of guilt, but done out of what he described as duress and the added threat of Mayumi, who was a Japanese citizen, potentially getting deported.
In 2019, journalist Robert Sanchez exposed the family for having a timeline, handwritten by Mayumi, outlining a ploy to garner enough public interest in their family to help them acquire a reality TV show.
Prior to the “Balloon Boy” incident, the Heenes family had also appeared on the TV Show Wife Swap.
Included in Mayumi’s timeline was a detailed plan for the “Balloon Boy” hoax.
“The notes explained everything. Here it was in black and white,” Sanchez wrote, though Mayumi later told Sanchez that she made up the timeline in order “to save myself, because of our kids.”
Despite the murky evidence, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis decided to pardon the couple in 2020, saying that they had “paid the price in the eyes of the public, served their sentences, and it’s time for all of us to move on.”
Richard now lives in Florida with his wife and three sons, and told People that “I don’t have any regrets.”
“What happened was supposed to happen,” he said, remarking that the episode brought his family even closer together.
Falcon and his older brothers, Bradford and Ryo, currently build tiny homes on their family’s Florida property. Richard said that “they’re out there working their butts off every day.”
A Netflix documentary about the whole ordeal titled Trainwreck: Balloon Boy, was released on Tuesday.
The post ‘Balloon Boy’ Family Comes Up With Bonkers Excuse for Hoax appeared first on The Daily Beast.
