Boy feared floating away in homemade balloon found

[TEVA]

Boy feared floating away in homemade balloon found
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Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks Print AP – In this image rendered from video and released by KMGH-TV in Denver, a hot-air balloon is seen over Colorado, …
Slideshow:Boy said to be in runaway balloon found Play Video Video:Copter 4 Captures Dramatic Balloon Landing CBS4 Denver Play Video Video:Missing Boy's Family Has Storm Chasing Background CBS4 Denver By P. SOLOMON BANDA and IVAN MORENO, Associated Press Writers P. Solomon Banda And Ivan Moreno, Associated Press Writers – 1 min ago
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family's garage attic Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television.

Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said, "He's at the house."

"Apparently he's been there the whole time," Alderden said.

Investigators had searched the house twice, and interviewed one of Falcon Heene's older brothers several times, he said. He said the brother reported that the boy floated off in the balloon was "very adamant," and the parents "were besides themselves with worry."

The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family's yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly shut down Denver International Airport.

The flying saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a field, the culmination of a two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties.

With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon's path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.

But in the end, the boy apparently never left the home. It's not immediately clear what happened when the balloon took off to prompt the sibling to say he saw his brother board.

Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, said he was leaving home when he heard commotion in the backyard of the family. He said he saw two boys on the roof with a camera, commenting about their brother.

"One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air," Licko said.

Licko said the boy's mother seemed distraught and that the boy's father was running around the house. The Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where the boys attend, did not have classes for elementary schools Thursday because of a teacher work day.

The boys parents, Richard and Mayuri, are storm chasers who appeared twice in the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," most recently in March.

"When the Heene family aren't chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm," according to the show.

In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma's perimeter in 2005.

Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.

Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.

While the balloon was airborne, Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was preparing to send a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy, possibly by lowering someone to the balloon. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.

It wasn't immediately clear how much the search operation cost. Capt. Troy Brown said the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours, and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour, Brown said.

Col. Chris Petty, one of the pilots aboard the Black Hawk, said he was thrilled the boy was OK.

Asked what he would say to the 6-year-old if he saw him, Petty said: "I'm really glad you're alive, I'm very thankful, but I'd sure like to know the rest of the story."

The episode led to a brief shutdown of northbound departures from one of the nation's busiest airports, said a controller at the Federal Aviation Administration's radar center in Longmont, Colo. FAA canceled all northbound takeoffs between 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. MDT, said Lyle Burrington, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at the center. The balloon was about 15 miles northwest of the airport at that time.

Before the departure shutdown, controllers had been vectoring planes taking off in that direction away from the balloon, Burrington said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency tracked the balloon through reports from pilots.

Neighbor Lisa Eklund described seeing the balloon pass.

"We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning," she said.

"By the time I saw it, it traveled pretty fast," she said.

The balloon landed on its own in a dirt field. Sheriff's deputies secured it to keep it in place, even tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge.

Jason Humbert saw the balloon land. He said he had gotten a call from his mother in Texas who told him about the balloon. He said he was in a field checking on an oil well when he found himself surrounded by police who had been chasing the balloon, which came to a rest 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport.

"It looked like an alien spaceship you see in those old, old movies. You know, those black-and-white ones. It came down softly. I asked a police officer if the boy was OK and he said there was no one in it," Humbert said.

___

Poor parents worried to death only to find him in the attic.

[Archangel]

His "liftoff" was about a mile north of me. If I'd stepped out and looked up when the balloon first took off, I woulda seen it float on by.

It had all the news stations around here going crazy. Even got a couple reverse-911 calls about it.

Glad he's ok, but word from his neighbors is that someone should be taking a serious look at what he's doing, and what he's involving his kids in (going well beyond this particular incident).

[Shredman]

i heard these guys were on wife swap last yr.... looks like a publicity stunt to me....


if the guy wanted pub he should have had enough Balls to get in the damn thing hisself, insteed of hiding his kid in the attic and saying he was in it ....


i think he should be arrested and go to the hell of Posers he deserves lol

[Odominus]

I watched it from beginning to end. What a trip!

[owly]

lol

[TEVA]

They have big bill to pay for the search using them airplanes and helicopters

[owly]

If that's true than they looking at a hell of a bill......

[Dyvim Tvar]

Man I heard only snippets about this and my first thought was that Liev Schreiber had just gotten really creative with his abduction methods. This story is so dissapointing when you know all the information and aren't just making up most of it yourself.

[Shredman]

reminded me of the story in 12 monkeys lol,

now lets just hope we all dont die of swine flu lol

[Zeblamar]

Here is the latest story on it


FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Richard Heene and his family have never been afraid of the spotlight as they made a name for themselves chasing down storms, starring in a reality TV show and experimenting with a series of unusual inventions including hovercraft, a weather-gathering flying saucer and a rocket launcher.

