The Good Morning America segment on the Heene family that aired Tuesday is a gift, plain and simple. Checking back in with the Heene family some 10 years after they captured national attention with a rogue helium balloon that they claimed contained young Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heene has yielded a trove of treasures. There’s Falcon’s considerable mane, so long that it might touch the ground were he actually find himself spinning through the sky in a foil inflatable object. There’s the excerpt from a music video for “Balloon Boy No Hoax,” by the heavy metal band Falcon formed with his two brothers. There’s the father Richard Heene’s T-shirt: “Search Truth Internet Historian Richard Heene,” it reads.
But the best part comes midway when a defensive Richard claims he pulled no hoax. His son wasn’t in the balloon, but that doesn’t mean that his father didn’t think his son was in balloon, you see. This is something he’s said in the past, even after pleading guilty to one count of attempting to influence a public servant a little less than a month after the incident. In a January 6, 2010, interview with Larry King, Richard claimed that he “knew” Falcon was in the balloon. “In my mind,” he continued. “There was no other place, ‘cause I visualized him. I yelled at him to — to not go in.”