Balloon Boy Gets Revenge

Father of boy feared lost in balloon gets even with aggressive media, revenge turns sour when sheriff says charges being prepared

By Robert Weller

The father of balloon boy got a measure of revenge Saturday with the media that few have been able to attain in my 40 years in the business.

But Sheriff Jim Alderden burst his balloon Saturday evening. The sheriff, who has been the butt of jokes for allowing the story to go this far, said that after meeting with Richard Heene and his wife, Mayumi, he was preparing search warrants and charges. Alderden also will have some explaining to do. Was he caving into pressure from so many embarrassed people?

The Fort Collins Coloradoan said the charges likely to be filed will be misdemeanors and no one will be arrested.

Earlier, Henne had gotten got dozens of reporters to get out of their cars and satellite trucks before dawn to announce that a news conference at mid-morning that would settle questions about whether his son, Falcon, was really feared to have floated away in a helium balloon that came loose on fall day almost as windy as when Dorothy and Toto took off in neighboring Kansas.

Now it looks like it is time for the Heenes to lawyer up. This could explain why he didn't give reporters the promised "big announcement."

When storm chaser and wife swapper Heene did step out of his Fort Collins home later Saturday morning he would take no questions. “Absolutely no hope,” he said when asked if he could at least end the doubts.

He told reporters that they could put questions in box and he would come back late in the afternoon and look at them. Later a note was posted on the door saying no more interviews. "We are tired."

Although reporters felt they were being yanked around there is the old expression: some stories are too good to check. Would they drop a story that no doubt got good ratings and even knocked President Obama's New Orleans town hall meeting off national television. Don’t bet on it.

That’s despite complaints already broadcast and telecast that Heene senior was jerking them around.

On the other hand, what would you do if your son was so badgered by journalists that he barfed twice on national television. It showed conclusively that under pressure people, especially a six-year-old could be pressured into saying anything just to get the klieg lights off. So much for the effectiveness of torture.

Nevertheless, most of the nation and many experienced journalists have consistently interpreted virtually every event in a light that would support hoax claims.

A video that showed the balloon’s unplanned takeoff shows just that _ it was not planned. And so does the audio. They were letting the balloon rise, but believed it was tethered.

Some would suggest that the media might be a bit hypocritical since they have fanned the flames by attacking the Heene family with much more vigor than they have partisan sources who make unproved claims about health care, the swine flu vaccine and other subjects.

Jon Stewart had fun with CNN, for example, for frequently allowing unsubstantiated claims to be made and ending their shows without questioning claims that a simple check of Google would show are not fact-based. Then they fact-checked a Saturday Night Live skit.

Yesterday the media threw everything but the waterboard at Falcon, causing him to barf on national televison. Did the kid really plan with his brothers, or even his parents, to stage an event that no doubt became the fastest worldwide Internet meme since the phrase was invented.

When my twins were the same age they certainly would have given both me and wife up if we had been involved. All he had done was scare people watching on live TV across the world into thinking he had fallen from an experimental balloon to his death while all the while he was in the garage.

Falcon seemed to be learning, though. Asked by one very early morning national television interviewer how he was doing, he said, "Ok. So far."

The two-and-a-half hour voyage was telecast live across the nation. Hearts broke when it landed safely on the dusty high plains about 2:30 p.m. Mountain Time and viewers could see that no one was aboard.

I am sure I am not the only one who become interested because of the possibility that the boy would take this balloon ride and live to tell about it. Movies for sure. Despite what most people think of the media, the story would not have been nearly as good if the boy was hurt, died or disappeared like Amelia Earhart.

Twitter Wood reported it was overrun with messages of hope from the Hollywood community when the boy's fate was still unknown.