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Balloon Boy and family were on 'Wife Swap'
Falcon Heene, the 6-year-old boy who dominated news coverage for supposedly climbing into a runaway balloon aircraft, has been on TV before.The boy and his family -- father Richard Heene, mother Mayumi and brother Ryo and Brandon -- were on ABC's "Wife Swap" twice, most recently for the show's 100th episode in which they reswapped. The family was painted as "science-obsessed."
Father Richard Heene is a storm chaser and host of the Internet series "The Psyience Detectives."
On Thursday, Oct. 15, Falcon was seen by one of his siblings climbing into the balloon. It broke away and flew over Colorado, crash landing a couple hours later, but there was no sign of the boy aboard.
It's unclear now whether or not Heene son was on board at all when the balloon took off or if he may have fallen out. Fingers crossed it's the former.
Authorities are currently searching.
UPDATE: CNN's Wolf Blitzer reports that Falcon Heene has been found. He's safe and back home. It appears he was hiding in the garage attic the entire time and never actually in the balloon.
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I smell a hoax!! Dad's looking for some pub, kid is at home eating lucky charms and watching sponge bob
So why is the story still up?
whether it was a hoax or not, I'm glad the boy is ok.
It was indeed a hoax. Do these children not attend school? Are there no truancy officers in Colorado?
Hopefully, state and local authorities are writing up the bills for the emergency services fraudulently utilized as I type. This family ought to be paying bills for quite some time.
By the way, science obsessed? Or UFO obsessed? They sound like a bunch of loons, assuming the early reports are anymore accurate than this one.
Yeah, I saw the episode when they were on Wife Swap. The dad seemed like a real a**. The family seemed cuckoo. What does it say about your parenting approach if you have some kids lying and another kid hiding in the attic. The family should be held financially responsible for any state/government money that was spent on the search efforts.
Apparently, the local authorities aren't going to write up a bill, considering it a false alarm, not a hoax.
Sounds rather dubious to me, but they know more about it than I do.
The local Guard spent about $15,000 on aircraft costs, however.
The kids also weren't in school due to a teacher work day.
What a joke! Are people just that desperate to attain publicity someway and somehow?
My prayers go out to this wonderful family
I wondered if the flying saucer balloon project was really big enough to carry a six-year-old, so I did a little math: http://stevewilsonblog.com/2009/10/15/yes-it-couldve-carried-him-maybe.aspx
This whole thing was a hoax.