Falcon Heene, a six year-old boy in Fort Collins, Colorado, was the subject of a massive manhunt yesterday when he went missing coincidentally right around the same time that his father, an amateur storm chaser, set off a huge weather-type helium balloon. It was thought that little Falcon was on the balloon, and footage of it flying was broadcast on CNN as rescuers scrambled to catch up with it and find the boy. When it landed the child wasn’t aboard. At first it was thought that he might have fallen off at some point, but he was eventually found hiding in a box in the family’s garage.

The official story is that Falcon was scared after his dad yelled at him for playing too close to the balloon and decided to go hide out for a while. The situation is suspicious, though, especially in light of the fact that the Heene family has been featured on the show Wife Swap twice and is potentially out for publicity.

In an interview with CNN, Falcon’s dad asked him why he hid in the garage if he heard them calling for him, and the kid spilled the beans. “You guys said we did this for the show.” The dad just said “man,” as in “oh, man, my kid ruined our scheme,” and the mom simply said “no.” If this is true, that family should pay back the cost of the manhunt for their child.

The family has since been making the talkshow rounds, and the poor kid got sick twice when he was asked what he meant when he said “we did this for the show”:

The 6-year-old boy at the center of the runaway balloon saga got sick twice on national television when he and his father were asked during separate TV interviews what he meant about his comment that “we did this for a show.”

During an ABC interview, Falcon Heene (HEE’-nee) said Friday: “Mom, I feel like I’m going to vomit.” He then left the room with his mother and could be heard gagging.
During a live interview on NBC shown simultaneously, Falcon threw up into a container when his father was answering the same question.

[From AP via Google]

TMZ has confirmed with the local police department that they’ve heard about Falcon’s comment on CNN, with the cops adding that many people have called in tips about it. The Heene family is now the subject of an investigation. It seemed like a heartwarming story of a child found after a scary close call, but in all likelihood the whole thing was a set up. I have a five year-old who loves to hide and we often play this game where we pretend we don’t know where he is. There’s no way he would hide for over an hour like that, though, and I doubt there are many kids who would. Shame on that family for using their poor kid like that.