A silver, saucer-shaped balloon floated over Colorado on October 15, 2009, capturing the world’s attention as it was believed to be carrying a six-year-old boy.

The incident started when Richard Heene, an amateur scientist in Fort Collins, created a helium balloon shaped like a flying saucer. According to an article from Time Magazine, Heene liked to conduct science experiments, but only intended for the balloon to hover about 20 feet over the Heene family’s yard in Fort Collins.

Things changed, however, when the balloon became untethered, and the Heene’s reported frantically that their six-year-old child Falcon was in the contraption when it floated away. Authorities quickly searched for the child, but he was nowhere to be found.

After quite a bit of chaos, the balloon landed. Suddenly, Falcon emerged from the house to the surprise of the family and authorities, and everyone else thanks to extensive media coverage. It turned out that the child had been in the garage attic, where he hid and fell asleep after getting bored.

Amid the media circus and coverage that followed, the Heene family gave an interview on Larry King. On the show, Falcon responded, “You guys said that we did it for the show,” when asked why he didn’t come out of the house while it was being searched.

That comment led to another media frenzy speculating about whether or not the parents had staged the entire incident.

Ultimately, Richard pleaded guilty to to attempting to influence a public servant and got a 90-day prison sentence. Mayumi pleaded guilty to filing a false report to authorities and got a 20-day prison sentence.

In the aftermath of the incident, it came out that Richard and Mayumi Heene had appeared on the reality TV show Wife Swap in 2008. This led to speculation that the balloon boy hoax was an attempt to get their own reality TV show.

In 2020, Governor Jared Polis pardoned the Heenes.

Although they did jail time related to the hoax, in Netflix’s recent Trainwreck documentary on the incident, the Heenes still claimed that they were not seeking publicity with the ordeal.

According to reporting from Time, the family moved to Florida to begin a life with more anonymity.

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