Really a who cares? story in the larger scheme of things, but having said that, what kind of parents (or human beings, for that matter) would report that a lighter-than-air helium balloon got loose from its moorings with their six-year-old son inside it; and let dozens of rescuers, including the Colorado Air National Guard, spend four hours chasing the balloon over a distance of 90 miles, at an as-yet un-nailed down cost, but certainly tens of thousands of dollars; while literally tens of millions of television viewers around the world watched with their hearts in their throats, praying for the small boy inside to be saved, and not to die, when — as now seems very likely — they knew all along that the boy was at home, in a box, napping and playing with his toys, and the entire event was part of an elaborate publicity stunt?
Suspicions were raised from almost the start, because of the implausibility that a helium balloon carrying a child weighing 50 pounds could possibly get 7,000 feet above the ground, while retaining its saucer-like shape. Then the boy himself — Falcon Heene by name — answered his father’s question, on camera, about why he had not responded to his parents calling him, “You guys said we did this for the show,” and his father, Richard Heene, could not come up with a credible explanation for CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. In the 24 hours since Falcon was found, he has vomited twice on-camera, while being interviewed with his family. I mention that because vomiting is a not-uncommon response to anxiety, fear, or a shocking experience — especially, one would think, in the case of a small child who has not necessarily developed more sophisticated coping skills.
Like I said, this is not the most pressing news of our time, but it does make me angry to think Richard and Mayumi Heene may have involved their own little boy in a hoax to publicize their own careers.
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