Felony charges are pending for the parents of “balloon-boy” as he has come to be known in media headlines. Charges will include contributing to the delinquency of a minor, attempting to influence a public official and providing false information to authorities. Now Richard Heene and his wife are avoiding media attention. Gee, they got all the attention they wanted, and now that they might get in trouble for perpetrating a hoax which resulted in police involvement, they’d like to be left alone.
The world watched as a homemade helium balloon, resembling a silvery, saucer shaped UFO, soared at altitudes reaching an estimated 7,500 feet. We were transfixed, all believing that a little boy was trapped on that balloon, accidentally launched while his parents were not present. As the story unfolded we learned that the balloon had been recovered and the boy was not aboard. We thought the worst: the boy had fallen out of the balloon and was probably dead.
People reported seeing something fall from the balloon, and authorities searched the ground along the flightpath of the balloon. They found nothing.
The next day we learned that the boy had been hiding above the garage, apparently after being scolded by his dad for playing around the balloon. He was hiding alright, but we found later that it was because he needed to be out of sight while the hoax was perpetrated. Someone who had gone into the home commented that in order to get into the attic the boy would have needed quite a boost.
Heene and his wife met in acting school and had appeared on the Reality TV show Wife Swap. As the story of the balloon boy hoax unwinds, we learn more about the egotistical, desperate Richard Heene, who wanted to gain publicity in order to launch his own reality TV show.
Take one look at the antics of Richard Heene and you see an idiot caught up in his own ego, trying to become famous. Watch the home video released of the accidental balloon launch, and you’ll notice two things: the kid wasn’t on the balloon in the first place (Heene knew it), and Heene also exhibits his lack of self control, throwing a tantrum and kicking at the launching deck, after realizing his wife forgot to hold on to a tether to prevent the balloon’s launch.
Former business associate to Heene and a fellow science enthusiast, Robert Thomas, has come forward with info about Heene and his scheme. According to Thomas, Heene wanted to get his TV career started with an alien hoax that would be “Bigger than Roswell.”
Like Heene’s story, but on a grander scale, the Roswell “incident” was a complete fabrication. The story was inadvertently created by UFO proponents and “investigators” after the fact, which actually involved a downed high altitude balloon used in the top secret Project Mogul defense system employed by the US Military.
Heene’s story comes nowhere near Roswell lore. What Heene has done is effectively make himself, and his family, a mockery in his attempt to gain fame. He’s a loon, and — I was just about to say I’m amazed, but I’m really not — that mass media would spend so much energy on a story like this. They’re giving the guy what he wants.
Heene was looking for the limelight, but he’s made a fool out of himself trying to get there.