- Governor Polis, of Colorado, pardoned Richard and Mayumi Heene for the hoax that took place over a decade ago.
The president issued a flurry of pardons around the holidays, raising some international eyebrows regarding their legality and morality. On the local level, some pardons just brought back memories of a simpler, pre-2020 time. Back when some people’s greatest aspiration was their very own reality TV show. Those heady pre-TikTok aughts, before you could parlay followers of one-minute videos into profitable YouTube subscribers.
Remember Balloon Boy?
Two days before Christmas this year, the governor of Colorado pardoned Richard and Mayumi Heene, the parents convicted for masterminding the ‘balloon boy’ hoax back in 2009. If you’re fuzzy on the details, let’s take a trip to way back when.
The drama started way back in 1997 when the Heenes met in acting school. A relevant detail because the aughts drove most “actors” to reality TV. They worked producing reels for other, working actors to fund Richard’s love of storm chasing and UFO searches. The family appeared twice on Wife Swap, giving them a taste of reality fame, and that’s when they started cooking up the plan.
So close to fame.
Heene was pitching a UFO detective show around, and rumors remain that something was in development with the producers of Wife Swap in the run-up to the balloon boy. To be on the precipice of moderate fortune and fame would drive anyone to desperate, nationally televised measures.
That brings us to the morning of October 15th. Heene had made a flying-saucer shaped balloon prototype to allow commuters to float above traffic on their way to work. A home video shows Heene releasing the saucer in their Fort Collins home’s front yard, expecting it’s tethered in place. Instead, the saucer floats away from the yard, while Heene overacts to the camera, “You didn’t put the fucking tether down.”
Always make your first call to the authorities.
Distraught, the parents first call the local news station to send out a helicopter to track the saucer’s movements. Then they called emergency services. Over the next two hours, the balloon traveled 60 miles before touching down north of Denver’s airport. Surprise, surprise; Falcon wasn’t inside. Thus began a search for his body along the balloon’s path, and the big reveal by the Heene’s that Falcon had been in the garage the whole time.
The incident captured the national imagination for a few hours. Larry King Live rushed the Heenes on air that same night, where Wolf Blitzer asked the guileless Falcon why he hid, “You guys said that we did this for the show.” Oops. The next day on The Today Show, he threw up when asked the same question.
The cost for the search and rescue effort passed $2 million. Authorities charged Richard and Mayumi with attempting to influence a public figure and false reporting. They served 90 and 20 days in jail, respectively and paid $36,000 in restitution.
I’d wager that most people had forgotten about the whole thing, and the incarcerations hardly disrupted the Heenes’ lives–Mayumi served hers in two-day stints on the weekends after Richard’s released. But for whatever reason, Governor Polis was compelled to pardon the crimes, saying, “We are all ready to move past the spectacle from a decade ago.” We already had, given the epic amount of spectacle we’ve encountered in the last year alone.