6 year old in runaway balloon...LIVE

[Darth Wagtaros]

 

CONSPIRACY!

[DGuller]

After further search, it was discovered that the boy was at home.

[Caliga]

After further search, it was discovered that the boy was at home.

EXECUTE HIM! 

[Darth Wagtaros]

You are kiddin/.  Thats friggin hilarious if true.

[Monoriu]

This even made it to the Hong Kong morning news.

[DontSayBanana]

Feel good news piece of the day- kid safe and sound, parents probably looking at owing money to the FAA for the rest of their lives.

[garbon]

During a live interview with CNN, Falcon said he had heard his family calling his name.

"You did?" Mayumi Heene said.

"Why didn't you come out?" Richard Heene said.

Falcon answered, "You had said that we did this for a show."

Later, Richard Heene bristled when the family was asked to clarify and said he didn't know what his son meant. He didn't ask his son what he meant by "a show."

[derspiess]

  Glad I decided to opt out of the whole spectacle.

[Jaron]

During a live interview with CNN, Falcon said he had heard his family calling his name.

"You did?" Mayumi Heene said.

"Why didn't you come out?" Richard Heene said.

Falcon answered, "You had said that we did this for a show."

Later, Richard Heene bristled when the family was asked to clarify and said he didn't know what his son meant. He didn't ask his son what he meant by "a show."

What the fuck...

[DGuller]

Oops. 

[DontSayBanana]

Priceless; busted by the kid.

[MadBurgerMaker]

  Nice.

[DGuller]

I'm watching this again, and it's hilarious how dad is now all ashen-faced and blabbering incoherently.    

[Caliga]

It sounds from the story I read on CNN that the family is a bunch of crazies. 

[CountDeMoney]

If there is a moral to the national freakout Thursday over what was believed to be a boy in a balloon over Colorado, it's this: Cable TV has helped create an absolutely crazed culture that's as vulnerable to fads, freakshows, hoaxes and hypes as America was during the 1920s and the Great Depression. And those were not exactly eras when the national psyche was in its greatest shape.

What a couple of hours of absolute madness. It was worse after the balloon finally landed, and it was discovered that the 6-year-old boy believed to have been inside could not be found. Speculation about the boy falling out began, and I saw one onscreen image of the balloon with a circle drawn around a tiny speck halfway between the balloon and the ground. It could have been almost anything -- including the falling body of a child. Can you say gruesome?

Was it the hope of rescue that had viewers galvanized to the screen -- like the 1980's saga of Baby Jessica falling down a well in Texas? Or, are we just ready to latch onto anything bizarre or out of the ordinary that pops up on the screen as long as it's not more news about Americans losing jobs?

I have to say Fox's Shepherd Smith did a nice job of giving voice to some of the TV weirdness of the moment when he said: "I can imagine you're flipping around on the channels this afternoon, you're watching your 'Judge Judy' and looking for 'Rachel Ray,' and flipping by the news stations, and there's this flying saucer creeping along Colorado, and you're like, 'What in the world is this.' I mean, like I could not flip away."

As a TV nation, I'm beginning to think we are officially flipping out. As I am sure you know by now, the boy was found safe hiding in a box in the attic of his family's home. His family is as strange as they come with a history of twice being on ABC's reality TV show "Wife Swap." A family made for freakshow and fakeshow TV if every there was one. And we are foolish enough to fall for their craziness and watch. Maybe TLC can sign them up to replace the Gosselins.