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Balloon Boy
Falcon Heene (No shit, that is his actual fucking name) is an Aspie, vomiting, six year old kid that gets abused by his dad on a regular basis. He pretty much trolled the world by hiding in his parents' attic in October of 2009. Nicknamed "Balloon Boy" by the Internet and most of the old media, Falcon was thought to have stolen his parents' silver Mylar UFO-shaped balloon in an attempt to meet with aliens.
Family
Falcon's whole family are insane attention whores. His father and mother are both devout "storm chasers" who really believe that the planet Mars contains a civilized society. Richard "The Science Detective" Heene, Falcon's father, considers himself an amateur scientist and mad inventor. He also believes that the world will be destroyed by an angry Mayan god in 2012, necessitating the building of a bunker under his house to be financed by reality show fame and fortune.
He can be found on YouTube, promoting his own tinfoil hat wearing paranormal theories and fringe ideas. He also tried to create an article on TOW about his whackjob theories on electromagnetic fields. The three Heene boys have an awesome rap video on youtube. If that wasn't enough, he believes he was put on earth by aliens. Srsly.
—-From the Heene boys video |
—Lyrics from Pussification | ||
One hippie family attempts to dissect the Heene asshole.
Events of October 15th, 2009
The internet and media, bored and looking for something to talk about, found out about the incident in Fort Collins, Colorado, where supposedly a balloon UFO using Helium for buoyancy and lift was thought to have floated away with young Falcon aboard. Since the design of the craft was not large enough to hold a 50 pound child, most smart people realized that the balloon could not generate enough lift to carry Falcon away. Still, they kept quiet and allowed the media and Internet outlets such as twitter and MySpace to go crazy wild with speculation due to the lulz factor the story generated.
A huge manhunt was organized and press conferences were held. Most people's pary was with the father who lost his chrilden. With soaring search planes in the background, Colorado Law Enforcement officials proclaimed that the boy was missing and the whole event appeared to be genuine…and not a hoax. As the search was unfolding, the Internet was creating what many people call an “Insta-Meme” that only really began to explode when the Mylar balloon crash landed in a Colorado field. The boy was not found inside the craft, causing more concern because that could mean only one thing: the six year old boy had fallen from a great height and had painted somebody’s roof with his flattened, blood-smear of a body.
A new manhunt was organized to look for pieces of Falcon.
At approximately 8:00pm EST, the boy was found hiding in an above garage attic in a box. Hoax confirmed, all the grown-ups who were looking for young Falcon back peddled their opinions and came up with the new theory that the whole episode was a publicity stunt of some kind.
Hoax
<video type="youtube" id="sBTBnFBipB0" width="200" height="200" desc="What the Heenes told the FAA, the cops, and the news had happened." frame="true" position="right"/>
—The Heene family is no stranger to media manipulation. | ||
While the boy was missing, most Internet sites and IRC channels were busy discussing how far a six year old boy would bounce if he were to hit the ground while falling from a height of 10,000 feet. During the search for the boy, several items seemed to fall off of the floating craft, perpetuating a huge swell in internet traffic discussing either the safety of the child or how hard his parents were going to beat him when it was discovered he wasn’t missing after all.
Once the manhunt and media were whipped into a frenzy of epic proportions, Falcon, sufficiently amused with the world wide troll he had committed, emerged unscathed from his parents' garage attic where he had been hiding in a box.
While some say Falcon was trolling for the lulz, others have claimed that he was forced into hiding by his dad, as Falcon later told the news, "I did it for the show" - and not the lulz. In this case, Falcon was trying to get his dad 15 more reality show minutes, and is therefore a tool, not a troll.
As of October 17, the sheriff who originally declared the case closed, re-opened it on grounds of suspicion; most notably the fact that Falcon's dad called NBC news first, and then the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), and then 911 for help - despite being very concerned about their son; giving weight to the idea that Falcon was sent to the attic [by a failed reality star] and was, therefore, not trolling. FAILcon was merely sucking garage-spider dick with Anne Frank in the dark, while his dad faked tears and waited to be famous again.
The family made several media appearance with a sick Falcon in tow. He threw up several times on various shows yet his loving parents forced him to continue with the media appearances and instead of letting him recuperate at home, they carried around a bowl for him to throw up in.
The Internet Orders The Heenes A Pizza
4chan, recognizing the greatness in the young boy, decided to send the boy's family a congratulatory pizza. Not only did they order pizza to the kid's house, the delivery man could be seen on their driveway during a live news broadcast. The pizza overdose caused the kid to vomit during later interviews.
