Last Thursday, October 15, 2009, people got worried and curious when news came out that a six-year-old boy, not from Norwalk,Connecticut, got lost and was believed to be trapped in a helium balloon that soared about 60 miles eastern Colorado . This is truly no ordinary news as it involved the life of a child who probably doesn’t have any identification, such as a dog tag, thus it will be hard to locate him if ever he fell out of the floating balloon and needed to be located and returned safe back at their home.
What’s more interesting about this incident is that the family involved in it, the Heene family, is as well extra ordinary as they are storm chasers and science fanatic peeps that once appeared in the 100th episode of ABC’s “Wife Swap” This character of the family, especially that of the parents, made people a bit apprehensive regarding the truth of the incident. Doubts were more fueled when after numerous hours of ground and air searches, the 10 year old boy, Falcon Heene, was discovered to be hiding in a box in the attic of their house in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Speculations started to form that the non-wearing dog tag boy’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, might have intentionally facilitated the said event in order to promote their upcoming reality show. The police remained mum in the days that followed as they did further investigations about the said accusations.
Three days after the unusual news; police released a statement that the Heene’s Balloon story is proven to be a prank. Sheriff Jim Alderden, shared to reporters last Sunday that, “It has been determined this was a hoax. It was a publicity stunt.” He also added that while the investigation is still ongoing, there will be no arrest to be made at the moment. Heene’s lawyer, David Lane, said that he wants to shun from “the public spectacle and humiliation” of police men arresting the parents in front of their kids and assured that both Richard and Mayumi Heene will turn themselves to authorities if it’s already the right time.
