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August 18, 2025 69 mins

For a few tense hours in October 2009, the entire world watched as a homemade aircraft purportedly carrying a 6-year-old boy drifted in mid-air on live television. When the balloon landed, there was no boy inside.

Sources: Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 1: “Heene/Martell”
Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 18: “Heene/Silver”

The video that I showed Dana of the YourShakeDown invention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xAX2Y8-g4g

Compilation of news coverage from the time of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlwBcvb9RA

Internet Historian video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhUvm8SunY&t=1s

Richard Heene’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY

The gawker essay: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/5383858/exclusive-i-helped-richard-heene-plan-a-balloon-hoax

Transcripts from 911 and CNN: https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2009-10-21/segment/01

The Denver magazine that cracked the case: https://www.5280.com/the-balloon-boy-hoax-solved/

More reporting:

https://people.com/human-interest/10-years-later-balloon-boy-dad-insists-saga-no-hoax/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345497/Four-years-Balloon-Boy-aged-10-finally-set-worlds-youngest-heavy-metal-band-brothers.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/us/19balloon.html

https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/us-news/infamous-balloon-boy-starts-tiny-home-building-business-in-florida/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Folks,
it's a hugo. No, I haven't seen when us to
see this last? Welcome to Hoax a new podcast, or

(00:23):
is it? It is?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Every episode we sort through the lies we wish were
true and truths that sound like lies.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
This is not just another scam and scandal podcast. Oh no.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
These are stories of pranks and grifts throughout history, so
big and bold they make us question why we believe.
I'm the ghost of Danish Swartz and I'm the evil
twin of Lizzie Logan.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
So, Dana, Yes, this is my first episode that I'm
in charge of and I'm so excited. And it is
a topic that I have been just chattering about to
everyone I run into.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
When we talked about doing this podcast. This was the
first idea you had.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, I really live up on it. I'm like picturing
a text with a lot of exclamation points and.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Me being like, can I do this topic? Dana?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
What comes to mind when I say the words balloon boy?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I vaguely remember a news story I could not even
tell you, like when like maybe I was in high school.
So let's say, like you know Facebook era, Let's say
like I'm going to say twenty ten, and what I
remember is there was a story that a boy from
a family was missing, and then they said that he

(01:32):
floated away in a balloon, and then it turns out
that he wasn't missing, he was just hiding. Is that?
Am I entirely correct? Is the episode over? Episode over?
Good job?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah? So basically Balloon Boy was very much a live
television event. I would slot it somewhere in between the
White Bronco low speed chase and like Baby Jessica being
trapped in a well. Where as it was happening, it
was very dramatic because like someone could die. Afterward, it

(02:07):
was like, oh, either you watched it live or like you.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Did, yeah, yeah, was Baby Jessica live? Did they know
that she was down in the well? Was it the
whole thing?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I will talk about Baby Jessica because I think that
it provides an interesting framework for what happened with Balloon Boy,
because Baby Jessica basically there was like a little opening
in her front yard that she barely fit in, which
was the problem because once she fell into this opening,
she got stuck because it wasn't really big inno.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
It was a well, they call it a well, I
think it was.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
More of like a hole in the ground through which
you could access.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
The water tradball maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
But she was actually totally fine. She was like not
even freaking out down there. She was too young to
know what was going on, and they got her out.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Oh, but the news like covered the attempts to get
her out.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
The news was like parked on her front lawn, being
like a baby in the ground, what are we going
to do? Yeah, So what happened with balloon boy is
very similar. Was October two thousand and nine, a six
year old boy was reported to be in this balloon
that I will show you pictures of later. Some stories

(03:17):
say that it was a weather balloon. It was not
a weather balloon, but that is sort of the framework
people use because like they're like, what do you mean balloon? Yeah,
like a hot air balloon. It's not a hot air balloon.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
And it's not like a birth a giant birthday party balloon.
It is not a.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Giant birthday party balloon. It is a sort of experimental aircraft.
We'll get to that in a sec I will also say,
just going into this, the kid is fine. Okay, great.
If we are flippant and making jokes, it is because
the kid is fine.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Spoiler alert.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I would not talk this way about a story in
which a child dies. And also baby Jessica's fine, bity,
Jessica's also fine. God, I'm so happy for everyone. I'm
so happy.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
But are where are we? Are We in Utah? We
are in Colorado? Okay?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
So basically, yeah, yeah, So before we get into the story,
what you will come to see is that the protagonist
of the balloon Boy saga is not balloon Boy. It
is very much balloon Boy's dad, Richard. His name is
Richard Heeney.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
It's balloon Dad.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
It is balloon Dad. So let's go through a mostly
factual account of the events of October fifteenth through eighteenth,
two thousand and nine. Okay, So, the wife's name is
Miyumi Miomi. Miyomi and Richard Heeney live in Fort Collins, Colorado.
He is a general contractor and inventor. They have three boys,

(04:34):
all pretty young. They're each like a year and a
half apart. There's Rio Bradford and the youngest Falcon, who
is six. This is balloon Boy Balloon Boys. His name
is Falcon.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
His name is Falcons. He flies away and his name
is falcon yep. Okay, great, great, great. This is the
energy we're going to be on the whole time. Yeah.
It's eleven am on a Thursday.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
The kids are not at school because it is a
parent teacher conference day.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Love those days.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
And they have a balloon in the backyard. I'm going
to show you a picture of the balloon.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Okay, it's like kind of it's like a milar silver
shiny It like looks like it's designed to be like
a UFO in a home movie.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yes, it looks very fifty is the family sometimes refers
to as a flying saucer because it is saucer shaped
and it does look like The best way I can
describe what it looks like is like when you make
popcorn on the stove offscreen.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Why do they have this in their backyard. That's such
a great question.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
They are a family of scientists and they are going
to do experiments.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Sure, is it like a it like floats? Is it
a helium bod?

Speaker 2 (05:44):
So it is filled with helium. It's twenty feet wide
and five feet tall, and it has a little compartment
at the bottom with some electronic equipment in it, and
the idea is they have this like purpose built structure
in their backyard. The idea is they want to test
this theory that they'll be able to control it with electricity,
Like if you electrified the top of it negatively and

(06:07):
the bottom of it positively, can you get it to
move left and right? As it turns out, none of
this would have worked, But that's like their their home hobbyists.
Richard only has a high school education, but he very
much fancies himself an engineer.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Sure, so they are.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
They're basically going to launch it and see what happens.
So they have this purpose built structure, and the idea
is that this is launch day. But there's a tether,
so it's supposed to go up in the air, but
it's only supposed to go twenty feet up in the air.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, they've never sent it up in the air before.
It's not supposed to go up in the air. Yeah, yah,
it's just not supposed to. Falcon.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
The whole family is out in the backyard. Falcon is
playing near the balloon. Richard yells at him and says, hey,
stop messing with the balloon. All of this is on
video because they were recording it, like for Science. For Science,
he and Mayumi are recording. They do a countdown and they.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Go, okay, then launch.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
It's only supposed to go up twenty feet, and the
balloon just starts flying in a way. Richard's freaking out
because she's like, Miaomi, Miomi, you didn't tether it. Then
Bradford screams that falcon was inside the balloon. Question number
one that people have could a balloon lift a six
year old?

