Balloon Boy Hoax: The Viral Media Circus That Spiraled Out of Control

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: So then in 2008, the Hees are chosen to participate in a little show called Wife Swap. Oh God, do you remember that show?

[00:00:10] Adam Cox: I do remember that show.

[00:00:11] Kyle Risi: When the family is introduced in their episode, they're introduced like this.

[00:00:15] Kyle Risi: This week, a family of storm chasers the heis from Colorado Mayumi and Richard pulled their kids outta school in order to chase tornadoes.

[00:00:23] Kyle Risi: They head straight towards a storm with their kids in the car. The Wild Heney. Kids are encouraged to live a life of fun, adventure, and excitement. There's a storm coming and the heis of Colorado are heading straight into it.

[00:00:37] Adam Cox: Wow. That sounds good. I wanna watch it. [00:01:00]

[00:01:03] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety of podcasts that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:11] Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

[00:01:18] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ring master for this episode.

[00:01:21] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the tent cleaner for this week.

[00:01:24] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:01:25] Adam Cox: So

[00:01:26] Kyle Risi: just getting so drab,

[00:01:28] Adam Cox: what would you be this week

[00:01:29] Kyle Risi: then? I would be the, fire nipple extinguisher. So when the fire breather, his nipples go on fire, do you know the little tassles at the end of him? Mm-hmm. When they explode, I'm there with an extinguisher to just put out the nipple fire.

[00:01:43] Adam Cox: Okay. That's very specific. Well, I'm the tent cleaner after all that. 'cause I imagine that would probably be a bloody mess. I'm there hosing down the tent afterwards.

[00:01:50] Kyle Risi: Oh, after the fire? Yeah, after fire.

[00:01:51] Kyle Risi: So technically you work for me, you're under me. So I don't have to do that. I can just be like, Hey. Just burnt those guys nipples off. Clean that up, extinguish them, clean [00:02:00] up the ashes.

[00:02:01] Kyle Risi: Before we dive in, a quick heads up for all your lovely freaks out there. Remember that signing up to our Patreon gets you early access to next week's episode an entire seven days before anyone else, and it is completely free of charge.

[00:02:13] Kyle Risi: if you want even more, you can become a certified freak for a small monthly subscription that will unlock all of our unreleased episodes a whole six weeks earlier. this is one of the best ways to support the compendium as we keep growing.

[00:02:24] Adam Cox: And while you're at it, don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support really does help us reach more people who just like you, love a good tale of the unexpected.

[00:02:36] Kyle Risi: All right, then freaks enough of the housekeeping. Let's buckle up and get today's show on the road, because Adam, today we are diving into an assembly of inflated tales and deflated dreams.

[00:02:49] Adam Cox: Um, well, something about bouncy castle. I don't know. What, what are we talking about This week?

[00:02:55] Kyle Risi: The infamous 2009 bouncy Castle Massacre Mum will [00:03:00] never be the same again.

[00:03:01] Adam Cox: Yeah, well, sometimes they can be a hazard if you don't properly tie them down. You know,

[00:03:05] Kyle Risi: Our neighbors have one. They bring it out every summer.

[00:03:06] Adam Cox: Yeah. It doesn't flip over the fence though.

[00:03:08] Kyle Risi: No, it doesn't, but it looks awesome. How is it possible that you can buy a commercially, readily available bouncy castle for your garden? Yeah, didn't have that in our day. No, we didn't. You had to actually have a party and in order to have a party, you had to be rich.

[00:03:22] Adam Cox: Yeah. And you'd rent a bouncy castle.

[00:03:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You had to rent it. You could just own one. Anyway, Adam,

[00:03:28] Adam Cox: it's not about bouncy castles, then.

[00:03:29] Kyle Risi: Let me set this up for you. In 2009, the world watched as news agencies across the world interrupted regular schedule programming to cover a horrifying story that was unfolding.

[00:03:40] Kyle Risi: A homemade helium balloon was treking across the skies of Colorado, cruising at an altitude of 7,000 feet, inside that balloon was a 6-year-old boy who moments before unbeknownst to his parents, had crawled into it before drifting out of his backyard and into the distance.

[00:03:56] Kyle Risi: And so frantic with worry, the Heeny [00:04:00] family called the police, who ended up dispatching the Federal Aviation Administration to try and locate and track the balloon in order to save their son.

[00:04:07] Kyle Risi: And amidst all of this is when news agencies get wind of the story. And so Millions of people start tuning in to watch in horror, collectively hoping that the 6-year-old boy Falcon Heini. Would make it safely back down to the ground.

[00:04:20] Kyle Risi: And from there, this story just ends up taking a very unexpected turn that sends the world on a journey from horror to relief, to outrage, and then betrayal.

[00:04:31] Kyle Risi: Today, Adam, I'm gonna be telling you the story of Balloon Boy. Balloon Boy,

[00:04:37] Kyle Risi: have you ever heard of the story before?

[00:04:38] Adam Cox: Um, well, I'm just trying to get my head around the fact that a, a small kid can get into a balloon. So what kind of size balloon is this?

[00:04:45] Kyle Risi: We're talking massive. It's 20 feet in diameter. Fine. And it's a big, it looks like a UFO basically.

[00:04:50] Adam Cox: Okay. I was thinking like it's not your regular birthday balloon.

[00:04:53] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:04:53] Adam Cox: Like how did that happen? Oh my God.

[00:04:56] Kyle Risi: No, it's not. And the thing is though, this story is just another Baby Jessica [00:05:00] story, in that through networks like CNN and other 24 hour news networks, the world collectively came together to share in a national tragedy.

[00:05:08] Kyle Risi: But of course, unlike Baby Jessica. The story of Bloom Boy has a very different ending, but it is similar in that this is just another example of how media organizations exploit emotions to drive coverage. And in this case, not outright manipulate the facts, but instead gently guide public perception.

[00:05:27] Kyle Risi: So much so that this ended up determining how law enforcements ended up investigating the story 'cause they were pressured into serving heads rather than remaining impartial and fair

[00:05:37] Adam Cox: serving heads, as in they needed to bring someone down. I feel like you're being quite cryptic what went down with this boy in a balloon.

[00:05:43] Kyle Risi: Well, you know, I love a bit of a twist and there's gonna be so many people out there that already know this story, but you've never heard of it, so I'm gonna save the twists for later on.

[00:05:53] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:05:53] Kyle Risi: Should we dive into it? Sure.

[00:05:55] Kyle Risi: So Adam, on October the 15th, 2009, at around 12:00 PM [00:06:00] national news stations across the United States interrupted their regular scheduled broadcast with live images of what looked like a literal flying saucer, trekking through the skies of Colorado and what people were seeing.

[00:06:12] Kyle Risi: Was essentially a homemade helium balloon, about 20 feet in diameter and about five feet tall. And it was making its way directly towards the flight paths of Denver Airport.

[00:06:22] Kyle Risi: And it wasn't long before viewers are told that inside that balloon was 6-year-old Falcon Heini.

[00:06:29] Adam Cox: At the homemade balloon. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. feet in diameter as well. It's pretty damn big. Yeah. And five feet tall, so it looks like a flying saucer. Is that enough helium to lift up a boy? How, how much did he weigh?

[00:06:40] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, that, that actually becomes quite a central part of today's story. But the balloon is basically described as like a Jiffy Pop popcorn tray. Do you know what that is?

[00:06:47] Kyle Risi: No. So I looked this up for context and I realized that there are exactly two times in my life where I've seen this.

[00:06:53] Kyle Risi: The first was in screen one. So do you remember that opening scene where Drew Barrymore is home alone? She's getting ready to watch a movie, and then the killer [00:07:00] calls in that scene she's making popcorn on the stove and that is a Jiffy tray, which is like a foil frying pan that expands as a popcorn kind of starts to pop.

[00:07:08] Adam Cox: Oh yeah,

[00:07:08] Kyle Risi: And you see her like putting it on the stove and then when everything is kicking off, it keeps cutting to the stove and the popcorn is swelled into this big ball of foil.

[00:07:15] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:16] Kyle Risi: But then there's another time that I've also seen this as well, and that was scary movie one. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Where they do a parody of this exact same scene and when they're cutting to the Jiffy Pop, it swelled to the point that it's kind of enveloping the kitchen.

[00:07:30] Kyle Risi: And then in between that the killer is like plunge the knife into a breast and pulls out the implant and he is like super grossed out by it. Adam, it's easily top five movie scenes of all time.

[00:07:39] Kyle Risi: So I'm glad you've seen it because now you can understand exactly what this looks like.

[00:07:43] Kyle Risi: Okay. Trekking through kind of the Colorado skies at 7,000 feet.

[00:07:47] Adam Cox: Yeah. People are thinking, what the hell is a giant popcorn Jiffy thing doing in the sky?

[00:07:51] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Except it's way bigger and it's completely homemade using plastic sheets and rolls and rolls of duct tape and wood. And below the balloon is a sort of [00:08:00] circular plywood basket attached to the balloon using string and even more duct tape, basically.

[00:08:04] Adam Cox: Duct tape. How do they make the airtight with duct tape? It feels like something like you'd see on like Blue Peter. You can make this at home.

[00:08:11] Kyle Risi: That's it. This is actually a family project that the Heni family we're working on with their kids, right?

[00:08:15] Kyle Risi: So basically on the morning of October the 15th, it was a Thursday. Ordinarily the kids would be in school, but since it was in like an inset day, they had the day off. So they decided to use this day as the first real test launch for what their dad, Richard Heney, called the Next Big Innovation in Commute to Travel.

[00:08:33] Kyle Risi: Basically, no more did you need to sit in traffic. Commuters could just bypass all the cars below floating their way to work while everyone sat in traffic, like absolute chumps.

[00:08:43] Adam Cox: Is he serious about this?

