On October 15, 2009, the parents of Falcon Heene claimed that he was trapped in a makeshift weather balloon floating thousands of feet above Colorado, but he was later found safe in his attic — and it may have all been a hoax for publicity.
ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock PhotoSix-year-old Falcon Heene, a.k.a. “Balloon Boy,” stares at a reporter’s camera as he enters his home in Fort Collins, Colorado. October 2009.
In October 2009, a massive, helium-filled balloon resembling a flying saucer was seen flying above Fort Collins, Colorado. On its own, it would have been relatively unremarkable, but there was one thing that made this balloon unique: It was carrying a six-year-old passenger who soon became known as “Balloon Boy.”
At least, that’s what everyone was told. Shortly after the balloon ascended, Richard and Mayumi Heene had called the authorities in a panic, saying that their son, Falcon, had climbed aboard the balloon and was now soaring at a height of 7,000 feet. Local police and National Guard helicopters pursued the balloon for nearly two hours with the hope they could rescue Falcon Heene.
Meanwhile, news media across the nation was flooded with live video of the balloon in flight. After a journey of roughly 50 miles, the balloon touched down just north of the Denver International Airport — with no child on board. Yet, no one had seen him fall. So, where was Falcon Heene?
The question did not remain unanswered for long. Just hours later, Balloon Boy was found hiding in the attic of his parents’ home alive and well. However, when reporters asked him about the events of that day, the answers young Falcon gave suggested that the entire incident had been a not-so-carefully orchestrated hoax.
The Balloon Boy Incident Draws National Attention
Public DomainColorado Army National Guard aviators Staff Sgt. Bryan Scott and Sgt. Nick Cornelius flying after the balloon, looking for signs of Falcon Heene.
The story began on Oct. 15, 2009, when a large, makeshift weather balloon in the backyard of Richard and Mayumi Heenes’ home in Fort Collins, Colorado, came loose from its mooring and rose into the sky.
According to a report in The Denver Post at the time, early reports suggested that the youngest member of the Heene household, Falcon, had climbed aboard shortly before liftoff. This was what his parents claimed, based on what Falcon’s older brother had reportedly told them.
Naturally worried about the six-year-old’s safety, local police and the National Guard quickly mobilized to track Balloon Boy. News media followed suit, capturing live footage of the balloon as it drifted across the Colorado sky. Some 7,000 feet above, the fate of young Falcon Heene was supposedly hanging in the balance.
The balloon itself measured 20 feet in diameter and stood five feet tall, closely resembling a classic flying saucer. It was certainly big enough to hold a six-year-old boy — and the thought of it was terrifying. Even more worrying were eyewitness reports of something falling from the sky.
CBS NewsThe Heenes’ balloon as it touched down north of Denver after a two-and-a-half-hour flight.
“I didn’t see it detach — but I did see something fall,” said Weld County Sheriff’s Deputy Jared Webb.
Richard Heene described hearing that report as “the worst moment of my life.”
When the balloon finally landed about 12 miles north of the Denver International Airport more than two hours after it first took off, Falcon Heene was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Webb’s account seemed all the more grim. But a massive search over an area of 27 square miles yielded no signs of the boy.
“Obviously at this point we’re looking at a recovery type of operation,” Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told reporters at the scene. Then, there was some commotion behind him, and several officers ran up to tell him something.
Alderden turned to address reporters once more: “He’s been located. He’s alive. He’s at the house.”
Falcon Heene Reappears Safe And Sound At Home
As Richard Heene later explained it, Falcon had been trying to climb onto the balloon earlier in the day, and he’d shouted at the boy to get away for his own safety. Falcon then told his older brother, Bradford, that he was going to try to crawl in again. Instead, he climbed into the attic of the garage, where he then took a nap.
UPI / Alamy Stock PhotoRichard Heene addressing news media following the Balloon Boy fiasco.
Richard Heene was described at the time as a storm chaser and inventor. The balloon, he said, was an experimental craft he called a “3D LAV,” which stood for “low-altitude vehicle.” He hoped to turn it into a commuting vehicle that would let passengers hover over traffic — or possibly to start a racing competition of sorts with other like-minded inventors, he said in a 2019 interview with 5280.
This idea might sound unusual for the average person, but it was fairly par for the course for Richard Heene, who was known to invest a lot of time and money on tinkering. One neighbor, Marc Friedland, said of the family, “They’re unusual, yes. But they’re great. We like them a lot.”
That Falcon could have climbed into the balloon — or that the family believed he had — was not an entirely ridiculous thought. There were a few things, however, that led both investigators and the general public to suspect that not everything was as it seemed.
How An Appearance On ‘Wife Swap’ Fueled Rumors Of A Hoax
ABCThe Heene family on Wife Swap.
This debacle was not the first time the Heenes had been introduced on television. Just one year before the Balloon Boy incident, the family had been featured on an episode of ABC’s Wife Swap, a show that followed two families leading vastly different lives and had them switch wives for two weeks to get an idea for how the other couple lived.
The Heenes were described by the show as “chaotic as a twister: the kids have no table manners and throw themselves around the house, and while Richard devotes every moment to his research, he expects Mayumi to cook, clean, and run the house without any help.” They were paired with the Martels, a calm, quiet family from Connecticut who dedicated themselves to child safety.
Regardless of anything else, the Wife Swap episode showed that the Heenes weren’t camera shy.
Paired with the ongoing Great Recession, it might make sense that the Heenes would create a national sensation to try to get back in the spotlight — and maybe even get a television show of their own. This suspicion seemed to be confirmed by Falcon himself in an interview with Wolf Blitzer shortly after the incident, when he said to his father, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.”