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yes? Yeah, I saw. I saw the scientific documentary up yeah, up,
which one broadcaster will reference during this news event.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
And someone online is like that I was a little flippant.
Falcon's little. He only weighs thirty seven pounds, and this
balloon is full of helium, so yes, it could have lifted.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
It's a twenty twenty foot balloon. It's a big balloon.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's a big balloon. They look all over the house,
they can't find Falcon. The first call Richard makes is
to the FAA because they can't see the balloon anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Oh god.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
So they're like, we need someone who can get eyes
on the balloon. So he calls the FAA. The fa
is like, I don't know man call nine one one.
It's unclear whether or not nine one one puts him
on hold, or maybe he and Miyumi are making different calls.
But basically the other two calls that get made one
to nine one one and two to the news, which
will come up later when people are accusing them of

(08:10):
wanting publicity that like, oh, they called the news before
they called nine one one. What they say is that
they wanted somebody who had a chopper because they just
they want eyes on the balloon.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
I mean that makes sense in theory.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Sure, it makes as much sense as any of this
is going to make sense.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
And also, like you're talking to a nine one one dispatcher,
they would be like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
The nine one one call is really frustrating to listen
to because they just keep repeating false information and they're like,
so he's in the plane and they're like, no, it's.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I don't know how to describe it.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
So sooner rather than later, CNN interrupts the live news.
The eyes of the nation around the world are on
this balloon.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Because their six year old son is in this amateur
helium balloon that has flown.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Away, has flown away and is sort of drifting. And
I will say now knowing that everybody's okay, and he
wasn't even there looks really stupid, Like it looks like
a jiffy pop thing, just like hovering above Colorado.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
And they got eyes on it. Clearly someone with alicopter.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
They've got eyes on it. The balloon drifts for about
two hours. It goes seventy miles and it goes up
to eight thousand feet in the air, So there's a
lot of dangers. It could hit a pole or a
power line. It's very cold up there. Falcon could be
hurt by the cold. It could crash, and of course
he's potentially breathing helium, yes, which would kill you pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, is eight thousand feet? I mean planes are thirty
thousand feet. Yeah, is the air breathe a bull up there?
I guess not if you're in a helium balloon.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Like potentially they say that like there's a flap, he
might be breathing like through the flap because it's just
like a sort of little cardboard box that's stuck to
the bottom that he's supposedly in.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
That also feels like a risk that it just could
fall apart.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
That's the other thing that he could potentially fall out,
But everyone is acting as if he is alive because
a if he's dead, they can't just let him like, mom,
well goodbye and be like they have to act as
if he is alive and could die at any moment.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
They need to get him down as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, out, and flights are being re routed out of
the Denver Airport, which if anybody wants to do research
on the Denver Airport, there's a lot of conspiracy theories
about the Denver AIRPA.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's also crazy, Like there are peoples whose days are
getting ruined because these flights. Indeed, someone was late or
didn't make it to their sister's wedding.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
They yeah, they have to basically take off going different directions. Oh,
it is like a freaking hassle. Like this is not
just a kid playing hide and seek in the woods.
They have launched an aircraft, so there is no plan
for getting the balloon down. You cannot fly a helicopter
close to it because the wind created by the helicopter
would just push the balloon away. Oh god, it's going

(11:00):
too slowly to fly a plane parallel to it, that
plane would just wish past it. Then Colorado Army National
Guard sends up two helicopters with the idea that maybe
they'll fly like a lot above it and lower somebody down,
or maybe they'll lower down some weights.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
I have an idea.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Literally, I was just gonna say, Dana, how would you
get this boy down?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Big old net? Okay, I'm also on team net. So
it's like, get the big helicopter above it to drop
drop a net, drop a big ol net. Obviously, do
they not think of big ol' net? I think some
people think of big old net. They also were like,
maybe we can get some hang gliders to like hang out.
I don't know. I feel like it would be difficult

(11:43):
to hang glide with that sort of precision unless you're
like mission impossible Ethan Ethan hunting and Hunt, well, he
would he would be able to get this bully.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Remember when Elon Musk was going to go get those
boys who were trapped in a cave.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Oh yeah he did, he did not. Yeah, but Tom
Cruise totally could have gotten Blue Boy Cruise. I think
not even even Hunt I know one percent could have
gotten balloon Boy.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
One hundred percent could have gotten balloon boy. But anyway,
so there's some ideas of what they might do, but
nobody's there's no like contingency plan for what if a
boy is in a balloon.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And the longer you go, the longer you're like, yeahs,
this is not good. Yes, because there's a boy in
a balloon breathing helium very high up, very high up.
So it's October two thousand and nine.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
And something that I think is interesting about this story
is that you see a split between like new and
traditional media because all of the newscasters covering this are
not saying it's a hoax. They are, you know, a
I think very cynically, I'll say, I think a lot

(12:46):
of news stations wanted it to be real for the
ratings and be potentially a child's life is in danger,
and we have seen, you know, baby Jessica's life was
in danger. We have seen this happen. So Anderson Cooper
is taking a very soon seriously. Everybody is taking it
very seriously. The entire Internet is like, lmao, this is
a hoax, like right away. To me, it's similar to

(13:08):
what happened with Oceangate, where everyone on the news was
like oh no, they're dead, and it just immediately became
a meme, a meme.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
I have a question, Yes, when did people start calling
him balloon boy? I want to say right away, Yeah,
it seems like a no brainer, especially because I don't
think they would have released his name right away, so
first he was just like the boy in the balloon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
But yeah, there are Facebook groups coming up about this,
He's trending on Twitter. There's like people are making balloon
boy merch on Red Bubble, like balloon boy is having
a meme moment.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
And for the news, it's very rare that you get
a news event that is unfolding live.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
The media ethics here are kind of interesting to think
about because if Falcon is up there and dead, they
are broadcasting like a child's yeah, and like is that
okay to do?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, Like, isn't that creepy? It's absolutely creepy. It's also
like it's the the what is the purpose of news?
Like it's interesting, it's an interesting story. And I totally
understand why balloon Boy captured the entire country's attention because
it's exactly the combination of things that people love, which

(14:24):
is something high stakes and like everyone's watching. I mean
like dead children, like children in peril, like you just
think of like true crime, and like everyone's macabre, like
fascination with like children. And then there's like the element
of absurdity and whimsy to it. He's in the air.
It's insane. He's in a slow moving balloon in the air.

(14:44):
And you call him balloon boy.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
He's balloon boy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
His name is Falcon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And this is every parent's nightmare, right, which is you're
a great parent. Twenty three out of twenty four hours
in the day, the two minutes you look away, something happens.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
This is my own personal balloon boy situation. I have
a little You did put your son in a put
my son in a balloon. He fled, We got him,
but he did float away for a little bit. No,
we thought that my cat Eddie, who I love very much,
she's a very sweet little kitt and sweet had gotten
out and ran away. It turns out she did not.
She was hiding under addresser. But in the time that

(15:21):
I was looking for her, the thought that she was
somewhere scared, Like I'm like my chest hurts thinking about it.
And look, if Falcon was in that balloon, the thought
that he was up there scared is like my chest
is tightening, Like that's so sad, that's so scary.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
It's it's scary.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
He's fine. That's why I'm like, the reason we can
get through this is like he is okay.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah. So another interesting aspect of this happening in two
thousand and nine, as opposed to you know, the year
of the Bronco Chaser, the year of Baby Jessica, is
that the Heini family has a pretty significant digital footprint.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, this dad seems like someone who likes attention.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
He likes attention, and while the balloon is up there,
they need to fill the time somehow, And so people
start finding all of these YouTube videos that this family
has made, all of which have now been scrubbed from
the Internet, but you can still find like descriptions of.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
What they were.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
And this is I think, like possibly Nancy Grace. This
is a quote from her broadcast that day. They made
a video including some rough language from the kids, slamming
traditional families who play it safe. We can't actually repeat
it on the air, the word they used to describe
the men in such families. And I did find the

(16:40):
title of this video, play it safe was called not pussified?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Oh all right, all right, the balloon lands.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
This is basically the best case scenario. It lands very
gently in a wheat field.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's like a dream. It lands and no, yeah, it
just is in a field.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yep, it lands gently in a wheat field. And guess what,
no boy?