[00:08:44] Kyle Risi: probably. we're gonna learn a lot more about Richard Heini and I love him. I, he cannot do any wrong in my eyes.

[00:08:50] Adam Cox: I don't know. Sounds like a fruit loop.

[00:08:52] Kyle Risi: And honestly this kind of thing wasn't unusual for the Heini family. They were always inventing stuff. They had been tinkering with this particular prototype for about a [00:09:00] month, and today was essentially the big day.

[00:09:02] Kyle Risi: The original plan was to kind of test the balloon's, buoyancy and rigidity before later fitting with a mechanism that would help with kind of steering and propulsion. Basically was gonna use a stun gun.

[00:09:13] Kyle Risi: So that morning the Hees were preparing for their first round of tests. Richard spent some time filling up the balloon with five tanks of helium while the boys fooled around beside him. Super excited about all the shit that's happening.

[00:09:24] Kyle Risi: And once the balloon was filled, the plan was to kind of tether it to the ground, let it hover around 10 to 15 feet in the air and then figure out what necessary adjustments were needed to kind of like make it ready for its next stage.

[00:09:35] Kyle Risi: On top of that, they were also gonna be filming everything, just as they always did whenever they worked on these kind of crazy family projects.

[00:09:42] Kyle Risi: Richard's wife, Mayumi usually handled the editing and would use the footage on their YouTube channel.

[00:09:47] Kyle Risi: But today, while they were out in the backyard, their eldest son, Bradford, was holding the camcorder while Mayumi set up the stationary camera on the tripod.

[00:09:57] Kyle Risi: Eventually, when everything was ready, the Hees encountered down [00:10:00] from three. Richard then pulled the release and the balloon slowly floated up. It hovered for a second, and then Adam, it was fucking gone. It just kept going, and that's when they realized that Mayumi hadn't tethered it to the ground properly.

[00:10:14] Kyle Risi: Here is the moment that that balloon starts to float away.

[00:10:17] Clip: Are you mad Tyler? What? Give the I Dad. Are you mad? I, come on, man.

[00:10:25] Adam Cox: That sounds a little chaotic. And he's, he's mad, isn't he?

[00:10:27] Kyle Risi: He's furious. He starts yelling and in frustration, he dramatically kicks the railing on the wooden launchpad. At that moment. Bradford, the one who's holding the camcorder spots something, and he screams that Falcon, his youngest brother, is actually on board.

[00:10:40] Kyle Risi: How do they miss that

[00:10:42] Clip: s in there? Where? In that shit he, I use this here. No, he's in there. What? He's in there. So go in. No, he's not. Yeah, he's this right here. No. Falcon? No, man,

[00:10:59] Adam Cox: [00:11:00] they sound distraught. Yeah. So they had no idea that Falcon had somehow got into this ship?

[00:11:05] Kyle Risi: No. So how is that even possible? The thing is though, they're all just busy, like just doing what they need to do. Right? Uhhuh, the kids are running around, they're being kind of like little s Scally, wags. They're jumping in, jumping out. The dad's telling 'em to stop. He's having a go at them, like, keep out the balloon, whatever.

[00:11:18] Kyle Risi: But at that moment, Bradford stops the recording. He rewinds the footage, and to their horror, they see Falcon crawling inside the battery box just before they release the balloon, and now it's drifting off into the distance.

[00:11:31] Adam Cox: Oh my word.

[00:11:33] Kyle Risi: So of course Richard and Mayumi, they start freaking out. Their panic starts to attract their neighbors who pop their heads up over kind of the fence to kind of see what all the commotion is about.

[00:11:41] Kyle Risi: And then at 11:29 AM Richard grabs the phone and he dials nine one one.

[00:11:47] Adam Cox: yeah. What do you do in that situation? You're calling the police and you're saying that your kid is trapped in a balloon that's floating away. The police are gonna be like, sir, are you okay? Put the bottle down.

[00:11:56] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Let's have a listen to the nine one one call

[00:11:58] Clip: alright. [00:12:00] Uh, I, my, my family and I made an experimental, um, flying sauce, or it wasn't supposed to fly. Okay. It, it, we probably had a thing tethered down. Okay. And, uh. I think my 6-year-old boy, what's wrong? He got inside and, uh, it took off. Yeah. Okay. Where is he at? Uh, he, he, he's in the air. He's in the air?

[00:12:23] Clip: Yeah. He's only, he is only six. Can anybody, can anybody rescue him? Okay. What, when's the last time you saw him? Um, uh, about 15, 20 minutes ago.

[00:12:35] Kyle Risi: What do you think.

[00:12:36] Adam Cox: Yeah. He sounds. Completely distraught, I guess.

[00:12:40] Kyle Risi: What did you think of the operator's questions at the end? Like, so when was the last time you saw him like really casually like, ah, my son is in the air.

[00:12:48] Adam Cox: Yeah, I saw him on the ground. He's now not on the ground.

[00:12:51] Kyle Risi: So of course the cops, they race over to the house, Richard Mayumi, they explain what's happened and by now even more neighbors have gathered, they're trying to figure out what's going on.

[00:12:59] Kyle Risi: The [00:13:00] police decide that they need to be, of course, sure. That Falcon is on that balloon. So they searched the whole house. Right. They check the basement, the garage everywhere. But Falcon is nowhere to be found.

[00:13:09] Adam Cox: And do they show the police the footage of Falcon crawling into the platoon?

[00:13:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

[00:13:13] Adam Cox: okay. But I guess they have to make sure that, I dunno, he didn't crawl out again or something like that. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:17] Kyle Risi: So eventually what they do is they send some teams round to kind of search the nearby woods and the water reservoir officers start knocking on neighbor's doors hoping that maybe he was hiding in their gardens.

[00:13:27] Kyle Risi: But very soon they realize, Adam, that. Wherever that balloon was, Falcon was on. It

[00:13:32] Adam Cox: Is anyone keeping tabs on where the balloon is going?

[00:13:35] Kyle Risi: They have no idea where it is now. They've lost sight of it. Really? They cannot see it. So by this time, word spreads to the media who dispatch reporters to the he's house.

[00:13:42] Kyle Risi: Any news crews that aren't assigned to the neighborhood are essentially set up in helicopters hoping to kind of try and track down the balloon.

[00:13:49] Kyle Risi: But like I said, at first, no one can find it. There is a time where people literally think that it's already come down somewhere, but then all of a sudden someone over [00:14:00] Adams County miles away looks out the window and they see the silvery blob trekking through the sky at 7,000 feet in the air.

[00:14:09] Kyle Risi: They immediately call the police who confirm it is the balloon and they calculate that it is making a beeline for the direct flight paths over Denver International Airport.

[00:14:18] Kyle Risi: That's not good.

[00:14:19] Kyle Risi: So the FFA. They alert the airport who immediately order all northbound flights to be rerouted, to avoid obviously a collision.

[00:14:27] Kyle Risi: The National Guard are dispatched to send out their own helicopters to track the balloon and just to be safe. They dispatch paramedics to follow on the ground just in case. Of course, the worst happens.

[00:14:38] Kyle Risi: Jeez. While all of this, is unfolding more and more people, not just in the USA now, but all over the world, are now tuning in and they're all glued to their screens watching to see how the story unfolds.

[00:14:48] Kyle Risi: Because earlier that year, the Pixar movie up was released so people would like dubbing this the real life up.

[00:14:54] Kyle Risi: Oh really? Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

[00:14:56] Kyle Risi: And so the are just filled with these really intense shots of them [00:15:00] filming the balloon from inside the helicopters. Mm-hmm. And it's just blitzing through the air. And the cameras that are filming on the ground, they have to like really zoom in because of course this balloon is like 7,000 feet up in the air, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:15:10] Kyle Risi: And so at that zoom depth, the camera stabilization is really bad if you've ever tried to film something by zooming in. So it looks like balloon is like really blitzing at really high speeds.

[00:15:21] Kyle Risi: Reports start estimating that it's traveling like 500 miles per hour

[00:15:25] Adam Cox: as fast as an airplane.

[00:15:27] Kyle Risi: Fast as exactly. In reality, it's going like 20 miles an hour max,

[00:15:30] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm. So it's kind of like on a par with like the OJ Simpson Bronco Chase, where everyone in the nineties remembers like that was a high speed chase. They were going 120 miles an hour. In reality, they were literally trailing them at 25 miles an hour.

[00:15:41] Adam Cox: So what are they thinking then? What's the protocol when this happens?

[00:15:45] Kyle Risi: I don't think there is one really? What can you do? You can't really approach it with a helicopter.

[00:15:50] Adam Cox: No. You'll slice the balloon the only thing I can think of is like somehow trap it in a giant net. So you have two helicopters get [00:16:00] there. In between them is a net and they kind of fly over the balloon and they capture and they kind of cover it and they're able to kind of drag it back to safety.

[00:16:08] Kyle Risi: And I guess maybe that might be viable if they had time.

[00:16:11] Adam Cox: Do they not have this as a backup?

[00:16:13] Kyle Risi: No, not, not ready to go.

[00:16:15] Adam Cox: Just

[00:16:15] Kyle Risi: go fishing net. Oh, it's another balloon scenario. Get the net out boys. Yeah, just

[00:16:19] Adam Cox: go to the, like nearest fishing port wherever, get a net job done.

[00:16:23] Kyle Risi: So this footage is also interspersed with just interviews of neighbors on their driveways, and so it's during these kind of segues from the action that more and more information starts coming out about the Heini family and neighbors are basically saying, this was an accident that was just waiting to happen, considering all the weird shit that the family were into.

[00:16:41] Kyle Risi: They talk about how they're really into psychics and extraterrestrials, and they're always doing these weird science experiments, including kind of driving headfirst into a fucking tornado. Why? They're really into storm chasing, which is really bizarre. Right

[00:16:55] Adam Cox: into one. Yeah. Like the eye of the storm.

[00:16:57] Kyle Risi: The eye of the storm, yeah.

