Falcon Heene, Balloon Boy, Found Safe at Home

Even at this time, the reports of where Heene was found are mixed. The New York Times reported that he was found in the garage in a box. MSNBC and CNN stated that he was found in a box in the family's attic. The bottom line: young Falcon Heene was never in the balloon that floated through the sky over several counties in Colorado and he is safe.

Faclone Heene and his family were recently featured on ABC's Wife Swap reality show. His parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene of Ft. Collins, Coloradoare storm chasers. Their haphazard parenting style was criticized by the other family featured in the early October "Wife Swap" episode.

According to the ABC 'Wife Swap' website, the family sleeps in their clothes so they can leap from bed and run after a storm at any given moment. The site also describes a "flying saucer" that sounds a lot like the giant silver balloon that found its way back to earth Thursday without the Heene child in it.

"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," says the ABC Wife Swap site.

The 6-year-old boy was found safely at home Thursday, several hours after the family's experimental balloon had people around the world fixated on this extremely odd event. It led to a frantic search for the child, who was feared to have fallen from the balloon.

The big question is: how did the balloon just take off? Is it actually a helium balloon or a hot air balloon? All reports seem to indicate that it was a helium balloon.

According to our recent report about hot air balloons, a hot air balloon rises simply because the air is heated by burners lit by some sort of fuel. Since it is apparent that the balloon was not powered by fuel, then it was likely powered by helium.

Helium, is lighter than air, without being heated. The gas inside the envelope is lighter than air, so the balloon rises.

Who filled the balloon with Helium? Was it ready for lift off? Did this giant Jiffy Pop shaped balloon sit waiting for a passenger or was it planned to off for some media attention?

There are many questions about today's incident with the getaway balloon and the missing boy. Aside from the countless dollars spent on rescue personnel, hearts raced when people thought a young boy, now dubbed "balloon boy", had fallen out of the space-aged balloon craft.

Hopefully some questions will be answered soon by the Heene family. Perhaps this was just a boy who thought he was going to get in trouble for tinkering with the family space vehicle, so he hid. Thankfully, Falcon Heene is fine tonight. In the future, it might be a good idea to build a garage for their next invention so the world will not have to worry needlessly.

Cheryl Phillips
Exclusive to HULIQ.com