Two days later, Larimer County police asked Richard and Mayumi to come to their office. Up until then, their reports had suggested that “all interaction [between Richard and Mayumi] showed emotions consistent with a grieving process or concern for a lost child.” To get to the bottom of things, Richard and Mayumi were given separate polygraph tests.
UPI / Alamy Stock PhotoLarimer County sheriff’s deputies outside the Heene home in October 2009.
Richard seemed dodgy at best and hostile at worst, but Mayumi had a complete breakdown, reportedly telling officers the balloon was a setup to get more attention for a science-based reality TV show.
“It became very evident to us they were lying,” Sheriff Alderden told The Denver Post in a follow-up interview in 2009. “There is absolutely no doubt in our minds this was a hoax. It was a publicity stunt done with hopes of better maneuvering themselves for a reality TV show.”
Now, the Heenes were under investigation for conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and attempting to influence a public servant.
“Needless to say, they put on a very good show for us,” Alderden said, “and we bought it.”
If they were to be found guilty, the Heenes were facing six years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000. Public opinion had shifted strongly out of their favor. As more information came out, Alderden painted a picture of the family, and Richard Heene in particular, as dangerous, irresponsible, and desperate for fame.
A mark on Mayumi’s cheek even prompted a domestic abuse investigation, though charges were ultimately not filed due to a lack of evidence.
The Heenes’ lawyer, David Lane, said on Oct. 19 that Richard and Mayumi Heene would surrender to police and plead not guilty. Then, on Nov. 12, he announced that the Heenes would, in fact, be pleading guilty, largely under the threat of Mayumi, a Japanese citizen, being deported.
On Dec. 23, 2009, Richard Heene was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 100 hours of community service, in addition to writing a formal apology letter to the agencies who set out to look for Falcon. Mayumi Heene was also sentenced to 20 days in jail to be served through supervised community service two days a week. In addition, Richard was ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution.
With that, it seemed that the tale of Balloon Boy had come to an end — but a new development in 2020 put one final twist in the story.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis Pardons Richard And Mayumi Heene
Despite their guilty pleas, the Heenes always maintained their innocence. They eventually left Colorado for New Hampton, New York, where Richard continued to work on small trinkets to sell online or to various businesses. They tried for more than a decade to put the incident behind them and move on.
“It was all bullsh—t,” Richard said of the ordeal looking back. “This wound up being more about one sheriff’s ego and his search for 15 minutes of fame than anything having to do with us.”
ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock PhotoRichard and Falcon Heene in January 2011.
Richard Heene was essentially accusing Alderden of the very same things Alderden had levied against him. But he also provided more information that backed up his innocence. For starters, he said, Mayumi had not been proficient enough in English to answer a polygraph test, nor did she know that she could stop the interview and ask for an attorney.
Richard also had tried to find legal counsel, but since his interview fell on the weekend, no one was around to help. When he asked for assistance finding an attorney, the investigator reportedly refused. Lane, the attorney who did end up representing them, called the entire incident “an injustice.”
“It would have been great to take the case to trial and make them all look stupid, but was Richard really willing to take unconscionable risks with his family over it?” Lane said, referring to the possibility of Mayumi’s deportation.
“You’re talking about tearing a loving mother from her children and her husband as some kind of revenge,” continued Lane. “It was morally repugnant for the prosecutors to put the Heenes in that position, to let this case turn into a circus. For God’s sake, it was a balloon.”
Lane wasn’t alone in his assessment of the Heenes’ situation, either. Joining his opinion was Colorado’s own governor, Jared Polis, who announced in 2020 that he would be pardoning Richard and Mayumi Heene.
ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock PhotoThe Heene family in 2008. Back row: Mayumi and Richard. Front: Ryo, Falcon, and Bradford.
“Richard and Mayumi have paid the price in the eyes of the public, served their sentences, and it’s time for all of us to move on,” read a statement from the governor. “It’s time to no longer let a permanent criminal record from the balloon boy saga follow and drag down the parents for the rest of their lives.”
The felony conviction had severely limited the opportunities Richard Heene could pursue. He dreamed of appearing on Shark Tank with one of his inventions, for instance, but he couldn’t due to the show’s policy regarding felonies. Prior to the Balloon Boy incident, he had also been co-writing papers for the National Weather Digest and accompanying researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Hurricane Wilma.
Sure, he was a bit odd, but he was also playing exactly the kind of role reality television producers craved.
Thankfully, his children have fared better. They work together, play music, and largely keep to themselves, not seeking out the same sort of fame their father had so desperately wanted. Time has passed for them, and so has the cage of the Balloon Boy.
But one final twist in the story spelled more trouble for the Heenes.
Was The Balloon Boy Incident A Hoax?
In 2024, 5280 updated their original story with new information: They had acquired Mayumi’s handwritten notes from 2009.
The notes seemed to confirm what investigators had believed: The whole thing was a hoax. Falcon was meant to hide in the basement, not the attic, but other than that, Mayumi’s notes spelled out a clear motive and plan.
“I made the whole story up,” Mayumi told 5280. “I wrote it… To save myself, because of our kids.”
ABCMayumi Heene claimed to have made up the ruse in notes to her lawyer.
Over the phone, Richard began yelling: “Oh, my God. F—k! What the f—k? Every time you write something you cause a f—king sh—t storm.”
Mayumi then clarified that the Balloon Boy incident itself was not a ruse. Rather, she had lied in the notes she wrote for her attorney. Richard seemingly had no idea she had done so.
Whether his reaction was itself a ruse is unclear.
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