A family from Colorado managed to fool the public with their homemade UFO hoax involving their young son, who was quickly dubbed Balloon Boy.
Back in October 2009, Richard and Mayumi Heene, along with their three sons Falcon, Ryo, and Bradford, made a helium-filled balloon shaped like a very convincing flying saucer.
The silver-colored flying saucer was set up in their backyard, and the family filmed it seemingly breaking free of its ties and making it way up into the sky.
But that was just the beginning of this increasingly bizarre story that’s like no other UFO hoax out there.
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The DIY flying saucer ended up being a UFO hoax with a difference
We’ve some impressive DIY builds out there, like this unbelievable-looking fake Ferrari F40 that’s been turned into a stretched limo, or this guy who turned his sofa into a car.
Dad-of-three Richard Heene also had great talent when it came to an unusual build.
He and his family created this silver colored flying saucer that would have made a great UFO hoax, but it ended up being involved in a story far more wild than that.
The family decided to film the moment the balloon was filled with helium and rose up into the sky.
But in footage shared by the family, it appeared that the tethers designed to hold the DIY UFO in place had come loose, and they watched on in horror as it soared higher and higher into the sky.
While all of this was dramatic enough, one of the young boys then piped up to tell his folks that his younger brother Falcon, who was just six, had been inside the balloon at the time.
As you can imagine, this set off a frantic chain of events, which involved the police, rolling news coverage, and National Guard helicopters deployed to follow the balloon.
The balloon reached heights of more than 7,000 feet and spent 90 minutes in the air, before it eventually landed about 50 miles away from where it set off.
But as rescuers rushed out to the now deflated balloon, they soon realized Falcon, who had been dubbed Balloon Boy by the media, was nowhere to be seen.
Fears grew that the youngest may have fallen from the balloon while it was in the air, but later that same day, Falcon was found safe and sound at home and claimed he had been hiding out in the attic the whole time.
While that could have been the end of the story, it turned out there was yet another twist in the tale.
Accusations of it being a hoax began soon after the family appeared on Larry King Live.
During the show, Balloon Boy Falcon was asked why he hid in the attic.
He turned to his dad and said, “You guys said that we did this for the show.”
Seemingly suggesting that the whole thing had been staged.
Falcon’s words were enough to convince folks that the whole thing was an odd UFO hoax that went too far.
Authorities began to investigate the incident, and the Larimer County Sheriff announced that the parents could be facing several charges.
The following month, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $36,000.
Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to filing a false report to authorities and was sentenced to 20 days of weekend jail.
In 2020, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pardoned the Heenes, saying that the couple had ‘paid the price in the eyes of the public’.
The Balloon Story recently featured in a Netflix documentary
Despite pleading guilty, the couple has since denied that they staged a hoax, most recently on the Netflix Trainwreck: Balloon Boy documentary.
Falcon, who is now 22, also appeared on the documentary and backed what his parents said.
During the documentary, he reflected on what he’d said during Larry King Live.
“I remember feeling bad that I did something wrong,” he said.
“But just looking back on it now, I was six-years-old and all these adults took whatever I said they were able to string together what they thought was something else and make it so, so big. It’s baffling.”
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