[00:16:58] Adam Cox: Okay. I [00:17:00] now, as you know. They sound a little bit careless and reckless

[00:17:03] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So it's then around about 1:30 PM that they notice that the balloon is starting to lose altitude. The only explanation for this is of course, that it's kind of sprung a leak somewhere. Which at first sounds like a good thing, but even at 20 miles an hour crashing in that speed with a 6-year-old on board might not be great.

[00:17:20] Adam Cox: Right. That's gravity.

[00:17:20] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And There's also a chance that it could crash into like an electricity pylon or a building, which means that falcon could drop hard from there, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:17:28] Kyle Risi: Either way, they know that a crash is inevitable. So the news channels, they start to plan in a delay in the broadcast, just, so that if the worst happens, they can just quickly cut the footage.

[00:17:38] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So The balloon starts to kind of descend lower and lower. It's going 20 miles an hour, almost horizontally. It's slowly drifting down. Everyone is braced in that moment. Richard and Mayumi, are beside themselves with Warrior in anticipation, hoping that Falcon will be safe.

[00:17:52] Kyle Risi: And then to everyone's relief around about 60 miles from where the balloon initially took off, the balloon sort of horizontally [00:18:00] skips across the ground into a freshly plowed field.

[00:18:03] Adam Cox: So it, it gently lands. Mm-hmm. Wow.

[00:18:07] Kyle Risi: But horizontally traveling at twin miles an hour

[00:18:09] Adam Cox: I see. Just coming down quite fast.

[00:18:11] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:18:11] Kyle Risi: Like a very gradual diagonal. Yeah. And it kind of just skips. Well, that's pretty lucky. Very lucky. But when it touches down the rescue workers, they rush in to grab it. Still incredibly light on the ground, right? Mm-hmm. So what they do is they throw over a bunch of ropes to keep her from drifting away, and immediately they start stabbing, the balloon just deflated.

[00:18:30] Kyle Risi: One of the rescuers is frantically calling Falcon's name, hoping, praying for kind of some kind of response. They don't hear anything or what.

[00:18:37] Clip: I've got, uh, uh, some information that, um, I'm not quite sure how to, how to say it, but, uh, I don't believe that they're, they found anybody, uh, with this balloon. There's no basket and they're not pulling a anybody out of it at this point.

[00:18:53] Kyle Risi: Falcon's not in the balloon. What this means is that at some point he has fallen 7,000 [00:19:00] feet to his death.

[00:19:01] Kyle Risi: Shit.

[00:19:02] Kyle Risi: So A Weld County Sheriff deputy, a guy named Jared Webb, said that when he first saw the balloon flying over Platteville, he saw an object falling out of the balloon.

[00:19:11] Kyle Risi: But because this call came in moments after the first person reported the balloon, it was just presumed this was just another person calling in to say they've cited the balloon.

[00:19:20] Kyle Risi: It's kinda like, sort of when you're out in town and you see someone collapse in the street, so you call the ambulance and they tell you, yeah, thanks. We've already received the call, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:19:26] Kyle Risi: But they don't ask if you have any other information that might be useful that doesn't happen here. And so in that instance, as the report starts circulating that Falcon isn't in the balloon, this entire saga morphs into basically a recovery operation.

[00:19:39] Kyle Risi: Can you imagine what their family must be going through, thinking about the last moments that their son must have gone through?

[00:19:44] Adam Cox: Yeah. So it sounds like there was something he crawled into and so he's just fallen out of that.

[00:19:49] Kyle Risi: From what they've said in the report the whole basket is It's fallen out. Fallen out. No, he's jumped out. There is this crazy footage someone captures, an image of something like literally [00:20:00] dropping. There's a big dot like a hundred feet below, and that's the moment where the balloon is kind of fallen apart.

[00:20:05] Kyle Risi: Shit.

[00:20:06] Kyle Risi: So rescuers, start sending out people to retrace the path of the balloon. They send people out on horseback helicopters, they do a u-turn.

[00:20:12] Kyle Risi: They ask people to kind of check nearby fields. And in the end, they search for three hours and they don't find anything.

[00:20:19] Kyle Risi: At 4:14 PM the media are desperate for any kind of updates and so the county sheriff steps in front of a press conference and he says, obviously this is now a recovery operation.

[00:20:29] Kyle Risi: He explains what actions the different departments were doing at that time. The media are of course, listening intently, and people at home, Adam, they're just devastated. They've been watching this unfold for hours, so there's this huge sense of sympathy for what Richard and Mayumi must be going through.

[00:20:44] Kyle Risi: It's just awful.

[00:20:46] Kyle Risi: While all of that is going on, there's a commotion that starts to kind of unfurl behind the sheriff. They pull the sheriff aside, and while he is talking to his team, everyone is like, shit. have they found a fucking body? Mm-hmm.

[00:20:59] Kyle Risi: The [00:21:00] sheriff then turns back to the reporters and he says, we have found Falcon.

[00:21:03] Adam Cox: Oh, no. They're the worst. Right.

[00:21:05] Kyle Risi: And he's a fucking alive.

[00:21:08] Adam Cox: Alive How, what? Hang on. So he managed to survive that fall. Let's listen to the clip.

[00:21:14] Clip: He's located, he's alive. He's at the house. So all of the reports that we had earlier. Fortunately misinformation. Uh, what, where was he? I, I don't know. We alive, he at the house. We, we just got the page from somebody on the scene that he's at the house and he's been located, let's confirmed, confirm.

[00:21:36] Adam Cox: So he was at the house the whole time.

[00:21:39] Kyle Risi: I'm gonna tell you now what the title of this episode is. Okay.

[00:21:42] Kyle Risi: I'm calling it the balloon boy hoax. The viral media circus that spiraled out of control. Oh, so this was all staged? Yeah. I mean, that's what the insinuation is,

[00:21:53] Adam Cox: but how, hang on. I thought the police did like a proper search of the property. Mm-hmm. The parents would've surely searched [00:22:00] everything, the neighborhood, and they all agreed. He's in the balloon. Are you telling me that he's just been hiding in his bed the whole time or something?

[00:22:06] Kyle Risi: So apparently while Richard and Mayumi were sitting on their sofa waiting for news to come in, that they've found Falcon. Falcon just walks into the living room. He is like, what's up motherfucker? I doubt he said that. Essentially that's what he did. He just walked in and he is like, what's everyone doing?

[00:22:23] Adam Cox: I bet they were like, just like fret with worry. And they're like, um, oh, hi Falcon. What? What?

[00:22:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah, so like he wasn't in the balloon. He didn't get in there. He might have got in there, but he certainly got out.

[00:22:36] Adam Cox: Okay. So I'm really confused. I can't work out if. He generally did get out and everyone just started overreacting and panicking. Mm-hmm. Well, not overreacting, reacting in a rational way, I guess, or if there's something up. Because the only thing is, whilst the dad did sound a little bit, obviously distraught on the phone mm-hmm. It's just something about it that I couldn't help but think

[00:22:56] Kyle Risi: like he was acting. Yeah. Like he, he, he is a very [00:23:00] animated kind of guy. Right. And he just, everything is just like, wow. It's like the guy who lives next door with his kids and he's like a super, super attenti dad and just everything is amazing. His kids are like, look, dad and Anton, he, he's like, wow, what should we call him?

[00:23:16] Adam Cox: It was that kind of thing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But also, I dunno, maybe, but I dunno if it's 'cause I've watched too many crime documentaries and listening to, like people calling in who end up being the murderer. Yeah. There's just something about it that I'm just, I couldn't put my finger on.

[00:23:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. So what is it, did they plan this or was this an accident and actually Falcon was just hiding and they didn't know?

[00:23:37] Kyle Risi: Well, that is the biggest thing. Was this a hoax or was this not a hoax? And that is what the story is about. So apparently Falcon had fallen asleep in the garage attic. They ask him why he even went into the attic and he says that he was upset because his dad had yelled at him after climbing inside the balloon. So he just storms off in a half. Here's, here's his explanation of it all.

[00:23:57] Clip: I was in the attic [00:24:00] and he scared me because he yelled at me. That's why I went in the attic. I heard Shay, I didn't, didn't wanna come out really soon while she would yell at me, I finally get in trouble. I yelled at him for going inside it. Uh, it's potentially dangerous if you get inside and the electricity comes on.

[00:24:21] Adam Cox: Okay. That sounds rational that a kid would hide if they've just been told off. So, okay.

[00:24:28] Kyle Risi: So what's going on here later at a press conference? The family, of course, they're super relieved. Richard addresses the press. He's all emotional saying that after the balloon took off, after obviously failing to tether it down properly. Bradford, the eldest son, said that he saw him getting into the balloon. They check the video tape, and sure enough, it shows Falcon getting in.

[00:24:47] Kyle Risi: But obviously at some point he gets out again. Yeah, right. Yeah. So after the story kind of starts wrapping up, there is this huge sense of joy that Falcon wasn't harmed. He's just kind of like a little skelly wag who's kind of fallen asleep and caused a bit of [00:25:00] bother.

[00:25:00] Kyle Risi: So the media start talking to other members of the public who amplify their shared feeling of relief. But it's through these interviews that whispers begin to emerge that maybe this is some sort of publicity stunt, maybe. Even a hoax. Of course, the family completely dismissed this, right?

[00:25:18] Kyle Risi: Saying that's a horrible insinuation considering everything that we've just been through. Mm-hmm. And they just remind everyone that all of this was based on what Bradford saw and that throughout all of this, his testimony had been consistent. They even saw Falcon getting into the balloon on the video camera.

[00:25:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true. But I can understand them still thinking that had they done a thorough search of the house mm-hmm. And I just feel like the police would've done that. Right.

[00:25:42] Kyle Risi: But he was in the garage, in the attic of the garage. So maybe it was just not somewhere where they thought to look.