Speaker 1 (17:04):
No boy? Yes, balloon no boy, yes, balloon, no boy.
And like the media, I imagine was there at the
wheat field?

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Oh yes, eyes on the wheatfield, rescue workers. There's no
boy inside. So one of the possibilities is one did
he fall out? And two is it just like? Has
he been kidnapped? And coincidentally, also a balloon is launched,
like okay, if he wasn't in the balloon, then where
the f is he? The kini house is covered in

(17:34):
rescue workers, reporters, police, et cetera. And guess who wanders
into the living room?

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Is it Falcon? It is six year old Falcon?

Speaker 2 (17:42):
He he he's like, what's up everybody?

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Oh my god, he's home. He's home. He was in
the attic. Okay, and now I need to understand. I
need to understand why he was who put him there?

Speaker 2 (17:55):
So that kidnapper that would be the question of the
rest of this episode.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
How do you end up in the attic?

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Here's what I'll say. It is ridiculous that they would
have searched the house and not found him in the attic. Yeah, However,
if I am the sheriff of this town, the first
thing I'm doing when I get this call is rechecking
the house. Nobody found him, so before anybody wants to
call the parent stupid for not noticing him in the attic,

(18:26):
Nobody found him.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
So I guess it was really well hidden. So the
sheriff did people did check the house or they should have.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
I'm just saying there were people all over this house,
and whoever was in charge of checking the attic either
didn't check or didn't see it.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Also, not to put it on the parents, but if
I thought that my child had floated away in a balloon,
I wouldn't be doing like a methodical check of the house.
You're in like panic mode. This is you fail.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Your child's in the balloon. It was Bradford who said
Falcon was in the balloon. Yeah, yeah, okay, but they
have a big reunion on the front lawn. Everyone's really happy.
Best case scenario, kid was never even in danger. I'll
show you a picture Falcon tucks his little head into
his shirt because he's six and very overwhelmed.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Here is what the original explanation is, okay, is that
Falcon was playing in the balloon his dad yelled at
him about it, so he got embarrassed, ran and hid
in the attic and fell asleep.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, and that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Sure, if this happened to you with Arthur, how would
you handle it? Would you be embarrassed? Would you be relieved?
Would you think it was funny? Would you think it
was dramatic?

Speaker 1 (19:44):
And this is after the balloon boy situation, after like
that night, Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
What would be your how would you approach that?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
First? Like overwhelming relief that my child was not in danger,
like probably like tears, Like I think I would just
be crazy, like thrilled and then embarrassed for the media,
like embarrassed that like the FAA and helicopters were involved.
So relief and then humiliation.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, So Richard does make a comment where he's like,
We're gonna keep a better eye on him and listen,
little boys be crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's that is I think it would be a little
too flippant for my reaction. I think I would be like,
oh my god, I can't believe my I thought my
son was in danger and he's alive. Would you do
more press?

Speaker 2 (20:32):
No? Okay, So this is the They keep doing press,
and they will say later that the sheriff told them that, like,
do press now, so they'll leave you alone later.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
I guess you do one interview to be like, we're
so embarrassed. That's I guess that's what I would say
if I had to, I'd like, this is mortifying. No,
parents should never have to go through this, and I'm
so sorry. Maybe do a PSA about balloon safety. So
that night, oh no, via satellite, they go on Larry
King Live. It's not being hosted by Larry King. It's
Wolf Blitzers on that night, and they give an interview

(21:07):
as a family, and we're gonna read just the just
the little part of this interview. So it's three people
are talking. It's Richard, Mayumi and Falcon, but there's only
two of us. So would you like to read the
parents or Falcon? I'll be the parents. Falcon? Did you
hear us calling your name at any time? Mm? Hmm?
You did? You did, well, why didn't you come out?

Speaker 2 (21:27):
You had said that we did this for a show.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Man, No, all right, this is rare. The trouble begins.
You had said that we did this for a show.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, this is the smoking gun of balloon boy Falcon.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
I love Falcons.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Sorry, so this really damns them. Wolf Blitzer does not
push back on that right away. Later, Richard will explain
that after he was like discovered to be fine, he
showed ode a like report like a Chinese reporter where
he had been hiding, and so that's what he thought

(22:07):
his parents were asking about. He was like, oh, you
said that it was for the show that I was
in the attic.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
The show meaning the news. Okay, so he was.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
And again, this is a six year old who's had
a long day. Yeah, so this is not like a
confession necessarily, it could be a little confusing. Yes, that night,
the sheriff is like, it's not a hoax.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
All is well?

Speaker 2 (22:30):
That ends well, The sheriff says, you know, this would
not be the first time that a kid hides. Parents
freak out, and then the kid, realizing that people are
looking for them, is so embarrassed that they don't come
out for a while yeah, like, this is kid logic,
kid behavior.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Over the weekend, the.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Family does more press.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
They go on two morning shows and Falcon throws up
during both of them.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Whole Falcon, Well, they shouldn't make him do this.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
He's six and he's really stressed out. They also bring
the parents in for some more questions. They question all
of the family members individually. The details of that questioning
we're going to get to yep by Monday. The sheriff
is like, so this was a hoax. We've kind of
always thought it was a hoax, but we were saying

(23:14):
that we didn't think that to get the family to
play along with us. We think the whole family was
in on it. But we're not going to charge the
kids with anything.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, don't charge the children. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Specifically, what they say is that Miyumi admitted it and
signed an affidavit to that effect, and they use that
to get a search warrant to search the house, and
they say that through this search they find evidence to
prove that the family was trying to get a reality
TV show and had money troubles. Okay, Dana, how does

(23:46):
that sound to use a motive? Does that sound like
the logical conclusion.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Uh, it doesn't sound logical, but it sounds plausible. Sure,
if I had money troubles and wanted a reality TV show,
I don't know if I would think child away in
a balloon. I just don't know if my brain would
go there.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
What about the opposite direction of investigation, Like if I said, oh,
my god, Dana, I heard about this family they did
this thing. Why do you think they did that? Would
you immediately jump to they were probably trying to get
to TV show.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
No, it just feels like a big lead. So why
would they think that?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well, because here's everything the Heini family did to try
and get famous before two thousand nine.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, because I would be like, why would they give
a reality TV show to this family? Great question because
of a balloon, But yeah, I would love to know
what this family did.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Richard and Mayumi, who was originally from Japan, met in
a Los Angeles acting class. Okay, in the nineties, all right.
At the time, Richard wanted to be a comedian and
Mayumi was in a rock band. I mean that's cool, Sure,
I mean they should make an indie film that thinture
was called balloon Boy. They married three months later, and

