Balloon Boy Publicity Stunt

Father creates new reality show, called Fool The Media (Conspiracy)

By ROBERT WELLER

Storm chaser and wife swapper Richard Heene apparently was farther ahead on plans for a new reality show, "Fool the Media," than he let on. Sheriff Jim Alderden said a preview of the show was offered on Thursday when Heene and wife Mayumi reported their six-year-old son was aboard a runaway balloon, possibly headed to his death.

Now the parents face possible misdemeanor and felony charges ranging from making a false report to police to conspiracy to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and attempting to influence a public servant. Conspiracy to do anything illegal can be prosecuted as a felony, whether you do it or not.

"Clearly we were manipulated by the family, and the media was manipulated by the family. These people are actors. Needless to say, they put on a very good show for us and we bought it," Alderden said in a news conference covered by the Fort Colllins Coloradoan and state and national media on Sunday. Alderden also said a yet undetermined entertainment company may have helped.

A standard media defense in cases like this is to say they had no choice. Critics say there always is a choice. One station telecasting the flight of the hoaxer said live that it would not show the actual touchdown or crashdown of the balloon because they didn't want to risk showing a child dying. But they did show it. There just was no one aboard.

Of course, in terms of movie history, it wasn't nearly as far out as the plot of "Network." In that scenario, producer Faye Dunaway hired urban guerrillas to kill newscaster Peter Finch during his show to raise ratings.

The Heenes had no immediate comment. Richard Heene had repeatedly said, “it absolutely was not a hoax."

Many people didn't care whether it was true or not, obvious from numerous blogs. Songs quickly appeared on YouTube. They seemed to focus on the boy, and how he had to hide. Perhaps the most ambitious was a drama, "Balloon Boy Hoaxes Hitler." Condenserci posted http://www.youtube.com/user/condensercl, a beautiful song.

Alderden said, ""It has been determined that this is a hoax, that it was a publicity stunt and we believe we have evidence at this point to indicate that this was a publicity stunt in hopes to better market themselves for a reality show," He said the couple, who already have considerable experience with reality television with not one but two appearances on Wife Swap, met in acting school.

The whole nation and most of the rest of the world that was awake watched in fascination and fear as the mylar balloon, that looked like a midget space ship or mushroom, drifted south in the face of the Rocky Mountains.

Though it was a rural area, power lines and airplanes became threats. Some traffic from Denver International had to be re-routed briefly for at least 15 minutes.

People all the way from Denver to Fort Collins 60 miles to north, watched intently. The public was warned to stay away and trying to help could intefere.

Though there was no official way to confirm it, the “balloon boy” story quickly became probably the fastest Internet meme since the phenomenon was first observed two or three years ago. It was the biggest search topic on Google and trending topic on Twitter.

When the balloon landed north of Denver International Airport people were holding their breath, hoping that a six-year-old, Falcon Henne, would step out. Rescue workers were all over the area, but a single man grabbed the balloon’s tethers. One photo of something falling out of the balloon raised fears the boy might have fallen to his death.

Instead, Falcon Henne had been hiding in the attic in the family’s garage. The media, as Daily Show host Jon StewartJon Stewart predicted, quickly turned on both the family and the sheriff. Alderden and his staff had believed the family, and the last thing they wanted was to discourage people from calling 911.

"We anticipate criminal charges will be filed sometime in the near future," Alderden told CNN. He might want to hand the questioning over to the Cable News Network, which managed to get Falcon to puke with its hard questioning.

The boy had said it was all part of the show, but was construed by some to refer to him climbing into his attic lair to show camerapeople that he could actually get in the attic.