It just so happens, for reasons neither here nor there, that I was driving toward Calgary from back around the Saskatchewan border last week when the satellite radio news channels started getting all tied up in knots about a wayward balloon somewhere over Colorado. It wasn’t long before word issued that a six-year-old boy might be on board, whereupon the story assumed dimensions which redefined the word disproportionate.
The news organizations started calling anyone they could think of: the sheriff’s department in Fort Collins, Colorado, the national guard, search and rescue, state troopers, state police, aviation experts. (How high might a balloon go, what would the atmosphere up there be like, could a six-year-old survive, do you think the balloon might run out of air/helium/hydrogen and crash?)
Then they got to talking with little kids who are schoolmates or neighbours of the little kid who was presumably flying around, frightened and uncomprehending, and probably hanging on for dear life. (Do you think he’s safe, is he a good kid, what kind of kid is he, does he like sports, does he know how to fly?)
Even on the face of it – a story with looming potential tragedy – it was pointless inanity, but as is so often the case these days the piece ended up as yet another example of the U.S. media getting suckered. Richard Heene, publicity hound extraordinarie, and self-promoter who describes himself as a research scientist and inventor, but has only a Grade 12 education, was pulling a stunt in order to get himself onto a reality TV show.
The details of Heene’s caper are by now well enough known. He was fooling around with the balloon, which by the way was held together with snippets of binder twine and duct tape, in the back yard of his Fort Collins home. But it was either improperly tethered, or not tethered at all, and took off with his son, the six-year-old, apparently on board. Heene and his wife were all over 911, our kid is trapped in a balloon, and by the time the thing landed two hours and 80 kilometers later, a half dozen Colorado police agencies, the national guard, fire departments from hither and yon, and search-rescue units were desperately trying to save the little gaffer who was said to be along for the ride — except he wasn’t, and never had been.
Heene nearly got away with it, though, because first off all those police and fire departments bought his explanation that it was just a misunderstanding. He thought the boy, named Falcon, had been in the gondola when the balloon got loose, but actually he’d squirreled himself away in the attic, and wouldn’t come out because for some reason he was afraid he might get heck from dad, or mom, or both. So Falcon stayed hidden while half the police and rescue personnel in Colorado were haring around trying to retrieve the binder twine-duct tape contraption, and the boy at the same time.
But Heene had his story and stuck with it: he assumed Falcon was aboard, didn’t know he wasn’t, and furthermore, how could he possibly have been aware the kid would stash himself in the attic and not respond to frantic calling of his name?
There was a television show once upon a long time ago which ironically, was for its time a kind of reality program. Not the crude stuff of today, but real nonetheless. It was called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” They still do sometimes, and Falcon Heene did, and the consequence was his dad got hoisted on his own petard of media grubbing and craving for publicity.
One of the networks, later in the day, was interviewing the entire Heene family, all lined up just like so for the group shot, and someone asked Falcon why he’d stayed hidden in the attic. Why didn’t you come out when you heard dad and mom calling your name?
It seemed the boy didn’t quite hear, or get the question and he asked his dad to repeat. Dad did that, at which point this little six-year-old boy said right into the camera, even though he was in fact responding to his father, “because you said we were doing it for the show.”
Hard landing. TKO, because the interviewer followed up: what did Falcon mean by “doing it for the show”? A good deal of hemming and hawing ensued from dad about how well, he must have been talking about all the media thronging about on the lawn and at the doorway, yes, that must have been what he was talking about, for sure. The problem was the Fort Collins sheriff’’s department – the lead agency in all this falderal – was suddenly not buying the old man’s tale of woe, and would therefore be re-interviewing dad and the family tout la quick.
Richard Heene now faces charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a child, and making false reports to authorities. Colorado Family Services is in on it, too, and there’s a possibility Falcon and his siblings may be removed from Dad’s loving care.
Exploitative care is more like it, for which Heene the elder, if found guilty, could end up doing six years in the joint. He should get no less because the real victim in this case is a little six-year-old boy who tried his very best to do as he was told so he wouldn’t get “heck.”
It can be argued, I suppose, that Falcon ought not to have his father taken away from him, but the evidence suggests the poor little guy doesn’t have a worthwhile dad now. He instead has a hopeless excuse for one
And what, you may ask, was the balloon thing all about in the first place? Well, aside from the reality TV show pitch, Heene the so-called research scientist and inventor evidently had in mind that his flying machine could be marketed as a commuter vehicle. People could waft down to their offices and back about 50 feet above ground, so he posited, and if there were no television shows in his future, there would surely be vast riches arising from his Heeneible, as in dirigible.
It’s a sad story on two counts. First, a little lad forced to be a stunt prop by his useless moron of a father, and second, the U.S. media swarming like locusts after nothing. If they’d paid no attention to this miserable fabrication, then by definition neither would we.
I know I’ve been on this U.S media theme before, and I also know you might as well try to raise the Titanic as change the journalistic mindset down there. Even so, I do have one hope: I hope Falcon Heene gets an opportunity for a better life, because he hasn’t had much of one so far.