(24:52):
started in entertainment business. They're doing the la thing. In
nineteen ninety nine, Richard wrote a script about a man
who inherits desert gas station that doubles as a restaurant
and hotel. It's cursed because of one of his ancestors
killed Native Americans after consuming payote. He loses his mind
after taking payote, setting off a gross and grizzly escapade
involving laxative lace, chili, serpent, monsters, hiding, and toilets, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
That's from an article that doesn't sound like the worst
movie I've I've heard heard about. No, it doesn't sound good. No,
but I'm like, I've heard of worst screenplay ideas.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Make it.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
In addition to their Hollywood ambitions, Richard has some theories.
He's into electromagnetism and the potential electromagnetic energy that comes
off of dead bodies. He's really into gadgets and gizmos.
He has this theory that storms are not caused by
temperature changes, but by electromagnets and the Earth's polarity.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
You know what, if this sounds like I'm not to
some people are just untaught geniuses, and those are very rare,
but it's a thing of like a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing where if you like skimmed an article
about electromagnet and you're like, well, I have some big
ideas now, but if you actually talk to like an
engineering professor or like someone who does electrical engineering, they'd

(26:08):
be like, no, that doesn't make sense for these reasons.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
One hundred percent. He's very much someone who has a
lot of interests and not a lot of like study.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
He like listened to a podcast.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, like he would be really into Joe Rogan anyway.
He thinks there might be civilizations on Mars, and hey,
there might be. There might be, but I don't want
to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
The family moves out to Colorado, leaving behind a trail
of debt. They never stopped trying to get famous. Richard
made a documentary about Tornado chasing, tried to sell it
to a TV station. Note takers. CNN used to have,
I guess, sort of like their own version of YouTube
that was Seeing an Eye Reporter where you could make
your own videos and upload it. So again, all of
this has like been scrubbed from the Internet, but in

(26:52):
coverage you'll sometimes see them being like cn an Eye
reporter contributor Richard Heeney. He does this YouTube show that's
very podcast called The Science Detectives that's like psy like
the Science Detective Science. I can only find one episode online,

(27:12):
but it's him and two other people just talking about
how the world's going to end in twenty twelve. So
like it's not even very original fake science.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, it's like recycled fake science.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
He and this is a piece of evidence that the
police did for sure find that at the time of
the incident, he did have a profile up on a
casting website for reality TV.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay, well I understand his character. Yeah, we live in
LA we come across these people.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh sure, Dana. Do you remember the television show Wife Swap?
Oh my god, yes I do. If my sir, television show.
What if I told you the Heney family was on Wifeeswap? No,
you know what if I told you the Heney family
was on Wife Swap twice?

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh my god? Well, should we explain the concept of Wifeeswap?
Please explain? As I remember it, it would be a
family where two families that are very different, one that's
like a very like military organized boy scout family and
one that's like a very hippie family, and I guess
for a week they would swap moms and the moms

(28:17):
would I guess, like, isn't it funny that this like
family where they're all like hippies. Now the mom's like,
we wake up at six am and make our beds
like and then at the end the I guess parents
come together and are like, I guess I learned something
about parenting styles.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, so that's basically it. So it's I think it's
two weeks. The first week the mom has to live
like the host family, and then the second week she
gets to set some rules. Okay, So the Heini family
appeared in season five, episode one of Wife Swaped. This
is right before balloon Boy happens and eight.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
I can't believe this. What was there? Like archetype. So
they are presented as free thinking storm chasers Okay, yeah,
who the kids sleep in their clothes because they might
be woken up in the night to go chase a storm.
Yeah that they're like the preppers.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
They're just they're like really into extreme weather and yeah,
they're like adventurer prepper science types. They're very into the
science side of supernatural stuff like not so much magic,
more aliens.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Okay, I get it, they're sci fi, not fantasy.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yes. At one point, the voiceover says, Richard rides a
motorbike into the center of the tornado to take readings
for research for research. Favorite his favorite breakfast is something
called spaceship eggs, which is basically just a piece of
toast and a fried egg. And then he like puts
the egg on the toast and is like, it's on
the spaceship.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
That's so cute. I think it's cute. And family is
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, And also here's what I'll say. The kids are
like they're not bad kids, but they are so unparented.
They fart and burp at the table. They use filthy language.
They have to be bleeped out, and Falcon is five.
At this point, Richard and Mayumi seem to really like
each other, but they're always yelling. They're yelling at each other,

(30:05):
they're yelling at the kids. The kids don't listen, they
don't really have a bedtime. It's just kind of chaotic.
They swap with a Connecticut family that's like very buttoned
up and Richard and again, this is two thousand and eight,
and he's definitely hamming it up for the cameras. Yeah,
he's such a misogynist. Oh no, he's super misogynistic. He's

(30:26):
super chauvinistic. He expects the wife to be very wifey
and yells at her when she doesn't. He drives this
woman so insane that she goes and spends the night
at a hotel for a couple of months.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
I mean, good for her.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, and yet this got big ratings. So later that
season it's wife Swap episode one hundred and two. Fan
favorite families are picked to do a swap and the
he needs come back.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
I bet Richard was thrilled. He I really I think
he was.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
So it is no longer Storm season, so they are
instead making a UFO that looks a lot like the
Balloon to try to contact aliens. Oh great, Yeah, that's
their family project. And Richard is showing off his inventions
like a motor that needs no fuel and a machine
that's it you could that someone got on that, hello,

(31:17):
And a machine that could dissipate a tornado.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Twister? Can you can you say twisters?

Speaker 2 (31:23):
That's literally twist and Twisters, Which if that's not his
favorite movie.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Maybe he thinks they stole it from one of his screenplays. Maybe,
isn't that the plot of Twisters.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, it's less a machine and more. She thinks this
one chemical will that's the moisture.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
That's where he went wrong. I didn't see Twisters. It's fun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
The family that they swap with, you would think they
would get along because the mom is a psychic.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Oh yeah, but that's too like fantasy for they don't
think they're science for aliens. Yes, no science for psychics.
He's so mean to this woman. She's not as good
at handling conflict. He calls her fat and lazy to
her face.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh. He at one point throws milk on her and
the producer has to step in. He sounds awful. I
hate this man so much. He's very unlikable.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
I wanted to come in, like with an open mind
to balloon boy family, but he Oh, that's so awful.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
He's pretty awful. I will say. Sherry, the woman that
he threw the milk on, then goes on the news
and is like, I don't think they lie.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
So like what good? Good for Sherry? Good for Sherry,
but also just because the person you threw the milk
on is okay with it doesn't mean you should throw
milk on people. You shouldn't. Men need to be nice
to women, period. Yeah, all right, let's check back in
with the heenes post balloon boy.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, things are not lookingka. Child Protective Services has been called.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
So am I I don't want to fast forward for
a weekend, but the no, no, I don't want to
skip any like if you're going to get to it.
But so basically they had arranged this whole thing. The
whole thing was fake.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
They to this day maintained that it was not fake
and that they thought Falcon was in there.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Really yeah, but really people are like they people think
they kind of orchestrated it, told Falcon to hide, yes,
because which it's kind of because.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
You went on CNN and so we did this version.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
No, but I'm like it's kind of galaxy brain to
be like they knew that if they pretended a child
was in a slow moving balloon, people would care. Like
they were correct about that. Yeah, and like yeah, they
got all the news.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Attention, They got the news attention and then Falcons sold
him out.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, well he's six and he was stressed out. He's
six and stressed out. Okay, sorry after so that's fine,
So let's check back in what the heenies at Child
Protective Services has been called. Child Protective Services decides the
kids are fine, they don't file a report, there's no
evidence of abuse. But people are still digging through their past,
calling everybody they know. They find a record of the

(33:57):
police showing up at their house after like a nine
to one to one hang up that maybe was a
domestic violence situation. They heard yelling, but the family says
that it was the kids yelling. Miyumi has a red
mark on her face. She says she's fine. So, you know,
I don't want to tell tales out of school. But
they're digging up dirt on this face, there's there's some suspicion.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I mean they're getting canceled, you know, they're they're digging
through their tweets metaphorically, Yeah, they find all of their
old YouTube videos where like kids are saying slurs, he
made this like weird parody of an attack on the Capitol,
or he's like, you know, did JFK fake his death?

