Balloon Boy Full of Hot Air
Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 by rubber chicken in Entertainment, News, Scoopage, Video
Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden announced that their police investigation has concluded the Heene family’s balloon emergency last Thursday was in fact a hoax. Authorities believe parents Richard and Mayumi planned the whole stunt in order to capture media attention so they could get their own reality show.
Well now they’re famous – for being assholes.
Researcher Robert Thomas spoke to Gawker about helping Richard Heene with the plan but says he never thought it would involve any of the children.
Thomas spent several months earlier this year working on developing a reality science TV show to pitch to networks — the “show,” Thomas says, that Falcon was referring to when he told CNN “We did it for the show.” Among the ideas that Heene, Thomas and two others came up with for their reality TV proposal — and one that he says most intrigued Heene — involved a weather balloon modified to look like a UFO which they would launch in an attempt to drum up media interest in both the Heene family and the series he was desperate to get on the air.
Richard and Mayumi Heene will most likely face felony charges and be forced to pay back all the money wasted by local and federal resources to follow and rescue the boy-not-in-a-balloon.
Here’s the CNN interview where Falcon outs his parents as frauds. Listen to how shaky his dad’s voice gets as he tries to explain what Falcon just said.