[00:25:47] Adam Cox: I guess.

[00:25:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But the thing is though, people just weren't at the shop, right? So to calm the public down, the county sheriff, he gives a statement saying that he doesn't think that this was a hoax. When they were on site, the family's emotions genuinely seemed [00:26:00] real. They even searched the whole house. They scoured the neighborhood.

[00:26:02] Kyle Risi: They didn't find anything. So in those circumstances, your mind jumps to the next most logical possibility. Mm-hmm. And to them, there was no reason to believe that this was a stunt.

[00:26:12] Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess they've got take the, allegation or what's happened. Mm-hmm. The evidence that they have so far. Seriously. So I get that,

[00:26:19] Kyle Risi: and they have to react to that, especially because there's a time element now, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:26:23] Kyle Risi: So later that night, the heis are invited onto Larry King via video link, and this has been Hosted by Wolf Blitzer. They want to kind of talk about the entire ordeal and the relief of finding out that Falcon was in the garage the entire time.

[00:26:36] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Here is a clip from that segment.

[00:26:39] Clip: Say hi to Wolf. His name's Wolf. Hi. Hi guys. Who the hell is the wolf? Uh, we believe 100% that he was on board and Falcon was really in the garage this whole time. Uh, uh, I don't know if Falcon can hear me, but was he, uh, because I know at some point he fell asleep in that garage, but he was hiding out 'cause he thought you were gonna punish him for something that [00:27:00] happened earlier in the day.

[00:27:01] Clip: Uh, did he hear anything? Did he hear you screaming on Falcon? Falcon? Um, he's, he's asking Falcon, did you hear us calling your name at any time? Hmm. You did. You did? Why didn't you come out? Um, you guys said that, um, we did this for the show. Yeah.

[00:27:19] Adam Cox: They did this for a show, Uhhuh. Oh, so Falcons just slipped up? Yeah. And did you not hear what Richard said? Just the very end of that clip? No. What did he say there? He went, man. Oh no. Oh, Falcon, what the like rule number one, you never talk about fight club.

[00:27:40] Kyle Risi: Never talk about fight club. So I think this is a perfect time to take a quick break and when we get back, I'm gonna tell you a bit more about the Es and we're gonna find out what Falcon actually meant when he said that they were doing this all for a show.

[00:27:52] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:27:55] Kyle Risi: So Adam, we're back.

[00:27:57] Adam Cox: What are you thinking? Little s Scally wag. [00:28:00] Scaly wag. Or was the whole family scaly Wags? Mm-hmm. But I guess your opening, dialogue or monologue or whatever it was mm-hmm. About there being betrayal at the end of this and revenge or something like that.

[00:28:09] Kyle Risi: Got your little spider sensors going. Right.

[00:28:11] Adam Cox: It, yeah. I guess something was perhaps just, maybe I didn't fully buy it and maybe that's why I was a bit suspect of the guy. Right. And now we've got the son Falcon actually saying dad, you told me to do this. Mm-hmm. And so what was their plan? It sounded like they, they like to invent stuff. Mm-hmm. So were they just wanting attention for one of their crazy inventions?

[00:28:29] Kyle Risi: their motors are all gonna become clear when we find out a bit more about the Heini family.

[00:28:34] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. But I also want you to remember and be critical when you're thinking about. Whether or not something is circumstantial evidence and actually is definitive proof that they were to do this, or it's something that maybe the media and the police just try and kind of like make fit.

[00:28:51] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:28:52] Kyle Risi: So Richard and Miami, they met in the late 1990s at a film institute in Hollywood where they were both in their early thirties.

[00:28:59] Kyle Risi: They were both trying [00:29:00] to make it in the entertainment industry, so probably flag number one.

[00:29:03] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:29:04] Kyle Risi: When they met, they hit it off almost immediately. So pretty much by the end of that year they were married.

[00:29:09] Kyle Risi: Richard was of course a struggling actor at the time. He was a comedian as well, and mayumi from Japan had just moved to the United States.

[00:29:16] Adam Cox: So you said that he was a struggling actor? Mm-hmm. That's probably why I wasn't convinced about his phone call. Everything was just a little bit too much. If I was a director, I'd be like, just, just bring it down a notch.

[00:29:26] Kyle Risi: But, but that could also be his personality, because he is an actor. When you also get to understand the type of actor that he is, to me it makes perfect sense because he likes all this kind of, he is basically a child entertainer at heart. That is what he is. That's the kind of acting he does

[00:29:40] Adam Cox: the drama.

[00:29:41] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So at the time, they are living in Burbank, which is like the go-to place if you wanna make it in the entertainment industry. No matter what they do though, neither of them manage to land a break. So over time they start struggling and they fall deeper and deeper into debt.

[00:29:56] Kyle Risi: They do have this small video production company making kind of video reels for other actors, [00:30:00] which Mayumi kind of sort of carries. Meanwhile, Richard is focusing on trying to land them their own show, pitching various ideas to production companies. One idea that it comes up with is, the science detectives.

[00:30:11] Kyle Risi: So it's science spelled as if you would spell, psychic with A-A-P-S-Y-I-E-N-C-E, like science Detective, because it encapsulates not just science, but also mysteries and aliens and, and psychics and the mind calendar and things like that. That's the premise of the show.

[00:30:29] Adam Cox: And no network picked up on this show.

[00:30:31] Kyle Risi: No network picked up on show.

[00:30:32] Adam Cox: I am shocked. What? I think it's a great idea. Well, you and here would be very happy.

[00:30:38] Kyle Risi: So basically they investigate various kind of scientific mysteries like UFOs, electromagnetism and other things like that. But nobody is of course interested, so they just keep getting rejected.

[00:30:48] Kyle Risi: It's around about this time that Mayumi, she falls pregnant with their elder son Bradford. Then comes Rio, and then a couple years after that comes the little scaly Wag Falcon.

[00:30:57] Kyle Risi: I like all of those names. They are great names, aren't they? [00:31:00] Yeah.

[00:31:00] Kyle Risi: In my opinion, after researching the Hees, Richard is, he's just the most incredible dad. Like he's every kid's fantasy. He reminds me of Phil Dumpy from Modern Family. Oh, okay. Yeah, and he even looks like him a bit as well in his younger years before he gets his floppy hair.

[00:31:15] Kyle Risi: He's just a giant kid essentially, and it's in this environment that boys grow up. They're always doing cool things. Like I said, Richard is super into sciencey stuff and it's not without merit.

[00:31:24] Kyle Risi: At one point he co-writes a paper on electromagnetic fields, which ends up getting published in like the National Weather Digest. So he, he's in that sphere, right? He might still be a whack job, but he's writing papers. Yeah, it sounds harmless. He's just, he sounds fun still.

[00:31:39] Kyle Risi: He's also really obsessed with weather and storms. So whenever it's storm or tornado season, Richard takes the kids to Mayumi and they go essentially intercepting dust devils in the desert.

[00:31:48] Kyle Risi: With the kids in the car. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They literally are driving into tornadoes. That doesn't sound safe. It's not safe.

[00:31:54] Kyle Risi: Basically, his mission is to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields. They do all of this [00:32:00] storm chasing in their little red minivan, which has got all their equipment in it. The van is really, really shaggy. It's got no backlash. It's probably got kind of shattered during a storm.

[00:32:08] Kyle Risi: It's completely covered in dense from like crashing into shit, and probably hailstones parts of it are literally duct taped together.

[00:32:16] Kyle Risi: Do you know what actually he reminds me of? Yes, I know what you're gonna say.

[00:32:19] Kyle Risi: What am I gonna say? The guy from Honey Ash on the kids.

[00:32:21] Adam Cox: Yes. Like exactly. That's exactly what I'm seeing. A little bit irresponsible, but generally a good dad.

[00:32:27] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But Richard is also an inventor, right? he makes all sorts of gadgets. One of the things that he makes is this robotic kind of lift device for loading stuff into trucks. He calls it the Heini duty truck transformer, and honestly. It looks pretty useful, but it is $14,000, so it's a little bit out of people's budgets.

[00:32:44] Kyle Risi: And with MA's help, they record literally everything. Mayumi will upload it to their YouTube channel. And remember, this is at a time 2009 when YouTube is still relatively new. Mm-hmm.

[00:32:54] Kyle Risi: So they're kind of like leveraging this new piece of technology that's now available to the masses to [00:33:00] try and elevate their brand essentially.

[00:33:02] Kyle Risi: One of the videos that you can still find on YouTube is an instructional video that Richard Calls Box Time, where he basically teaches the kids carpentry through the art of song and dance to promote creativity and individualism.

[00:33:15] Adam Cox: Sounds like it should be something on like Sesame Street.

[00:33:17] Kyle Risi: That's what I mean by he's like a children's presenter. Mm-hmm. He's got that air about him. And like I said, even though he's been rejected by a bunch of different production companies, Richard still co-hosts his web show called Science Detectives.

[00:33:29] Kyle Risi: And basically they cover all sorts of theories, including the theory behind the Mayan calendar and how the world was gonna end in the year 2012. It's really out there stuff, but the point is, it's super cool growing up as a kid in the Heni household.

[00:33:43] Kyle Risi: And as you quite rightly said, as fun as all this sounds. He has very little regard for safety, especially when it comes to his boys. At one point they're out storm chasing and Richard drives the family into the eye of Hurricane Gustav, just so that they can capture the footage on film and then send it to CNN. [00:34:00] So he directly puts his kids in harm's way.

[00:34:02] Kyle Risi: It gets to the point where his co-host doesn't wanna be responsible for something bad happening to his boy. So he ends up quitting. And I just get the sense that Richard is just a bit of a handful. I don't care though, because I love him.

[00:34:14] Adam Cox: What does his wife say about this?