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Pizza being delivered -
Falcon gets a 4chan pizza -
One of the brothers eating pizza
—Straight out of the New York Times!!! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/us/16balloon.html | ||
Criminal Charges
—Jim Alderden, the Larimer County sheriff who is gonna bust the Heenes. | ||
After the media shitstorm had blown over, most sane human beings began to realize that this was not an "almost tragedy," but rather an elaborate hoax that the Heene family had been planning over the two weeks leading up to the stunt. Law officials have stated that the family, who has not been arrested as of this writing, has been very "manipulative" during the whole event. The parents of young Falcon will face a few misdemeanor charges and also some very serious felony charges as well.
These charges, if brought before the Heene parents will include: conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant. All together, these charges can rack up a huge banhammer that the sheriff department will use to smite the Heenes. Some of the crimes they have committed can be punishable by 6 years in federal prison coupled with a $500,000 dollar fine. A tad expensive for 15 minutes of fame.
Why aren't they being charged now? The sheriff and his deputies searched the family home and removed several containers and a home computer, thought to contain secret plans for building an elaborate space station that is no moon. The computer also contained the emails displayed on this page.
UPDATE: The father pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant and being an attention whore, but his Jap wife has not yet pleaded to the misdemeanor of false reporting to the authorities. Guilty pleas were given probably because the husband didn't want his wife deported. Both will most likely be sent to prison and forced to repay some of the $62,000 spent by authorities during the case.
Finally jailz0r'd
On December 23, Richard Heene got 90 days jail time for his shenanigans, with Mayumi Heene getting only 20 days.
The Heenes move to America's dick
In September 2010, the Heenes up and left to Florida, where Richard Heene was to "continue working in construction", according to state court officials.
Corroboration of Criminality?
—Gawker | ||
How did the Larimer county sheriff know that this was all an elaborate scheme designed to catapult the Heene family into instant stardom? He used the internet! Gawker, an internet tabloid rag, offered up an undisclosed reward to anyone who had any sort of information on the Heene family. Knowing what kind of insane man Richard was, a one time assistant sent a tip to the Gawker tip email and spilled the beans. The rumored tip price is between 5 and 8 thousand dollars for information that would expose the hoax. Gawker is saying they didn't pay anything, but Robert Thomas, the one time Igor set to Richard Heene 's Frankenstein says he got a check for his information.
—Lack of evidence is no proof of guilt. |
But what would drive this obviously sane and calm man to such great lengths to create a hoax? He was attempting to pitch a television show of sorts, designed to be quite like Mythbusters but with more of a "mad scientist twist to it." In several emails, both Richard Heene and Robert Thomas traded ideas for the show back and forth, culminating in a 
"laundry list" of ideas that would be presented to potential television producers. When viewed with some scrutiny, the list appears to be a pack of Conspiracy Theory garbage and memes, like the Mentos videos, stolen from the internet. During some of the discussions, Thomas hinted that Heene was taking his idea of "controversy for fame" from his experiences on the show "Wife Swap" in which he had been coupled with a woman with whom he had argued.
—Richard Heene discovered attention whoring on Wife Swap. |
—Robert Thomas, who blew the whistle, was fed up and poor. |
Motivations Of An Idiot
Obviously the motivations behind this little stunt were money and fame. With all the television appearances, media whoring, and reality television garbage there can be no doubt. But why go about in this manner? Surely there are other ways of gaining some level of notoriety without committing felonies and putting yourself out there for potentially getting your ass sued off. Well the problem with that line of thought is that the world is going to fucking end in 2012 so there's no time for legitimacy. Apparently Heene believes that with the final tick of the Mayan calendar the sun will explode destroying all life on Earth. That is, all life except those living in underground bunkers. This comes from Robert Thomas' lawyer:
Media Appearances
—Captain Falcon | ||
Previous Video | Next Video
Gallery of Memes
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...and Richard too -
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Yeah, I know it's a tired meme, but I couldn't resist. -
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A rare example of a funny Cyanide&Happiness comic.
See Also
External Links
The family's Youtube page, as yet unconfirmed but likely.- Richard Heene's Youtube. Watch him spaz out and chase storms on his dirtbike.
- Tow's article on the clusterfuck with 65 references, yes, 65.
- deny, deny, deny...
- Kid's family on Wife Swap. Twice.
- Video showing balloon being launched with no kid in it.
- Youtube video where the kid lets it slip
- Father denying the whole thing was a hoax.
- relive his adventure with this game!
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Balloon Boy is part of a series on Visit the Trolls Portal for complete coverage. |
| Featured article October 16, 2009 | ||
| Preceded by Flash Mob |
Balloon Boy | Succeeded by Brandon Hilton |