They found themselves at the center of yet another strange saga Thursday when 6-year-old Falcon Heene vanished around the time that a homemade helium balloon floated away from their home, setting off a national panic as authorities scoured the plains of northern Colorado for the youngster. As it turns out, he was hiding in the rafters of the family's garage the whole time.

The disappearance and sudden discovery of the boy have raised questions about whether it was all an elaborate attention-getting stunt orchestrated by the Heenes or simply a bizarre case of a child who ran away and hid after getting spooked by a scolding from his father.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said authorities do not believe at this point if it was a hoax but he would meet with investigators Friday to decide whether to look into the matter further. Asked during an impromptu news conference outside his house whether the incident was a stunt, Richard Heene said: "That's horrible. After the crap we just went through. No. No, no, no."

It was five hours from the time the oldest boy reported that Falcon, the youngest, had climbed into a saucer-shaped balloon that had drifted off, setting off a search that included military helicopters and a plan to either lower a person to the craft of place weights on the balloon to bring it down. Officials rerouted planes around the balloon's flight path and briefly shut down Denver International Airport.

Heene said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft. It was designed to hover about 50 to 100 feet from the ground but it broke loose from its tether.

Falcon's brother said he had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that's why they thought he was in there when it launched. But the boy had gone to the garage rafters at some point and was never in the balloon during its two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties.

"I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me," Falcon said. "That's why I went in the attic."

The Heenes aren't the types to shy from attention, with boys featured in a rap music video on YouTube and the whole family appearing on the ABC show "Wife Swap."

The show promoted the Heene family as storm chasers who also "devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm."

During a live interview with CNN, Falcon said he had heard his family calling his name.

"You did?" the boy's mother, Mayumi Heene, said.

"Why didn't you come out?" Richard Heene said.

Falcon answered, "You had said that we did this for a show."

Later, Richard Heene bristled when the family was asked to clarify and said he didn't know what his son meant. He didn't ask his son what he meant by "a show."

"I'm kind of appalled after all the feelings that I went through, up and down, that you guys are trying to suggest something else," Richard Heene said.

After the CNN interview, Richard Heene told KUSA-TV in Denver that he thought his son was referring to earlier in the day when he showed reporters his hiding spot. He didn't return a message from The Associated Press.

Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, Licko said that while the balloon floated over Colorado Thursday, Mayumi Heene seemed distraught.

Richard Heene said he called the Federal Aviation Administration first before calling 911.

The saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a field.

With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon's path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.

Then, came news that Falcon had been hiding in a box in rafters in the garage.

A short time after sheriff's officials and reporters left the house Thursday evening, the three boys had wrapped themselves in the yellow police tape that had surrounded the house.

"They were just very adventurous kids," said Josh Dengler, 32, another neighbor. "I don't think it was a hoax. I don't think they were hiding him, I think he was just a genuinely scared 6-year-old hiding."

[Teanos]

Any parent who names a kid "Falcon" and thinks thats cool should be sent up in a balloon himself.

[Gerien]

I saw it on CNN today. They have video - shot by teh older son - of the balloon taking off with no basket and with Richard Heene standing there as it flew away. How that idiot thinks he can get away with this pathetic PR stunt is beyond me. That man should have his kids taken away the way he is using them. Just pathetic.

And yeah, T - I thought that myself.

[Thomas]

I like how he gets so emotional during interviews. "we looked EVERYWHERE!" Sure they did. Everywhere except the attic. Doesn't pass the smell test.

[Gerien]

Balloon boy family plans 'big announcement'
From KUSA-TV in Denver

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A man whose experimental balloon took off and raced across the Colorado sky on Thursday — reportedly with that man's 6-year-old son aboard — says he plans to give a "big announcement" at 10 a.m. Saturday morning.

The Heene family is at the center of a saga after news crews from around the globe and law enforcement from around the state first were told the man's son, Falcon Heene, was flying across the state in the wayward, helium-filled, saucer-shaped balloon. The boy later turned up hours later hiding in the family's attic above their garage.

"I'm going to have a press conference out here at, let's say, 10 a.m. Okay?" Richard Heene said outside his home around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday. "So it's a few more hours. So, I'd like to speak everybody about a few things. Okay? So, it's a big announcement."

Comments made by Falcon during a CNN interview stoked the idea the family could have been planning the balloon incident as a hoax to get attention.

"You said we did this for a show," Falcon said to his parents during the interview, after his father asked why he didn't come down from the attic earlier.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, who says he and his trained investigators believed the family's story, says the recent CNN comments have "raised everybody's level of skepticism" and he hopes to interview the entire family again on Saturday.

Despite receiving a groundswell of calls and e-mails about the incident, Alderden says they "have to operate on what we can prove as a fact and not what people want to be done."

A previous appearance on ABC's reality TV show Wife Swap has also raised speculation about the possibility the family just sought attention with the runaway balloon.
© Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

[Immigrant]

If he was mine, that would be one little boy that would have to go to the hospital to get my boot out...

I'm sure most guys have done some stupid and dangerous little stunts as boys in one form or another. Know I did at least, where I'm pretty sure I'm just lucky to be alive after a couple of uh... incidents - that's normal.