[00:34:16] Kyle Risi: She's just along for the ride. She's also in that kind of industry as well. She's definitely more reserved than he is,

[00:34:21] Adam Cox: So he goes to her one day, I'm just taking the kids out to drive into a tornado. That's great, honey. Oh, I'll see you at six. Yes. But with a Japanese accent. Yeah, I'm not gonna do that.

[00:34:32] Kyle Risi: The sad reality is, is that as eccentric as Richard and he needs are. As much as he tries to get his shows off the ground, it never happens for them. And so they just continue to struggle financially. Eventually they do give up on their dream of making it in entertainment. And so in 2007 they move to Fort Collins, Colorado, where Mayumi, she continues making the video reels for actors and she takes care of homeschooling the kids.

[00:34:56] Kyle Risi: Richard finds work as a handyman doing all sorts of odd [00:35:00] jobs. One of those things includes picking up dog sheep.

[00:35:03] Kyle Risi: Okay?

[00:35:03] Kyle Risi: So there is a really cute video of them on YouTube challenging his kids to see you can collect the most dog shit. One of them gets some shit on his finger and he freaks out. So he even makes something as awful as that, situation where he's resorting to having to pick up dog boot. Into this really wholesome family moment

[00:35:18] Adam Cox: I, I can appreciate the sentiment, but your kids helping you pick up dog poop. I mean, there's just not enough anti back.

[00:35:26] Kyle Risi: That used to be my job growing up, picking up dog poo. I used to have to pick up the dog poo in the backyard, didn't you poo in the backyard? I do not want to talk about dogs. I had to do what I had to do.

[00:35:40] Kyle Risi: So then in 2008, the Hees are chosen to participate in a little show called Wife Swap. Oh God, do you remember that show?

[00:35:49] Adam Cox: I do remember that show.

[00:35:51] Kyle Risi: Basically, for those who do not know, the premise of the show is simple. They take two families with completely different lifestyles. They swap out the moms for two weeks It's [00:36:00] always a major culture shock for the families because they deliberately pair them with families that are just completely opposite.

[00:36:05] Kyle Risi: The heis get paired with the Martel family from Connecticut who run like a childproofing business. unlike the Heen, they are really orderly, they're really respectful. Everything in their home is in its place. And when you say's bedtime, the kids go to bed. But for the Heini boys, that just means it's time to jump off the roof.

[00:36:21] Adam Cox: Well, it sounds like they've got a business all about safety and then they put this poor mother in the house with this family, and she is oh my God,

[00:36:30] Kyle Risi: kids, kids keep quiet here, play with this, uh, this stun gun.

[00:36:33] Kyle Risi: No. Eventually this episode as in October, 2008 and when the family is introduced in their episode, they're introduced like this.

[00:36:40] Kyle Risi: This week, a family of storm chasers the heis from Colorado Mayumi and Richard pulled their kids outta school in order to chase tornadoes.

[00:36:49] Kyle Risi: They head straight towards a storm with their kids in the car. Then Richard ride a motorbike into the center of the tornado, taking readings for research. The Wild Heney. Kids are [00:37:00] encouraged to live a life of fun, adventure, and excitement. There's a storm coming and the heis of Colorado are heading straight into it.

[00:37:08] Adam Cox: Wow. That sounds good. I wanna watch it.

[00:37:11] Kyle Risi: Of course, when Karen Martel arrives, she can't control the kids. They're just unbelievably wild. They misbehave. They won't listen to anything she says. And on top of that, Richard doesn't do anything I imagine, to assist.

[00:37:21] Adam Cox: They are like, what's the guy, the boy from like the wild thorn list? Yes. Donny, Donny, I imagine just three Donnies, like just acting like monkeys around the house.

[00:37:30] Kyle Risi: Exactly. On top of this though, Richard is super obnoxious though. Like he's really vulgar and sexist towards Karen, and at one point he says to her, once a woman hits 25, it's downhill from there. Now I know that sounds awful. I don't know if he's acting, if he's just leaning into it for ratings. I don't know. It's really difficult to tell.

[00:37:49] Kyle Risi: Naturally. Of course this blows up. There's a massive fight. There's tears. Karen wants to go home. It's all just a whole rigmarole.

[00:37:55] Kyle Risi: Basically, this episode gets voted the most memorable of the entire franchise. [00:38:00] And so the Hees are invited back for the 100th episode, which airs in March, 2009.

[00:38:05] Kyle Risi: This time they're matched with the Silver Family from Florida. The dad's like a landscaper. And the mom is a psychic who believes that she can communicate with the dead. And again, Richard is an actor. So he kind of leans into what made them so popular on the first show. And again, there's just loads of shouting, loads of arguing, and it's just immensely popular.

[00:38:25] Kyle Risi: And because of that, Richard thinks that this is going to be the springboard. To him landing his own show.

[00:38:30] Adam Cox: Oh God. Not the science show again.

[00:38:32] Kyle Risi: Yes. So again, he re pitches science detectives, but it's the same old answer. Nobody's interested. feel so bad for him. He just wants it so bad.

[00:38:41] Adam Cox: So is this all, he's not doing all this just to get his own show still, is he?

[00:38:46] Kyle Risi: The point that I'm trying to make by telling you all of this is that when Falcon tells Wolf Blitzer on Lar King Live that he thought that they were doing this for the show, people now can't help speculating whether or not the balloon boy incident was nothing more than another [00:39:00] publicity stunt to get Richard back into the news so he can secure his own show.

[00:39:04] Kyle Risi: I see.

[00:39:06] Kyle Risi: And so based on this, the media sense that there is a story there, an expose if you will, and they start looking into the heis with more scrutiny and that's when they discover that as fun and eccentric, as rich as seems to be, is actually a bit of a dirt bag.

[00:39:20] Adam Cox: Well, so far he just seems irresponsible a bit. Fame hungry. Mm-hmm. But not necessarily a bad person. So what do you mean by a dirt bag?

[00:39:28] Kyle Risi: So basically they find out that he's got all these charges against him for vandalism, uh, vehicle tampering and disturbing the peace. They also discover that he was once convicted for assault with a deadly weapon. Okay. Dunno what the deadly weapon is. That's my point that I'm making here, is that we don't know the circumstances behind some of these charges.

[00:39:47] Kyle Risi: Here's a perfect example. They also find out that he's been arrested on domestic violence charges, though he's never convicted. Apparently what happened was that the police showed up to the Hemi's house after they receive a 9 1 [00:40:00] 1 hangup call. So just to be safe, they check it out. Mai answers the door with a broken blood vessel under her eye. She says that she was having trouble putting her contact lens in,?

[00:40:08] Kyle Risi: And so in the end, there's no arrest that are made, they just think that probably the kids like, called 9 1 1 as a joke and then just hung up real quick.

[00:40:16] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:16] Kyle Risi: But the police have to record this, right? Right. So it's on record. But of course the media, when they look into Richard, that doesn't matter. It was something that they could spin into something more salacious. And so when this goes public, loads of people will start saying, see, this proves that he had motor for pulling this off.

[00:40:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. It sounds like he is a lot.

[00:40:35] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:36] Adam Cox: But how much of it was just him just being a nuisance Exactly. Rather than actually being a violent person.

[00:40:41] Kyle Risi: And this is so detrimental to the truth because the media have their own agenda at play. As the story picks up, steam the media and the public, they start pointing fingers at the police, accusing them of being stupid and naive for believing the heis.

[00:40:54] Kyle Risi: Basically, they're outrage that millions in taxpayer money was wasted sending out rescue [00:41:00] teams, paramedics, the National Guard, the FFA, on this essentially Wild Goose chase. All so Richard Heney could elevate his profile.

[00:41:07] Adam Cox: Really was millions spent just on that

[00:41:10] Kyle Risi: $2 million in one estimate for what the FFA had to do in terms of like their costs.

[00:41:17] Adam Cox: It sounded like it was only for a few hours, like an afternoon. But equally if the police had gone, no, we don't believe you Miss Tahini, and then something did go bad. Mm-hmm. Then obviously, well what does that look like

[00:41:26] Kyle Risi: So under the public and media pressure. Investigators calling a professor from Colorado State University to see if it was even possible that the balloon was even capable of carrying Falcon in the first place. And basically they say, yes, 100% this was possible.

[00:41:41] Kyle Risi: The next day the Heini is going to full defense mode. They go onto the Today Show and Richard explains that. When Falcon first reappeared, the news crew that was there interviewed him and asked Falcon to tell the camera where he was hiding this whole time he says, of course, that he was asleep in the attic.

[00:41:57] Kyle Risi: And so they ask him if he can [00:42:00] recreate climbing into the attic for the camera, and he's like, yeah, sure. Then later as the the news crews are wrapping up at the house, Falcon asks the news reporter what they were gonna use that footage for. And the news reporter tells Falcon that they were gonna use it for the show.

[00:42:15] Adam Cox: Okay. For the news. Yeah,

[00:42:17] Kyle Risi: for the news. Exactly. So when Falcon repeats that later on, on Larry King Live, that is what he's referring to

[00:42:23] Adam Cox: Yeah, he did that in order for the show, the recreation of that.

[00:42:27] Kyle Risi: So it seems like a reasonable explanation. Right? But the crazy thing is, is that during that segment on the Today Show, Falcon is really sick, like he's vomiting up on live television.

[00:42:38] Kyle Risi: Everyone is more focused on him rather than listening to Rich's explanation. So it ends up getting overshadowed

[00:42:44] Adam Cox: It's is he sick with guilt?

[00:42:45] Kyle Risi: I mean, when you watch the footage, as soon as they ask that question, Falcon goes, I feel sick.

[00:42:53] Kyle Risi: And it does sound suspicious, but I, I don't know if it's been doctored like that.

