TVSpy
As is usually the case with news stories about flying saucers, the word “hoax” now lingers over the case of a boy named Falcon who captivated the nation while remaining in the relative safety of his family’s attic. Falcon is, of course, Balloon Boy–an instant cultural icon and Twitter meme who, for hours, was believed to be riding in a homemade balloon high above his family’s home in Fort Collins, CO.
After a dubious comment made by the boy in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday evening, people everywhere are questioning the validity of the story. At the very least, the Heene family has emerged as a media-savvy bunch whom are comfortable in front of the camera. In March, the Heenes were featured in an episode of the ABC reality show “Wife Swap.” The family also has 55 videos posted on YouTube–one of the videos is a Beastie Boys-style music video in which the three Heene boys rap about “Pussification.”
In the interview with Blitzer, who was filling in on “Larry King Live,” Richard Heene and his wife Mayumi asked Falcon why he didn’t come out from his hiding place. To which, the six-year-old boy responded, “You guys said that we did this for the show.” On Friday morning, the Heene family appeared on the “Today” show and denied that it was a hoax. At one point, while anchor Meredith Veira was asking a follow-up question, Falcon leaned over and started vomiting into a Tupperware container.
If the Balloon Boy odyssey wasn’t exactly a hoax (local authorities are now tallying the costs associated with the “rescue”), it was positioned to gain publicity from the outset. According to a report from NPR, the first phone call that Richard Heene made was to the NBC-affiliate KUSA in Denver. Anchor Kim Christiansen recalls the phone call: “They were distraught and they were begging for the help of Sky 9 and they gave us a few details about this aircraft that they had built at their home and they said that their 6-year-old son was in it and that it was tethered and somehow it became un-tethered and it had lifted off.”