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Is Hillary a reptile? Like like this looks continuing.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
So people are now continuing to find old stuff Okay,
so there's more just every day, more's coming out of
Can you believe these people? People are combing looking through
their trash?

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Say?

Speaker 2 (34:50):
The FAA opens an investigation. The investigators find out that
the Heinies were in talks with RDF, which is the
company that produces wife's for their own show. And RDF
is like, yeah, we had a conversation. We're not doing
that anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
A student, like a twenty five year old's research student
in Colorado contacts Business Insider saying they have proof it
was a hoax and does Business Insider want to buy
that proof? And Business Insider says, we don't pay for stories,
but will publish like your statement on our website in
case anybody else wants to buy it. Yeah, the National

(35:26):
Inquirer is interested. But it ends up this guy's name
is Robert Thomas and he sells his story to Gawker Goker.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
There's a Gawker cameo on this story.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Gacker was all over this in the day. A lot
of this is deleted now because the Gawker archives have
kind of been rated, so like the actual proposal and
the PDFs of all the emails out there, but you
can find the essay that this guy, Robert Thomas wrote
about his experiences with Richard, so there is actual proof
that it was a hoax potentially. What he says is

(35:57):
that he and Richard were working on a pitch for
a MythBusters slash mad Scientist type show, but Richard was
more into being famous and Robert was more into the science. Yeah,
do you want to read a couple quotes from this
essay that this guy writes for Gacker.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
I would love to Richard said, quote, Well, think about it.
We were the one hundredth episode of Wife Swap, and
why are we the most recognized Wife Swap family and episode?
It's because of the controversy. I don't care what people
say about me as a person, but the fact of
the matter is they know who I am. Not wrong.
And then here's another quote. Bluntly, I think Richard's ego

(36:35):
blinds him to his brilliance. The only thing inhibiting him
from progressing is a steadfast determination to become famous and
live a Hollywood lifestyle. Someone needs to slap him in
the face and say wake up. This is not what's important.
He has an amazing family that has already been subject
subject to a tremendous amount of criticism. I especially feel

(36:56):
bad for Falcon. He's going to be known as balloon
boy for the rest of his life. That's not something
you want to tell a girl on the first date.
I mean, it would be an that is actually an
interesting thing to tell a girl on a first date.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Also, like it happened when you were six. You don't
have to tell her.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
You don't have to tell her. But also like that's
kind of that's a fun fact.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
So yeah, so people are really coming for the Heani family.
And another point that Robert makes, which it speaks to
this thing of like people really think they know what
the truth must be based on what they know about
these people, which is like anybody can act anyway at
any time.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Did Robert have any like actual proof or was it
just like I had this experiment experience.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
He says that in the proposal, which now I can't find. Yeah,
but it's like he had apparently talked to Richard about like, well,
it sure would get a lot of ratings if a
kid was in.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
A balloon, and like he had floated the idea, the
notion that it would get a lot of attention.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, So he says that they had these conversations, and
then there's proof of like some series they were gonna
try to pitch. There's a lot of circumstantial proof.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
And another big takeaway is he says that the story
about Falcon going and hiding the attic because he was
scared after his dad yelled at him is impossible because
Falcon's not afraid of his dad.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I mean that seems relevant, especially because it seems like
this family is yelling at each other all the time, right.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
But it's also like that's so embarrassing if like you
can't get your kid to.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Should be able to discipline your kid? Yeah, in no
sense of discipline this family, damn it. Question.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yes, now, knowing all of this, if you're the county prosecutor,
what do you think the charges should be and what
do you think the sentences for those charges should be? Like?

Speaker 1 (38:43):
What laws have they actually? I know, I wish I
knew more laws. I'm like, fraud, it feels like something.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Because they didn't collect any money. Yeah, so it's not
like they had a gofund me. Yeah, fraud seems like
a blanket thing. Oh, you're like lying to like police,
like lying to police into nine one one like, you
can't do that.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
You're not supposed to lie to police. So whatever that
is per per No, that's not perjury. I did model
you in. You didn't take trial. I did mock trial
in high school. I should know at least some laws.
But I would say whatever, like obstruction of justices, and
I would say that it should be like six weeks
in prison or a pefty fine, so Richard.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
So they both end up pleading guilty to what they're
charged with. They get plea deals. Richard gets ninety days
after pleading guilty to one count of attempting to influence
a public servant. Okay, which is a felony. He's a felon.
Miyumi gets like twenty one days on a misdemeanor of
making a false report.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, that's that's kind of I kind of nailed it.
Thank you, Dana nailed it. I kind of nailed that.
A plus, my mock trial history comes right back. If
your teacher is listening, great job.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah. Miyumi states many times that she thought she was
going to have her kids taken away or that she
could be deported. She's not a citizen, yep. And Richard
says that he pled guilty to get the felony wrap
off of her so that she wouldn't be deported.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
So they still maintained that they're innocent, that the balloon
Boy was not a hoax, but they are just trying
to protect themselves.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
One hundred percent. And it's a little unclear how the
deportation might have factored into this, because the county of
course says we never threatened anybody with deportation. And also
they kind of can't even guarantee that she wouldn't be
deported because like, the Colorado Police are not in charge

(40:38):
of that. Yeah, so even if they said, like, hey,
plead guilty and we promise we won't deport you, any
lawyer would be like, like, ice can still deport you
even if you strike this bargain. Yeah, Colorado does not
have that power. Yeah, they can't guarantee it. So it's
a little unclear whether or not that was ever like
a serious threat. But basically they just want this to

(41:01):
go away. They want to avoid a trial, and she's
not deported and they don't really do any hard time either.
He does a couple of weeks I think, in the
county jail, and then he gets out on a work release.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
She does work release on the weekends. She doesn't even
I think, spend a night in custody and has community
service hours and they have to pay a very hefty fine.
I mean that sounds right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
The judge says that they're not allowed to profit from this,
So no selling Balloon Boy merch ooh, that was devastating.
No selling your story to CNN. You're not allowed to
get paid for this.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
What about a reality show?