[00:42:57] Adam Cox: Yeah, but then the dad's like, oh man. [00:43:00] But why does he say that? Does he do that? 'cause he thinks, oh, this is gonna be interpreted wrongly or possibly. Or did he actually go oh, bollocks, if the game's up,

[00:43:08] Kyle Risi: if that was the case, he would've retreated, right? Mm-hmm. He's desperately trying to like salvage. Yeah, it, it's really tricky to know, but get this after that segment on the Today Show, they then go on to Good Morning America again. Richard has asked to clarify when they ask a question. Falcon is sick again.

[00:43:27] Kyle Risi: In the end, Mayumi takes Falcon aside to kind of sort him out, and Richard just continues with the interview, but the whole time while he's answering that question, you can hear Falcon puking up. In fact, you even see him vomiting.

[00:43:39] Adam Cox: Oh God. So he is, he's actually sick. Is it? Or is it just some tin soup?

[00:43:43] Kyle Risi: No, he is sick. By this point, Richard is now really irritated, right? He says, I'm starting to get ticked off because I'm repeatedly getting a, this, why would I gain from this? I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm not advertising anything. My family and I are always doing crazy shit like this, like scientific research or building [00:44:00] something together.

[00:44:01] Kyle Risi: And again, him losing it doesn't help his case. Like people have already made up their mind. So when they see him being all defensive, they're like, see, that's exactly what a guilty person would do.

[00:44:13] Adam Cox: And he's like, uh, no, I don't. Hashtag science. Follow and subscribe. Yeah.

[00:44:20] Kyle Risi: So again, under public pressure, the police opened an investigation. They discover that when Falcon first drifted off, instead of first calling 9 1 1, Richard called Channel nine first.

[00:44:30] Adam Cox: Okay. So that doesn't sound right though.

[00:44:33] Kyle Risi: It doesn't, but also it wasn't true.

[00:44:35] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:44:36] Kyle Risi: It is true that he didn't call 9 1 1 first. He actually called the FFA first, the Federal Aviation Administration, to see if they could kind of try and find the balloon using radar or a helicopter.

[00:44:46] Kyle Risi: He then called 9 1 1, and then a little while later he then called Channel nine because he also knew that they had access to helicopters and they might be able to try and locate the balloon.

[00:44:56] Adam Cox: Okay. There's logic with all of that.

[00:44:59] Kyle Risi: Oh, [00:45:00] 100%. But again, just like with so many of these stories that we've covered in the past, like with Madeline McCann, Lindy Chamberlain, Amanda Knox, as soon as that misinformation hits the airways, it becomes the common wisdom and it's almost impossible to then put that genie back in the bottle.

[00:45:14] Adam Cox: I dunno if I would have that knowledge to call the news. I don't know. But I guess he might have been connected and he's a TV guy, right? Yeah. So maybe, but you would think like the police or whoever would start bringing in, or the aviation people would bring in the right people that are gonna have the right equipment.

[00:45:29] Adam Cox: So it just does seem,

[00:45:30] Kyle Risi: I guess he's thinking the more people on it, the better.

[00:45:32] Adam Cox: Yeah. It does seem a bit calculated, but that's only on reflection when you start piecing all these jigsaw pieces together. At the time, I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

[00:45:41] Kyle Risi: So it's not looking good, right? They've got this piece of misinformation that's out there that makes it out into the media. And so to keep the press and the public happy, the Sheriff's office feel like they're obligated to find some kind of reason to press charges because they're being told that they're stupid, and they're an IE for trying to believe them.

[00:45:56] Kyle Risi: And they even come out and had a statement saying that we believe them 100%. We were [00:46:00] there, we saw the emotion, we searched the house. Fine. We have no reason to disbelief them. Mm-hmm.

[00:46:06] Kyle Risi: But they look dumb. And so now they're forced to try and build a case against them, which is not the right way of doing things.

[00:46:12] Kyle Risi: They carry out their own investigation on the balloon to see if it was even capable of carrying Falcon off. Remember, they aren't experts in this. That's why they reached out to that professor at the university in the first place. So it's clear that this time it's not about finding objective evidence, right?

[00:46:26] Kyle Risi: They're trying to make the things fit to suit their own purposes. Mm-hmm. And I'll explain why the balloon being capable of carrying Falcon isn't evidence at all anyway, in just a second.

[00:46:36] Kyle Risi: But basically they calculate that the balloon was actually heavier than they initially thought. And so it's deemed impossible for it to lift off with Falcon in it.

[00:46:44] Kyle Risi: And so they act like this is some sort of smoking gun that proves that Richard was trying to pull off this hoax.

[00:46:50] Kyle Risi: But here's why that's bullshit. How is Richard to know that, especially considering the urgency of what was happening at that time, right? Like, oh my God, Richard Falcon [00:47:00] is in that balloon.

[00:47:01] Kyle Risi: Wait, Mayumi, wait, let me just do some calculations to work out if that is possible. No, you don't ask questions, you respond with what you think you are seeing. Mm-hmm. So this is just so dumb, but it gives the sheriff's office what they need to file charges because they're buckling under this public pressure that's driven by the media.

[00:47:20] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I'm still, do the police believe this then? Do they actually believe it or they're just trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?

[00:47:27] Kyle Risi: They initially believed they did, and I think now again, just because of the pressure from the media, no one liked to be told they looked stupid. Yeah. And I think now they're recanting.

[00:47:36] Kyle Risi: Another piece of tenuous evidence that they use as proof that this was a hoax comes from someone who worked with Richard on Richard's Science Detective show.

[00:47:44] Kyle Risi: They take a bunch of documents to various publications. Eventually Gawker buys them and the documents are basically a brainstorming session with about 50 ideas that are written on them, including concepts for ghost hunting, storm chasing, various experiments of magnets, and all sorts of other things.

[00:47:59] Kyle Risi: [00:48:00] One of those ideas is attracting UFOs with a homemade flying saucer. And the notes say that the plan was to modify a weather balloon to look like a real UFO, then utilize the media as a way to make its presence known to the masses. And then the media would fall into a frenzy over this. And the hope was that this would turn into kind of the most significant UFO sighting since Roswell.

[00:48:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. But how many times has this happened? Like a weather balloon gets mistaken for a ufo. That happens all the time.

[00:48:26] Kyle Risi: It's dumb. Again, they report on this as if it's the smoking gun. In this case, and it just really isn't. Like it's not the same thing. Yes. The only thing that's in common there is the mention of the media, and the mention of the balloon. Mm-hmm. There's no mention of making a child sit in the balloon and send him off. None of that.

[00:48:43] Kyle Risi: I really do sound like I'm defending Richard, but the reality is, is that I feel like this is a witch hunt driven by the media and public opinion. It doesn't actually matter that he's actually guilty. They have decided that he is.

[00:48:55] Kyle Risi: And it's based on what they're trying to convince us is [00:49:00] evidence. Mm-hmm. But they're using all these things to say, see, this is evidence. It's not evidence. It doesn't prove anything. And they're relying on the fact that people out there just cannot think critically.

[00:49:09] Adam Cox: Okay. So you're saying they're grasping at straws a little bit just to prove their case Exactly. Regardless or not. But then if he is guilty, does that matter that they're still, they're still trying to bring, some kind of retribution or, resolvement on this,

[00:49:23] Kyle Risi: if this really were a hoax, I get why the public would be outraged, and the press knows this, so making him look guilty helps them sell more papers.

[00:49:32] Kyle Risi: So they needed to make all of this stuff fit, right. Mm-hmm. Because they know that they can capitalize on the fear and the outrage and the feeling of betrayal.

[00:49:40] Kyle Risi: This guy who sells these documents with all the brainstorming stuff on us. He says that after wife swap, Richard became like just a publicity monster. Saying that Richard honestly believed that the world was gonna end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar. And so his mission was to make as much money as possible to ensure that his family would survive through that.

[00:49:59] Kyle Risi: He [00:50:00] also says that Richard told him that he was gonna use his celebrity platform to expose the shape, shifting reptiles that were running kind of the shadow government basically. It's a whole lot of kind of David Ike conspiracy shit going on here.

[00:50:12] Adam Cox: I'm pretty sure there was a Marvel show about that.

[00:50:14] Kyle Risi: Yeah, pretty much. So all of this builds what the media say is credible evidence for the hoax theory, which again, doesn't make Richard look very good in any way.

[00:50:23] Adam Cox: No, but then I just can't work out if he's just a bit crazy or he was trying to pull a hoax. He's obviously tried to get fame and get himself in his family out there. Mm-hmm. It's just it, there are some jigsaw pieces here that do fit the theory that he would do this as a hoax.

[00:50:39] Kyle Risi: And you're right, there is some evidence that could lead to it, but the press are out for blood. It doesn't matter if he's guilty or not. I think they want him to be guilty

[00:50:48] Adam Cox: probably.

[00:50:49] Kyle Risi: So Richard is asked to take a lie detector test.

[00:50:52] Adam Cox: Well, that's not like proof at all, but okay.

[00:50:54] Kyle Risi: I mean, in a lot of these cases it can't be used as evidence can it? But the investigators disguised this as [00:51:00] concern for him and his family saying that this is the only way that you can get the press off your back. So he agrees during the test. He has a diabetic episode, and I'm not sure if this is genuine or not, but in the end, they don't get anything from him.

[00:51:11] Kyle Risi: Okay?

[00:51:12] Kyle Risi: They then question mayumi. She does Elijah detector test. She fails. Okay.

[00:51:18] Kyle Risi: When confronted, she then faults and she tells them how they were struggling to pitch their own reality TV show and how they were struggling financially.

[00:51:26] Kyle Risi: She then tells them that they knew all along that Falcon wasn't in the balloon.

[00:51:30] Adam Cox: What

[00:51:31] Kyle Risi: Apparently the kids were all in on it too, being told to pretend that Falcon had gotten into the balloon and they said that this has all been in the works for the last two weeks. They've been planning it. And Richard even instructed the kids to lie to the media and to the police. And again, Mayumi says that the motive was to make the family more marketable for future media interest.

