For a few tense hours in October 2009, the entire world watched as a homemade aircraft purportedly carrying a 6-year-old boy drifted in mid-air on live television. When the balloon landed, there was no boy inside.
Sources: Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 1: “Heene/Martell”
Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 18: “Heene/Silver”
The video that I showed Dana of the YourShakeDown invention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xAX2Y8-g4g
Compilation of news coverage from the time of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlwBcvb9RA
Internet Historian video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhUvm8SunY&t=1s
Richard Heene’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY
The gawker essay: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/5383858/exclusive-i-helped-richard-heene-plan-a-balloon-hoax
Transcripts from 911 and CNN: https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2009-10-21/segment/01
The Denver magazine that cracked the case: https://www.5280.com/the-balloon-boy-hoax-solved/
More reporting:
https://people.com/human-interest/10-years-later-balloon-boy-dad-insists-saga-no-hoax/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345497/Four-years-Balloon-Boy-aged-10-finally-set-worlds-youngest-heavy-metal-band-brothers.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/us/19balloon.html
https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/us-news/infamous-balloon-boy-starts-tiny-home-building-business-in-florida/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.