Speaker 2 (41:39):
The reality show dreams have been dashed. I feel like
today them being liars would only increase their value.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I was really going to say, like, I feel like, now,
if Balloon Boy happened and these people were so craven,
that's like part of it is like, look at these terrible,
craven people who manipulate their children. Yeah, Andy Cohen could
really do something with them. I mean, look, if the
Baldwins have a TV show, that's all. I can't even

(42:07):
I mean, they need the money because they have too
many kids. They have too many kids.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
So typically when you take a plea bargain, I don't
think you're supposed to go around saying I'm innocent and
I only took this plea bargain like to avoid doing
hard times because Richard also had to make an apology
in court. But it's a little bit funny when this
comes up. The everyone's like, hey, Sheriff, Like they say

(42:32):
that they took a plea bargain for all these reasons
and that they're actually innocent, Like aren't you mad about that?
And he's like, well, everybody knows they lie, so whatever,
they can say what they want.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
In twenty ten, they get the balloon back.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Oh good for them, so's.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
I mean, it's not in the smithsony, it's not unless
they donated it. But they get the balloon back and
they moved to Florida and homeschool their kids.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
It does seem right that these people move to Florida. Somehow.
That feels like the fitting epilog to this story.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Absolutely, they don't quite stop trying to be famous.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Oh yeah, you can't. You can't. What's the idiom? I
was gonna say, teach a teacha horse new tricks, I
have a baby. Ukraine is broken.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
You can take the family off Reality TV, but you
can't take reality.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
TV out of the family. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
In twenty eleven, Richard goes on HLN, which is like
a twenty fo hour news Kimi Lee's channel dressed is
Aluminum Man, which he says is like the superhero for
the working man that he invented. That's supposed to be
the mascot of Occupy Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Oh okay, he's trying to weasel his way into anything
where news cameras are.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Huh. He is hawking his Heeny duty truck bed invention
that's like a sort of like a lift thing to
get stuff in and out of your truck.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
All right.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
In twenty fifteen, the family writes a musical opera called
American Chili. It is based on that screenplay I described,
And they do put out promotional material that's like featuring
balloon Boy Falconini.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
It feels like they're walking a fine line.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Judge would not be happy about this, but I think
at this point nobody cares. The boys start a heavy
metal rock band called the Kini Boys.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Is that's cute? Are we going to talk about his
best invention that I saw that infomercial forth? Oh? Sure, sure?
Well in a sec Yeah, they have a song called
balloon Boy No Hoax. They have a song called balloon
Boy No Hoax. Yeah, it's balloon Boy parentheses, No hoax,
The parentheses are important. Yeah, yeah, okay. It has a

(44:42):
balloon boy themed music video that goes along with it, right,
you can look it up.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
They have comic books, CDs, and other merchandise. In twenty sixteen,
there's an article written about them, which includes the very
funny line the family wouldn't comment for the story, but
did release a publicity photo of the band, and Kiri
is the publicity photo.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Oh wow, all right, okay, yeah, so they're just like
long haired shirtless boys, just long haired shirtless boys running
around rocking out. It does feel this was what two
thousand and nine you said, the Blue Bodo. I think, yes,
Like it does feel like they were ten years almost

(45:22):
too early of how craven social media self promotion has
become in a way. Yes, yeah, they really tried. Yeah,
they really tried there, and they're I guess still trying.
So I would.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Potentially watch reality show about them. But yeah, So Richard
continues to make inventions. One of his inventions is this
contraption that gets stuff in and out of your truck.
Another is a twenty dollars piece of plastic that you
stick on the wall that looks like a tree branch
so that you can like scratch your back like the
way bears do. I don't know why a door jam

(45:59):
is good enough for that.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
But it seems like actually something that people would buy
on Etsy.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, it's anyway, And of course the your shakedown.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Would you like to tell us about this? Yeah, this
is what Lizzie showed me at the beginning of this episode.
It is a was it six easy payments of thirty dollars? Yeah,
so six easy payments of twenty nine to ninety nine,
so at one hundred and eighty dollars contraption that looks
like it's about the size of like a mini fridge. Yeah,
that you put on your counter with rubber bands, And

(46:30):
it's for when you have like ketchup or mustard or
relish or something and you want to get the bottom
out of the out of the container. So instead of
just holding it and like shaking it pretty hard like
a normal person, or just like leaving it bottom down
in your fridge, you put it in this giant contraption
and it goes and shakes, shakes it to the bottom.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, but also you have to crank it so it's
not it even freeze up your hands.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
So for one hundred and eighty dollars, you can have
this massive thing that takes up so much counterspace so
you don't have to shake your own ketchup.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
And I think he realized that because in a lot
of the materials he's like trying to sell it to
like restaurant supply stores, that maybe this would help people like,
you know, marry the ketchup bottles at.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
The end of the day.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
But it's really just solving a problem no one has.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
So imagine it's like, Okay, how often do we even
buy ketchup? And imagine the money, whatever money you'll save
from not throwing away that little bit of ketchup. At
the bottom, You're like, am I is it one hundred
and eighty dollars worth of Ketchup. I don't think I'll
ever spend one hundred and eighty dollars of ketchup in
my over my entire life.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
That's like your whole lifetime condiment budget. Yeah. Yeah, it's insane,
he says, like it pays for itself in a year.
And I'm like, you would have to have like industrial
amounts of ketchup and also just be so lazy and
not even because you still have to get up and
crank it.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Now, who has that counter space? I think because I
live in a small house and I am like very
attuned to like clutter and objects, Like when I see
a kitchen gadget, I have like a visceral reaction of
just like where does it go? I have no idea
where it goes. It's a bad it's a bad invention.
I'm sorry, you're near a computer. Look up the your shakedown,

(48:15):
Richard Heeney, your shakedown? Yeah, and tell me where it
would go?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, if you have, Oh my god, if you have
one of these.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Send us a picture. If only Goker was still around,
because Gocker would do a story about like we bought
that Richard your shakedown.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
There are so many times where I'm like, Gocker needs
to be on this.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
I know. In twenty seventeen, okay, a.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
YouTuber called Internet Historian, who's like a pretty big YouTuber
and his videos get millions of views, decides to dig
into the balloon boy of it all, and he comes
out He comes down to being like fifty to fifty
on whether or not it was a hoax, and he
sort of goes through all of these assumption and He

(49:00):
basically says, like, let's take falcons confession out of it,
because he was a.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Six year old. Yeah, is there any evidence that it
was a hoax? Not circumstantial not like these people are
fame hung Yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Not assumptions based on two plus two equally four? Like,
is is there any actual evidence it was hoaxed? Some
of his arguments I find more compelling than others. Okay,
one of the things is like he sort of looks
at this home video and he's like, they look.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Really genuinely worried. They are actors, Yeah, anyone can get upset.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
And he's like, they had all this science stuff. Clearly
they didn't just buy.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
It for the hoax.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
And I'm like, no, but they still could have done
a hoax with science stuff they already had.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Basically, he breaks down the police's version of events that
like they bought the balloon specifically for the hoax, but
like there's evidence they had the balloon before whatever date
they said they bought the balloon.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
I would have said, even just hearing that, I would
have assumed that they had the balloon and then we're like,
oh and we can also use it for this, Yes, yes,
so it is not.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Like a real like, oh we solved it type video.
And also Falcon never cracked again, and they tried to
get him too. They did some like shady stuff to
interview him without his parents present, and there's video of it,
and he sticks to his story that he was hiding
because his dad was mad at him, all right. This
video also features a clip from some interview that Richard

(50:32):
did where he's pointing his finger at the sheriff saying
that the sheriff wanted to run for governor and the
sheriff is corrupt, and that it was the sheriff who
got a taste of the limelight and wanted to make
it a bigger thing. Richard sees this video and loves it,
so he sends Internet Historian like a thirty minute video

(50:52):
of himself talking to the camera, going through like the
case files, the affidavit, like really breaking things down on
like footage of the like interrogations, et cetera, et cetera.
This is the most calm I have ever seen, Richard.
He's so, I mean, it's calm like for Richard Keeney. Yeah,

(51:13):
But if he had just acted this way the whole time,
I don't think anybody would have like been as reacted
as strongly. He pretty methodically goes through all of these
things that the police did wrong. He says that he
was afraid of being framed. That's why he took a
guilty plea. He's like, we could have won in court