[00:51:53] Adam Cox: So the press were right, it's not the point. Yeah. But hang on. I'd still think whether they were grasping at straws or putting [00:52:00] one in five together to get whatever number there was something up and mm-hmm. They were doing this all for a show. So does it matter? I don't know. I'm torn.

[00:52:09] Adam Cox: I can see why you're torn, but I'm gonna explain why this is still problematic. Because it's not led with objective investigation. Mm-hmm. They've made up their mind, they tried to make a fit and they just got lucky. That's my point that I'm trying to make.

[00:52:23] Adam Cox: Did they, I dunno. I feel like there was enough evidence there, or at least enough suspicious, like you say, circumstantial maybe. Mm-hmm. Enough in there to weed out the truth.

[00:52:32] Kyle Risi: Do you want to hear the moment that the police provide a statement?

[00:52:35] Adam Cox: Yes.

[00:52:36] Clip: As I said, this is, it has been determined, uh, that this is a hoax, uh, that it was a publicity stunt. Uh, we believe that we have evidence at this point to indicate that it was a publicity stunt done with the hopes of, uh, marketing themselves or better market themselves for a reality television show at some point in [00:53:00] the future after the fact.

[00:53:02] Clip: We have since learned as many of you have, that these people are actors. Uh, not only have they appeared in several reality television shows and on YouTubes, uh, we have since determined that in fact, they met together. The way that they met and established a relationship was an acting school in Hollywood. So, needless to say, they put on a very good show for us, and we bought it.

[00:53:24] Kyle Risi: I like how he, uh, referred to as YouTubes. Yeah, that's right. It is plural.

[00:53:30] Adam Cox: So, yeah. So he's saying that his acting was so good. I'm sorry, did you listen to that police tape.

[00:53:37] Kyle Risi: So naturally the cops, they now have something, right? So they search the Heini house, they seize their family's computer or their video equipment. They find a document titled ways to get Funding, and then one photo of a flying saucer.

[00:53:49] Adam Cox: So they came up with one idea went, yep, we'll stick with that.

[00:53:52] Kyle Risi: The next morning on Sunday, the 18th of October, the sheriff holder press conference to provide an update on the investigation. The sheriff of course now looks really [00:54:00] bad for initially defending the family.

[00:54:02] Kyle Risi: So he says, this was our plan all along to gain the family's trust, but secretly we knew that they were full of ship. Oh God, we are sorry for misleading the media, but this is how we investigate cases essentially. That's the gist of what he said.

[00:54:15] Adam Cox: I mean, he makes them know better than the bloody family in terms of this is don't try and backtrack now.

[00:54:21] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And this is what is worrying. What we are seeing here is a complex interplay between the media public perception and the police's need to stick to due process, not allowing public outrage and sensationalist kind of journalism to dictate their actions. And that's what they've done here. This is why this is problematic.

[00:54:39] Adam Cox: Yes. Okay. Now you may have a point

[00:54:42] Kyle Risi: Like I get it, they were guilty, but because of the pressure the police buckled and sort of set out to prove that they were guilty, they just happened to strike it. Lucky. And I honestly believe that if they hadn't have struck it, lucky, there is no way of knowing how far they might have gone to prove otherwise.

[00:54:59] Adam Cox: [00:55:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:55:00] Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. To save face, and we've seen this so many times before, they'd already decided to bring in the own guy to assess whether or not the balloon could carry Falcon, and I bet you they force the outcome that they needed.

[00:55:13] Kyle Risi: And whether guilty or not, the way authorities handled the case sets a dangerous precedent. One where the need to appease the media overshadowed a thorough measured approach. Mm-hmm.

[00:55:23] Kyle Risi: So once again, this is another episode that serves as a cautionary tale about the perils, of reacting to public spectacle rather than focusing on solid investigative work.

[00:55:32] Kyle Risi: have I convinced you now?

[00:55:34] Adam Cox: Um, like a little bit maybe. I mean, yes, I agree. If they just follow actual protocol and actually done their job properly mm-hmm. Then they might have got this outcome without going oh, actually this was part of the master plan. Yeah. No, it wasn't. Don't lie. You were tricked.

[00:55:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. So I do agree with all that, but ultimately it seems like the end result. Was the right result in terms of bringing some justice. Correct. What happened [00:56:00] to the family? Did they ever get their TV show behind bars?

[00:56:03] Kyle Risi: So with this confession, the sheriff obviously submits recommendations for charges to be filed against the heini for conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a, a minor false reporting, attempting to influence a public official.

[00:56:16] Kyle Risi: The Aviation Administration also submits recommendations for a fine of $11,000 for launching an unauthorized aircraft. Plus they recommended the family pay back the rescue costs of $2 million for the rescue effort.

[00:56:28] Kyle Risi: Well, how are they gonna do that? They need a TV show for that. These are only recommendations of

[00:56:32] Adam Cox: recommendations. We can't pay. Okay,

[00:56:35] Kyle Risi: so this is looking really bad. And this is how Richard responds.

[00:56:38] Kyle Risi: He says that English isn't Mayumi hiss first language. And so when she was being questioned, she didn't understand what the officers meant. When they asked her was this a hoax? Richard claims that Mayumi actually thought that the word hoax meant exhibition, which she still maintains that it was because of obviously everything that happened afterwards.

[00:56:57] Kyle Risi: So he concludes that this was all just a witch hunt and [00:57:00] the sheriff was trying to make a name for himself and was using the publicity from the Bloom Boy incident to promote his own name. So what do you think of that?

[00:57:06] Adam Cox: So he's now saying that the police was doing this very same thing that he was trying to do in terms of getting publicity.

[00:57:14] Kyle Risi: Okay. The point I'm trying to make is that she is. Being coerced or she didn't understand what she was agreeing to. She said that she thought that the word hoax meant exhibition, which it was, but I did look up the word hoax and exhibition and in Japanese they are two very separate concepts, so it's highly unlikely that those two terms could be mixed up.

[00:57:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. I feel, again, that's some backpedaling from the family.

[00:57:37] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But he vows that he's gonna do whatever it takes to clear his name. But there's a problem with that because Mayumi isn't a US citizen yet. So it means that now that she has a felony charge against her, she's gonna be deported back to Japan.

[00:57:50] Kyle Risi: So the only way to spare her is for Rich to accept a deal where he pleads guilty and they promised to leave Mii alone.

[00:57:56] Kyle Risi: He also says that because of how massive [00:58:00] this story has gotten, if he was to go to trial, there was almost no chance of him getting a fair trial where a jury's opinions weren't swayed by the media.

[00:58:09] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So it would be a trial where he was guilty before he was even proven innocent.

[00:58:13] Adam Cox: So what's he getting at? What does he settle with then?

[00:58:15] Kyle Risi: He takes a deal, basically, and eventually Mayumi and Richard are handed their sentences. Richard gets 90 days in prison. Mm-hmm. Mayumi, she gets 20 days in weekend jail to be served after Richard's release, weekend jail.

[00:58:28] Kyle Risi: It's so random. Basically. Basically, yeah. She has to report to prison on a Friday, served the weekend behind bars, and then go home on the Monday.

[00:58:35] Adam Cox: So just 10 weekends pretty much. Yeah. Get up, wake you up to this weekend going to prison.

[00:58:42] Kyle Risi: Like Joanne has just got a cellmate for the weekend. She's got, she's got her friends staying over her friends. Yeah. Got a sleepover. They both get a hundred hours of community service and of course they are asked to pay back $36,000 in restitution, so not 2 million.

[00:58:56] Kyle Risi: But they must also write a formal apology to the various agencies that were involved in [00:59:00] helping search for kind of Falcon Plus. They're also banned from profiting from anything related to Balloon Boy for the next four years. Which I think is fair, but when their sentences are served, they're obviously humiliated. So Richard asked for his balloon back and balloon back.

[00:59:16] Adam Cox: So they kept it and they held it hostage this whole time. Yeah. It's like, can I add that back please?

[00:59:21] Kyle Risi: And he even makes sure to measure it just in case they swapped it out for another one. Oh my God.

[00:59:24] Adam Cox: It means a lot to him. It's like, are you gonna do another stunt? Is he gonna hope to put this in like a, a museum or something?

[00:59:29] Kyle Risi: He thinks that this is his ticket.

[00:59:31] Adam Cox: Oh gosh.

[00:59:31] Kyle Risi: He's gonna wait for the four years and then he is gonna do something with it. And then of course he leaves Colorado and they move to Florida, right with a tail between the legs. And Richard, he's still at it. He's still a Phil Dumpy. When he's not working as a contractor, he is inventing stuff.

[00:59:45] Kyle Risi: His latest invention is the Richard Heney Bear Scratch, which basically is a sticker bark that you mount on your wall and you use it to scratch your back like a bear. And it's brilliant. And it can be yours for just 1999.

[00:59:56] Clip: Hi, I'm in inventor Richard Heney. If you itch like a son of a [01:00:00] twitch, then you need my latest invention, the patent penny bear. Scratch. Check it out. You never walk out in the woods and see a bear bring off a branch of scratch his bag. No. He uses the entire trick.

[01:00:11] Kyle Risi: If you itch like a son of a twitch,

[01:00:14] Adam Cox: I need to see what this looks like.

[01:00:15] Kyle Risi: What? The bear scratch,

[01:00:17] Adam Cox: it's just a pole.

[01:00:18] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:19] Adam Cox: That's kind of itch your back. Yeah. It's kind of like textured, like bark. It looks like a bit like a digger de.

[01:00:24] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[01:00:25] Adam Cox: Um That is something. Something else. Yep. Oh, there's the found. Although all the kids are grown up, all those lying kids.

[01:00:32] Kyle Risi: So yeah. Four years after the order that prevented them from profiting from the Bloom Boy Stories. Richard forms a band with his kids, and he calls it the Heeny Boys. And it's a heavy metal band, right? They all have super long hair now, like down to the Rosses, all three of them, including Richard.

