The Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Balloon Boy crash-landed on Tuesday, dragging Colorado’s zaniest “only in Colorado” moment back into the spotlight.

In 2009, Fort Collins’ Heene family launched a silver, helium-filled “flying saucer” that had the world glued to their screens, convinced six-year-old Falcon Heene was soaring at 7,000 feet. Spoiler: he was napping in the attic.

This glorious hoax didn’t just fool the National Guard and cable news — it proved Colorado is the undisputed hub of military space tech and innovation. After all, no family in any other state has crafted a UFO so crisp, so tangible, that it starred in a Saturday Night Live skit.

Though we hear only rumors of a crashed UFO in New Mexico, this one could be seen, touched and photographed in a Larimer County evidence locker.

UFOs are typically seen as grainy blobs in shaky photos, the kind of evidence that makes you squint and mutter, “Is that a spaceship or Aunt Edna’s hubcap?” Not Colorado’s contribution. The Heene’s saucer, cobbled together from tarps and foil in their backyard, was a high-definition masterpiece.

News helicopters broadcast its 50-mile joyride in glorious focus, a shimmering disc that screamed, “Take that, Roswell!” Though Huntsville, Alabama, fancies itself “Rocket City USA,” it has never, to our knowledge, delivered anything approaching Colorado’s glimmering flying saucer.

This wasn’t just a stunt; it was a cosmic flex by Fort Collins, nestled among Colorado’s military and aerospace giants like Buckley Space Force Base and Lockheed Martin. The Heenes — led by storm-chasing, reality-star wannabe Richard — didn’t need Pentagon funding or Area 51 clearance. With duct tape, plasticized foil and a vision, the family fulfilled a dream their friends and neighbors considered ridiculous.

The Pentagon has chased extraterrestrial tech for decades, but the Keens won the race by keeping it simple and launching a craft that had the state’s first responders and news crews scrambling.

The Balloon Boy saga was so epic it earned a Saturday Night Live parody, cementing its place in pop culture’s hall of fame (or shame; either works). While SNL mocked the Heenes’ fame-chasing antics, they missed the bigger picture: Colorado’s knack for stealing the galactic spotlight.

Falcon’s attic hideout and his “we did this for the show” quip on Larry King Live turned the nation’s fear into laughter, but the real joke is on anyone who doubts Colorado’s space-tech swagger. This state doesn’t just host NORAD; it produces backyard innovators who generate global awe.

Sure, the Heenes pleaded guilty to charges like influencing a public servant, but Colorado Governor Jared Polis pardoned them in 2020, proving even the state’s highest-ranking politician knows the value of a good space story when he sees one.

The Trainwreck episode reminds us that Colorado’s innovation isn’t confined to labs. It is in back yards and garages, where dreamers like Richard Heene spark global mania that’s hard to replicate.

So, here’s to Colorado — where military space tech meets backyard brilliance and ambition. The rest of the world can keep the fuzzy UFO pics. We’ve got the real deal in a legendary story that never seems to die.

THE GAZETTE EDITORIAL BOARD