Richard Heene

Heene became a storm chaser in the 1970s after a storm took the roof off a building he was working on.

Richard Heene and Mayumi Iizuka (飯塚雅弓) met at an acting school in Hollywood, California, and married in 1997.

Heene had tried acting and stand-up comedy without success and, for a time, he and his wife ran a home business producing demo reels for actors.

Heene is also a handyman.

Associates described him as a shameless self-promoter who would do almost anything to advance his latest endeavor.

Heene's storm chasing has included riding a motorcycle into a tornado and reportedly flying a plane around the perimeter of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

He regularly involved his children in his endeavors, taking them along on UFO-hunting expeditions and storm-chasing missions.

The Heenes have three sons named Falcon, Bradford and Ryo.

The Balloon Boy hoax occurred on October 15, 2009, when a homemade helium-filled gas balloon shaped to resemble a silver flying saucer was released into the atmosphere above Fort Collins, Colorado, by Richard and Mayumi Heene.

They then claimed that their six-year-old son Falcon was trapped inside it.

Authorities confirmed the balloon reached 7000 ft during its 90-minute flight.

The event attracted worldwide attention, and Falcon was nicknamed "Balloon Boy" in the media.

National Guard helicopters and local police pursued the balloon.

After flying for more than an hour and approximately 50 mi, the balloon landed about 12 mi northeast of Denver International Airport.

When Falcon was not found inside and it was reported that an object had been seen falling from the balloon, a search was begun.

Later that day, the boy was found hiding in the attic of his home, where he had apparently been the entire time.

Suspicions of a hoax soon arose, particularly after an interview with Wolf Blitzer on Larry King Live that same evening.

Asked why he was hiding, Falcon said to his father, "You guys said that, um, we did this for the show," apparently revealing that the Heenes had staged the incident as a publicity stunt.

On October 18, 2009, Larimer County sheriff Jim Alderden announced his conclusion that the incident was a hoax and that the parents would likely face several felony charges.

On November 13, 2009, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant.

He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution, and Mayumi Heene was sentenced to 20 days of weekend jail.

Following the incident, the Heene family has maintained their innocence, claiming that they were pressured into a guilty plea under the threat of Mayumi Heene's deportation.

A domestic violence investigation was launched at the Heenes' home in February 2009, after Mayumi was seen with a mark on her cheek and broken blood vessels in her left eye.

No charges were filed due to lack of evidence.

The Lifetime channel had been set to air one of the Wife Swap episodes involving the Heenes on October 29, 2009, but the station pulled the episode because of the balloon incident.

Richard Heene said the saucer-shaped balloon was an early prototype of a vehicle which "people can pull out of their garage and hover above traffic".

He also stated that, once "the high voltage timer" was switched on, the balloon "would emit one million volts every five minutes for one minute" in order to "move left and right—horizontal".

The balloon, 20 ft in diameter and 5 ft high, was constructed from plastic tarps taped together, covered with an aluminum foil and held together with string and duct tape.

Its base, in which Falcon allegedly rode, was a box made from a very thin piece of plywood and cardboard on the side, also held together by string and duct tape.

Fully inflated, a balloon of this size would contain just over 1000 cuft of helium.

Helium's lift capacity at sea level and 0 °C is 1.113 kg/m3 (0.07 lbs/ft3) and decreases at higher altitudes and at higher temperatures.

The volume of helium in the balloon has been estimated as being able to lift a total load, including the balloon material and the structure beneath it, of 65 lbs at sea level and 48 lbs at 8000 ft.

Fort Collins is at an elevation of about 5000 ft and the balloon was estimated to have reached 7000 ft.

The family had been featured on the reality television show Wife Swap on two occasions, the second time as a fan-favorite choice for the show's 100th episode.

During his time on the show, Heene expressed his belief that humanity descended from aliens and spoke of launching home-made flying saucers into storms.

Heene had unsuccessfully sought the media's interest in a proposed reality show called The Science Detectives, which he envisioned as a documentary series "to investigate the mysteries of science".

Months before the balloon incident Heene had pitched a reality show idea to the television channel TLC, but the network passed on the offer.

After the balloon incident, the producer of Wife Swap said that a show involving the Heenes had been in development, but that the deal was now off.

The producer declined to provide specifics.

On December 23, 2020, the Heenes were pardoned by Governor Jared Polis.