[01:00:50] Kyle Risi: And one of the first songs that they release is titled Bloom Boy. No Hoax is it. And I love it. Is it a good song? It's not, but I just love it.

[01:00:58] Kyle Risi: It's because you've got these really [01:01:00] young kids with really long hair like wife beaters on, and they've got their guitars and they are head banging, they're swinging their hair around. It's just brilliant. And the song is titled Bloom Boy, no Hoax.

[01:01:10] Adam Cox: Right. And so they're still how many years on still trying to profit from this

[01:01:16] Kyle Risi: I think they just haven't made it yet. Right. So it's, it's an opportunity. Are they, are they gonna make it probably not right. Probably not.

[01:01:22] Adam Cox: I mean, they've probably made it as much as they ever can make it with this story.

[01:01:27] Kyle Risi: Even though they are found guilty, it still feels like the truth is still a bit of a gray area. Right? Like was this really a hoax or just a set of unfortunate circumstances?

[01:01:37] Adam Cox: Yeah, it was a hoax. I'm pretty sure we're clear on that.

[01:01:40] Kyle Risi: I've gotta ask these questions, Adam, we've gotta be poignant. So in October, 2019 for the 10th anniversary, since all of this happened, a journalist named Robert Sanchez contact Sahni saying that he wants to finally give them a chance to tell their side of the story.

[01:01:55] Kyle Risi: They invite Robert to stay with him for a whole week. He gets to know the family inside and out. [01:02:00] Robert becomes infatuated with them, right? They're so wild, they're so unconventional, but they're totally endearing. He just is in love with them.

[01:02:06] Kyle Risi: He walks away after that week believing without a doubt that they were telling the truth. Richard and Mayumi, they say that he can have access to all of their archive files surrounding the case to help him write his story, he just has to contact their lawyer and they will give him access to the files.

[01:02:23] Kyle Risi: So when he gets down to going through them, he finds several handwritten notes in my ME'S handwriting and part of a journal.

[01:02:30] Kyle Risi: And in them he finds a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the balloon launch. The first note is dated April the 27th, 2009.

[01:02:40] Kyle Risi: It's about Richard's Science detective show and how it's been rejected yet again. It's like the fifth rejected in like five months, and it talks about how the families. Kind of financial situation was getting even worse.

[01:02:52] Kyle Risi: The next note is dated the 6th of October, 2009. So nine days before the launch, Mayumi writes [01:03:00] that they had a video of Falcon saying that he wanted to get inside the experimental balloon that the family had built.

[01:03:06] Kyle Risi: Then on the 14th of October, Mayumi writes that Richard asks her if she had ever heard of lawn chair, Larry and Mayumi is like, no, what the fuck is that? Do you know the story?

[01:03:18] Adam Cox: No.

[01:03:18] Kyle Risi: Richard tells her that lawn chair, Larry was this American truck driver who in 1982 had lived with his lifetime obsession of flying, but because he had bad eyesight, he's disqualified from becoming a pilot.

[01:03:30] Kyle Risi: So he spends the next 20 years dreaming of flying. And so one day he says, I'm gonna make this happen. He attaches 45 helium balloons to a launch chair and lets himself lift off.

[01:03:38] Kyle Risi: He ascends to 16,000 feet in the air and he spends the next 14 hours flying over San Pedro, and the plan was to use a pellet gun to shoot out some of the balloons. When he was ready to come down, he drops the fucking pellet gun.

[01:03:52] Kyle Risi: It's okay though. He manages to shoot a couple, but it does mean that it takes hours and hours and hours for him to finally come down. Eventually the [01:04:00] chair lands, it gets tangled in power lines. It causes a huge blackout. And when he is rescued, he's arrested. But Adam, the point is he's a fucking legend.

[01:04:10] Kyle Risi: So he goes and does all these TV shows. Um, he quits his job. He becomes a motivational speaker, but after this, he really struggles to maintain a stable career. This is not the part that Rich is focusing on. Right. He's focusing on the, the legend aspect. Mm-hmm.

[01:04:23] Kyle Risi: Before all of this settles down, because eventually Launch Air, Larry takes a hike into A national forest and he shoots himself. So it's, it's, it's a real sad ending, but he is focusing on the legend part of this.

[01:04:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. I feel like that's a little bit shortsighted.

[01:04:38] Kyle Risi: It is. The point that Richard's trying to make is that he wants to do something similar so that he can become a legend. And in Miami's notes, the section ends with her writing that Falcon can hide in the basement.

[01:04:49] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[01:04:50] Kyle Risi: So Mayumi has admitted that the intention here was to pull off a hoax, but on the day of the launch she writes that the deliberate hoax then turn into real [01:05:00] panic when they couldn't find Falcon who was supposed to be hiding in the basement, but instead he had climbed into the attic. So she talks about how there was genuine fear that he had floated away.

[01:05:10] Adam Cox: Okay. New dynamic. So we were planning a hoax, but then the hoax went wrong and, and then we thought it was a real hoax, but then it was a hoax. And then we're actually really happy about it. But actually, so she's got written evidence of this.

[01:05:25] Kyle Risi: She wrote this all in the journal and stupidly forgot about it. And then let the journalist have access to all the files and what, forgetting that that was in there

[01:05:33] Adam Cox: and what did the journalists do? Did he quiz them? Did they like have a diabetic attack or start throwing up? Because that seems to be what they do to get out of it.

[01:05:41] Kyle Risi: So after stumbling upon this revelation, Robert Sanchez phones him up. He confronts Richard, like this poor guy. He was completely seduced by this family. Mm. Of course Richard denies, denies, denies. And then suddenly on the call, you hear Mayumi interrupt and she confesses to write in the journal.

[01:05:56] Kyle Risi: Richard just blows up on that call. You can hear him just screaming at [01:06:00] Miami like saying, oh my god. Fuck. What the fuck? Every time you write something down, you cause a fucking shit storm.

[01:06:05] Adam Cox: I think you cause the shit storm.

[01:06:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. So there you have it. It was an intended hoax that just ended up with genuine fear. The falcon was actually in that balloon, and like I said, I know they were guilty, Adam, but I don't think the way that the police handled this was justified. I think that there was a degree of a witch hunt here. The police buckled under pressure. They struck it. Lucky. But their intention was to find them guilty.

[01:06:32] Adam Cox: Or mm-hmm. Was that diary also planted because they knew that they couldn't, probably pull the wall over people's eyes if they admitted that, okay, we were gonna do a hoax, but then we had genuine worry because the coax didn't happen, how we thought it was gonna happen.

[01:06:46] Adam Cox: So actually those, those kind of feelings and the way we portrayed ourself at the time, they were genuine. And now actually we can't backtrack on it. So that's kinda what they did.

[01:06:56] Adam Cox: Wow. Hot take from Adam Cox? I don't know. Could [01:07:00] be, I don't know. They're still wrong. They're still wrong ends.

[01:07:03] Kyle Risi: I don't know. The way that the police dealt with this, sets a terrible precedent and it's because of the immense influence that the media have in dismantling people's ability to just apply critical thoughts.

[01:07:13] Kyle Risi: Everything was fueled by tenuous, weak, circumstantial evidence.

[01:07:17] Kyle Risi: I read in 2011 that the Heeny, they did try to auction off the balloon to raise money for the tsunami relief effort in Japan. Their ask price was a million dollars. In the end, they got 2,500. Oh, that's a bit shit. Yeah, and it was for a good cause.

[01:07:32] Kyle Risi: But I dunno whether or not they give that $2,500 to the relief. Who knows? Mm-hmm. But yeah. Finally though, in 2020, the governor of Colorado, they give Richard and Mayumi a full pardon saying that they'd already paid the price in the public's eyes.

[01:07:48] Kyle Risi: He commends their efforts. Becoming better citizens and acknowledges how Richard was running a small business now trying to educate people about the weather. And that now is time for everyone to just move on.

[01:07:59] Adam Cox: I [01:08:00] mean yeah, fair enough. Like let's not hold any massive hate towards them.

[01:08:03] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:04] Adam Cox: It's funny really.

[01:08:05] Kyle Risi: It's really funny and I love Richard. Yes, I know that there's some kind of aspersions being cast about his shady past, but I would be very lucky if I had a dad like that growing up, running into the eye of a storm. You know what I mean? You might not have grown up, you having an itch like a son of a twitch, getting my siblings to scratch it. I dunno.

[01:08:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, fair enough.

[01:08:27] Kyle Risi: It's true. I might not have grown up. But I would've been happy. I wouldn't have had to shit in my back.

[01:08:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. Okay. Fair point.

[01:08:37] Kyle Risi: So Adam, that is the story of the balloon boy hoax.

[01:08:40] Adam Cox: That was, yeah. That's a lot more to it than I thought there was gonna be of that story as, as always. As always. Mm. But yeah. Interesting, interesting. And so are, are the families, the couple, they're still together? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Still got the rock band or they put that,

[01:08:55] Kyle Risi: oh, I don't know now. I dunno, it hasn't broken out into mainstream. Oh no. So they're [01:09:00] probably given up on that. Who knows what the next hoax will be. Right?

[01:09:02] Adam Cox: Fair enough, fair enough.

[01:09:03] Kyle Risi: But yeah. Shall we run the outro for this week?

[01:09:05] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:09:07] Kyle Risi: That brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We really hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did,

[01:09:15] Adam Cox: and if today's episode sparked your curiosity, then do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people just like you discover the show

[01:09:26] Kyle Risi: and for our dedicated freaks out there. Don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon, and as always, it's completely free to access.

[01:09:34] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next. We'd love for you to join our growing community.

[01:09:45] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, not every story that takes off is grounded in truth.

[01:09:52] Kyle Risi: We'll see you next time.

[01:09:53] Adam Cox: See you. [01:10:00]