But one-upping Danny Deckchair (least of all something of this size, expense and 'sophistication' for a schoolboy), is beyond just a couple little boys' handwork.

The hand of an adult or two had to be involved to even build that thing.

[owly]

The Adults should be the ones that should be responsible if there any penalties, after all ain't the parents responsible for what there children do. Isn't that universal across the states?.....

[Isildur]

I'm almost never one to support the concept of more laws...

But if there isn't a law out there that says you can't keep any proceeds/funds from a criminal act -- i.e. these parents can't keep any money a media outlet or book publisher might want to pay them -- then there should be.

[Immigrant]

I'm with you... Parents should be held accountable for their spawnlings, not be allowed to train them to be monsters so the parents can then profit by it & be patted on the back for being useless; maybe then these little hoodies will get reigned in

[Zeblamar]

Colorado sheriff: Runaway balloon saga was hoax

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The parents who set off a worldwide drama by reporting their 6-year-old son was inside a flying saucer-like helium balloon hurtling over Colorado concocted the stunt to market themselves for a television show, a sheriff said Sunday.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said at an extraordinarily candid news conference that the boy, Falcon Heene, may not have even been hiding in the rafters of the family's garage during the intense five-hour search for him Thursday afternoon.

"For all we know he may have been two blocks down the road playing on the swing in the city park," the sheriff said.

Alderden said the parents Richard and Mayumi Heene "put on a very good show for us, and we bought it."

The sheriff said no charges had been filed yet, and the parents weren't under arrest. He said he expected to recommend charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant.

Some of the most serious charges each carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $500,000 fine. The sheriff said if charges were filed, his office would seek restitution, but he didn't know the total cost of the rescue effort, which included military helicopters, a ground rescue and even a mounted posse. Officials also rerouted planes around the balloon's flight path and briefly shut down some flights from Denver International Airport.

Richard and Mayumi Heene were shopping at Walmart with their three sons as Alderden told reporters at the sheriff's station that the whole thing was a hoax.

Richard Heene said he's "seeking counsel," though it was unclear whether he was talking about hiring an attorney.

"This thing has become so convoluted," Heene told The Associated Press as tears welled up in his eyes.

He said his wife was holding together better than he was.

The sheriff said all three of the Heenes' sons knew of the Thursday hoax.

"Given the age of the children — 6, 8, 10 — I seriously doubt whether they will be facing any criminal charges," he said.

One of the boys told investigators he saw his brother get in the balloon's box before it launched.

Heene, a storm chaser and inventor, and his family have appeared on the reality show "Wife Swap." Alderden said the couple met in acting school in Hollywood. Richard Heene has described himself as an amateur scientist, but Alderden said Heene has only a high school education.

"He may be nutty, but he's not a professor," Alderden said. He said Richard Heene showed "no evidence of remorse" for the episode.

Alderden said interviews with the parents Saturday resulted in enough information to get a warrant to search the house. He said they were looking for computers, e-mails, phone records and financial records.

Alderden said the children were still with the parents Sunday morning, and child protective services had been contacted to investigate the children's well-being.

Alderden said the "aha moment" came when, during a Thursday night interview with CNN, Falcon turned to his dad and said what sounded like "you said we did this for a show" when asked why he didn't come out of his hiding place.

"If you look at the nonverbal responses, as well as some of the verbal cues, not only for him but from the family, the children, their reaction, it became very clear to us at that point that they were lying," Alderden said.

On Friday, Falcon got sick during two separate TV interviews Friday when asked again why he hid.

Alderden was asked whether officials had concerns for Falcon's safety.

"Clearly, from all indications, Mr. Heene has somewhat of a temper," Alderden said.

Alderden said officials tried Saturday to persuade Mayumi Heene to go to a safe house, but she declined.

"We talked to her at length about domestic violence, about her safety, about her children's safety," the sheriff said. "We have a concern, but we didn't have enough that would allow us or child protective services to physically take the kids from that environment."

Colorado State University physics professor Brian Jones, using dimensions given by Richard Heene, had told sheriff's officials as they were tracking the balloon Thursday that it was plausible for it to lift off with 37-pound Falcon inside.

Once the device landed, sheriff's officials discovered it was made with plastic tarps taped together and covered with aluminum foil, with a utility box made of a very thin piece of plywood, cardboard on the side, held together with string and duct tape, Alderden said.

Using the true dimensions, Jones determined it could not have launched with the boy inside, Alderden said.

Alderden said the alleged hoax had been planned for at least two weeks and that investigators suspect that other individuals and a "media outlet" that he would not name were in on it.

"We do understand, looking at some of the documents already, that at least one of the media outlets has agreed to pay them some money with regards to this particular incident," Alderden said.

He said he was not talking about a news organization, but "there are so many of these shows that kind of blur the line between entertainment and news."

[Gerien]

Not while shopping at a Walmart. Talk about trash.