Pat Dollard

Tweet

Sample lyric from 6 year-old Balloon Boy’s “Wife Swap” music video: “I look up in the tree/What do I see?/I see a faggot trying to pee on me!”

UPDATE: FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) – Sheriff’s department says missing 6-year-old boy feared lost in balloon found safe at home .

Fox News:

Mystified authorities in Colorado have launched a ground search for a 6-year-old boy after the flying balloon he was believed to have been trapped in crashed without him inside.

A sheriff’s official said the boy climbed into a box attached to balloon before it floated away from the family’s home, but the basket was not found at the crash site.

The harrowing scene played out live on TV as initial reports that the child was in the flying saucer-shaped balloon, raising fears that he was in grave danger hurtling through the air at alarming speeds. Some eyewitnesses said they saw something drop from the balloon while it was still in the air, but the ground search had yet to turn up the boy as of Thursday evening.

Cathy Davis of the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department told reporters the balloon was owned by the boy’s parents and tethered behind the family’s home. She said two sons were playing outside when the older boy saw the younger one go into a compartment at the bottom of the balloon and fly away.

The child was identified as Falcon Heene, the son of Richard Heene, a Colorado weather-chaser. The boy and his family — mother, Mayumi, and brothers, Ryo and Bradford — first appeared on the ABC series “Wife Swap” on Oct. 3, 2008 and were voted back for the 100th episode of the show, which aired on March 13, 2009.

SLIDESHOW: Stills from the Heene brothers’ Youtube video.

Based out of Fort Collins, Colo., Richard Heene and his partners call themselves the “psyience detectives,” the Denver Post reported.

Heene collects information to prove that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields, the newspaper, which went chasing storms with him in 2007, reported.

In 2002, Heene started with lab experiments and then moved to dust devils, according to the Post. Three years later, Heene flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma’s perimeter, the newspaper reported.

In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma’s perimeter in 2005.

Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.

Although Heene said he had no specialized training, the family had a computer tracking system in its car and a special motorcycle.

While the balloon was still airborne and the boy still feared inside, authorities scrambled for a way to rescue him. The Colorado Army National Guard sent an OH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was preparing to send a Black Hawk UH-60, possibly to lower someone to the balloon. The Guard also was working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.

But after about two hours in the air, the balloon eventually landed gently on its own in a dirt field. Sheriff’s deputies secured it by tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge while they investigated, determining the craft was empty.

The balloon reached an elevation of 8,500 feet and speeds of possibly as fast as 60 mph, Fox 31 in Colorado reported. It wasn’t going “frighteningly fast,” Fox 31 reporter Kim Psey said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency tracked the balloon through reports from pilots and notified air traffic control facilities in the region. Some commercial flights out of Denver were affected.

The Web site ABC used to promote “Wife Swap” portrays the family members as thrill-seekers.

“When the Heene family aren’t chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm,” the Web site said.

The Heenes were criticized for their chaotic parenting style when Karen Martel of Connecticut entered the household as the new “wife.” Martel’s husband runs a child-proofing business, and she knew a thing or two about safety.

According to a recap on TVRage.com, the 100th episode finds two families swapping with each other who are returning by a viewers vote.

“One mom believes she is psychic and can speak with the dead, plus has control over the weather. The other is a family of storm chasing science-enthusiasts. The kids in the families will face off in a table meeting”

The runaway balloon made for quite a site Thursday.

“We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning,” said neighbor Lisa Eklund.