(51:33):
based on the evidence, but they would just make up evidence.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He points to specifically, in this county, a man who
had already served ten years for murder had just been
freed on DNA evidence, and so he's like, well, the
same court that put this innocent guy away was going
to put me away. So that's why I took a
guilty plea.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Okay, I mean, yes, the court has historically put innocent
people behind bars.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yep. He he looks. He sort of says, like, you know,
so they said that with the dimensions of the balloon,
no reasonable person would think it could lift the kid.
But they got the dimensions of the balloon wrong. This
is their fabricating evidence, and I'm like, I don't know, man.
He says that Miami's confession was coerced, that she doesn't
speak very good English and doesn't really know what hoax means. Okay,

(52:18):
potentially true. Listen, to this podcast, Miaomi, it's so but yes,
and also, you know, get a lawyer and all these
reports they're talking about how he has like such a
bad attitude when they're trying to give him a polygraph.
But he's diabetic and he hadn't slept and his blood
sugar was going crazy, okay, and so that's why he

(52:40):
was acting like he was going to fall asleep and stuff.
So basically he paints like a pretty good picture of
the cops like having it out for him, okay, which
isn't the same as saying it's not Oaks.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Yes, it's true, and some of his stuff.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
It's like, okay, I'm sorry, but like that's the cops
where he's like, it was a Saturday, so I could
call a lawyer because all the lawyer's offices was closed,
and I bet they did that on purpose. And I'm like, well,
this thing happened on a Thursday. Man, Like that that's
how cops are anyway. Twenty nineteen, he presents all his
evidence that way. He's gotten his story out on YouTube.

(53:17):
A writer for a Denver magazine comes to the family
in Florida. They're going to get to the bottom of
it once and for all. Okay, Richard is complaining that
the big he's a lost work because of this balloon
Boy balloon Boy incident and people thinking that he's a
liar and so.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
It wasn't his work, just like inventing stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Yeah, but like he's like a contractor and people don't
want him in their homes.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I also think he never really made a lot of money.
They seem to be living in like a camper. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
He really wants to.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Go on Shark Tank because he is an inventor with.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
The shakedown, I imagine, I would hope so, But you
can't go on Shark Tank if you've been convicted of
a felony in the past ten years. Ah. Well, it's
almost up, it's almost up, but he's still salty. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
So the writer gets Miami's permission to go through her
case file that her lawyer sends over, and he finds
handwritten notes from Miami that tell a slightly different version
of the entire story. A smoking gun, A smoking gun.
What these notes seem to imply is that they had

(54:29):
the idea to do a mini version of this hoax,
that they were going to launch the balloon for like
thirty minutes and say that he was in the balloon
and get like just enough attention, like maybe not get
like the whole Justice Department involved. But they were just

(54:49):
going to do a mini hoax and then they were
going to go find a falcon hiding in the basement
and it would be like.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Ah, whoops, yep.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
But this is the problem with doing schemes that rely
on a six year old falcon didn't hide in the basement.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
He hid in the attic.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
So they went down to the basement, couldn't find him,
freaked out and maybe actually thought he was in the balloon.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Oh my god, double twist slash.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Couldn't be like, it's okay, you don't need to you
don't need to look in the balloon. He's not there,
but we don't know where he is. They have reporters
on them and they don't know where their six year
old is. Yeah, so they had to just keep playing along.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Finally, you can't be like, he's supposed to be in
the basement, yeah he's not. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
So apparently he was supposed to only hide for thirty minutes.
He was supposed to be in the basement, but he
was in the attic playing with toys and fell asleep.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
The writer calls up the Heany family to be like, hey,
is this what happened? And they just start like crying
and screaming.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
And that's how bad article ends. I that's the most
plausible version. It seems quite plausible.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Christmas Eve twenty, the governor of Colorado issues a series
of pardons, including the Heini family, Which is not to
say that they are like acquitted, but they're just like,
you don't need to be a fella anymore.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
So he can go on Shark Tank.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
He can go on Shark Tank. To my knowledge, he
has not done that yet. But the attorney for the
Kini family says, the balloonacy is over.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
The balloonacy is over.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Richard says, this is like a new launch. I'm flying high.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Oh god. He had been thinking of that pun for
a long time, I know. And when you read like
the sort of original day to coverage of this, every
single article is like there full of hot air. Oh god.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
They start like a tiny home business. They're renovating houses
as a family.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Are they trying to do a reality show about it?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
They don't seem to want publicity anymore. All right, Falcon
is on Instagram and TikTok. He's like pretty funny, but
not more so than any young boy.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Yeah, he's just a boy on TikTok. And that's kind
of where we leave them. I mean, they didn't end
in a worse place from when they started.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Not necessarily so to my thinking, there are essentially four
versions of what could have happened. Okay, Number one, they
just fully thought he was in the balloon. Yeah, they
freaked out thought he was in the balloon.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
They just fully thought he was in the balloon.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Number two, and this is a theory I have that
I have not seen anyone else have, that it was
like a prank by the kids. Oh yeah, because it
would be so easy for a kid to be like,
I'm going to go hide and you can go find me,
and then for Bradford the son to be like, I'm
going to tell our parents here.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
In the balloon. Prank by the kids. Prank by the
kids that is, that would be a hoax. That would
be a hoax.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
But also like, I don't know, I would forgive a
child much more easily than I would forgive the parent.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Number three, it was sort of that hybrid version of
it where it was supposed to be like a little
hoax that accidentally turned into a big hoax, and number
four is just that they fully did a hoax.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yeah, damn, what do we think? I think it was
a little that turned into a big hoax. I think
they wanted publicity for a reality show or for whatever
they wanted, or they were in talks with the wife
swap people for a reality show and they knew the
same way that now it's like, if you want a
book deal, you have to have a lot of Instagram followers.
They were like, you know, what would help us get
a reality show is like some news coverage and it's like,

(58:19):
wouldn't it be kind of not wholesome, but like, you know,
you can picture the story that's like, oh, the boy
was in the balloon and then like we found him,
And if it was within a shorter timespan, people wouldn't
have taken it as seriously. It's like because it was
ours that it became such a big deal. So that
is very very plausible to me, and I kind of

(58:41):
one hundred percent think that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
That is usually where I come down as well. This
is my big like galaxy brain take. Yeah, is that
it almost doesn't matter. I think what really doomed them
is the perception that they're not very good parents.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Yeah, and I think that's true. What you think that
they're not very a not very good parents.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
I think that like they were negligent. Yes, not every
parent whose kid has some sort of misadventure is bad.
But I think that they were negligent. I don't think
they were apologetic, humble, and embarrassed enough. I think that's
what really doomed them to the public. I think if
you have scientific equipment in your backyard, you should have
a fence around it. You should have a conversation with

(59:22):
your kids. If you have tanks of helium and a balloon,
I think it's not enough to say, oh, we forgot
to tether it. Yeah, I think you need to be
really on that. I think you need to be the
parents in the situation and don't let your son play
inside the balloon. I think that the perception was that
they put adventure, fame, and fun over the safety and
wellness of their family or their responsibility to the community.

(59:45):
And whether or not it was a hoax, like that
is true.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
One hundred percent, and whether or not it was a
hoax they put their child in date. They used their
children as props, yes, for their I don't know, fantasies
of reality television. And they were negligent parents, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
And I will say like, I don't think that they're
like horrible abusive people, Like I'm not going so far
as to say.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Like take their kids away. Yeah, but just like, yeah,
they seem like they kind of sucked that day.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And I also think, like, you know, we're laughing, et cetera,
et cetera. But like, don't lie about kids.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
No, I don't use your don't use your kids.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Don't use your kids. Don't lie about kids. Say that
your wife is in the balloon, say that your dog
is in the balloon. Don't lie about kids. Do you
know the movie A Cry in the Dark. No, So
this is it's a male street movie. It's based on
a true story. It's where the line a dingo a
baby comes from. This woman went to prison. I think
she got out because again, you know, you turn away

(01:00:47):
for two seconds. Every parent's nightmare. Her baby disappeared while
she and her husband were camping in the Australian out back,
and her defense was, I think a dingo snatched him
and the whole world was like, no, you murdered your baby.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Oh my god, this is like my night Americas. Imagine
how horrible would be. Right, I'm gonna cry. Sorry, I
don't cry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
A she's lost her baby. B Now the whole world
hates her. There is some evidence that maybe a dingo
really did eat that lady's baby. So it's like, this
is what happens when you boy who cried wolf about kids?
Is that then when something really awful does happen to
a kid, people turn on the parents when maybe they
shouldn't be turning on the parents because people like the
balloon boy parents have made society question, you know, like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
I mean, our news media system is broken, the way
that things become quote unquote viral, and the things that
get the attention of the public are these sort of
like junk food bites where no one is able to
pay attention to, like the boring, important news that matters.
And I think that they hijacked that in a way

(01:01:53):
that is I mean, you could be like they're just
using the system, but it is incredibly cynical, It is
incredibly damaging, and I think using children is kind of
unforgivable in that way.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Yeah, I mean, again, that's just my thing, like pretend
and adults in the balloon and I don't care. But I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Also think, like I think a lot of hoaxes are
like fun in flum Flam and like the you know,
I think the Cottingly Fairies is all good fun. For
some reason, the how cynically they were just trying to
exploit media attention really rubs me the wrong way, because
I think that our attention span is so precious and
the way that like people respond to news and news media,

(01:02:33):
and how short our attention span is, and how it
seems like the Internet can kind of only focus on
one thing at once. The people exploiting and manipulating that
with falsehoods, especially right now, feels troubling. I mean, the
good news is the boy is fine. He was never
in a balloon.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
He is fine. You know, I looked through his Instagram,
like he seems pretty well adjusted.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Like, you know, I loath as I am to give
these people any more attention. I want to be like,
would you make a movie of this? And I actually
do think like a movie about the truth of balloon Boy,
and like the cynical parents like exploiting the situation is
it real? Is it fake? In a sort of last
dual situation would be a good movie. I mean, yeah,

(01:03:16):
it's interesting. I almost want it to be like a play.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Like yes, like the parents just freaking out and being
unable to call off the search but also unable to
find their kid is like a good absurdist premise.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yes. See, you went for the comedy of like the
absurdiest funny thing of like the parents who are in
too deep. Yeah, and I'm like, I want like the
moral ambiguity, but we don't know what actually happened multiple
points of view. Only the balloon knows only and they
have they have, they got custody of the balloon. They
got the balloon back. It stopped being evidence that happy

(01:03:49):
bloon back.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yeah, we interrupt this program for a breaking news bulletin.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ning.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
In between us recording the balloon Boy episode and the
Balloon Boy episode's premiere, Netflix released a Balloon Boy documentary
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
It's like part of their they do like a series
on things, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
A series on things. Indeed, it's called train Wreck, and
it was train Wreck balloon Boy. I watched it. It
contains I think basically zero new information. But I did
watch it, and so it is part of the ongoing
Kiney family fame lore.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Did it, was it not? I wasn't gonna say flattering
to them. If it is flattering to them, it is
their point of view. Oh okay, so you think they're
happy that they got this Netflix.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
I totally understand why they did it. I think it
is their attempt to put their point of view out
there and to have like, to me, it was like,
you know, there there's been sort of a reevaluation of
a lot of these like tabloid cases of like Monica
Lewinsky had a reevaluation in like Paris Hilton had a reevaluation,

(01:05:09):
like Britney Spears had a reevaluation. And I think probably
I don't know if they approached Netflix or Netflix approached them,
but they had the opportunity to sort of like set
the record straight and like give their point of view.
And they are very believable in their talking head interviews.
They come across very level headed, and the boys are

(01:05:32):
grown up and come across like well spoken adults, and
so I totally understand why they did it, and they
don't seem like fame hungry monsters who are still trying
to capitalize off their fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Like, I totally get why they did it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
But is there any new information that like makes it
clear once and for all that we should believe them. No,
do they explain why they invented that little condiment machine. No,
It honestly, like it just seems like stupid versus stupid,

(01:06:06):
like play stupid games when stupid prize is Like the fact,
the fact that just that they want us to believe
that he was in the attic above the garage and
that the parents search the whole house, and then the
cops searched the whole house and neither the parents nor
the cops found this six year old boy. I'm like,

(01:06:28):
then you're both idiots.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Yeah, Like, it's not. It's an unfortunate story that makes
me sad just based on everything. Like as we were describing,
I watched a movie where a child was in danger,
and I just started openly weeping in the theater, even
though the child was not in real danger. Like the
balloon boy story just makes me sad for everyone, And

(01:06:49):
I think it's really scary to believe that your kid
might be in danger. That's it. I don't. I don't.
I still don't believe them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
It also like there is one point at which the
producers or the documentarians like push back on what Richard
is saying, and he does get flustered, and so I
don't know. I guess it's worth watching for that. It's
like a little under an hour, it's maybe worth watching
for that one moment. And they have a lot of

(01:07:18):
the family home movies. I think if you have listened
to this point in the episode, you don't need to
watch train Wreck Balloon Boy because you have all of
the information and more. We did a lot of digging
for we hear at hoax, do a lot of journalism,
But yeah, you can go watch it. And we just

(01:07:38):
wanted to record a little attendum to say that the
ongoing saga of this family being in the news did
not end in you know whatever year.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
We just ended that. We recorded the bulk of this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
While it goes, so I actually don't remember where the
story ended. It ended mere weeks ago with train Wreck
Balloon Boy on Flicks. Oh, and Richard did say one
interesting thing in the documentary, which is we couldn't afford cable,
so I was in the dark as to what was

(01:08:11):
going on, which is that he says that he had
no idea that they were becoming a cable news story
while the balloon was in the air because they couldn't
afford cable. And I'm like, hmm, well, who gives a shit?
You thought your son was dying, so who gives a
shit if you could afford cable or not, Like that

(01:08:32):
would be the last thing on my mind, is what
the news coverage was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
Yeah, well let's see, this was the light. Thank you
for sharing the story with me. I had so much
fun looking this up and like just like blowing my
mind open every twenty minutes. And now I know what
I'm going to get you for your birthday is a
big balloon. It's your shakedown for your apartment. Finally all
your condiments. Thank you. I need to get the peanut

(01:08:58):
butter out of the bottom of my peanut butter. Think
about the money, we'll both say. I'm so excited, Dana,
thank you for being here. And to our listeners, you know,
don't hoax, don't hoax hoax responsibly, Please hoax responsibly. Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Dana Schwortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. K
Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme
music was composed by Lane Montgomery. For more podcasts from
iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(01:09:45):
wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Thanks for listening.
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Host

Dana Schwartz

Dana Schwartz

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