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Falcon Heene in “Trainwreck: Balloon Boy.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Trainwreck: Balloon Boy — the latest in Netflix’s Trainwreck documentary series — is already one of the most popular films on the streamer in the U.S. What is the Heene family featured in the documentary up to now?
The official summary for Trainwreck: Balloon Boy reads, “On October 15, 2009, a father [Richard Heene] in Fort Collins, Colorado, calls 911, claiming that his home-made flying saucer has escaped from the backyard, carrying his 6-year-old [Falcon] son inside.”
The summary further notes, “This stranger-than-fiction claim is backed up by footage from a news helicopter, which catches up with the balloon and is live-streaming the chase. What starts as a local emergency quickly escalates into a national one, as everyone from the National Guard to the sheriff and Homeland Security struggles to come up with a plan to safely rescue ‘Balloon Boy.’
“As the balloon softly lands, people pray for a miracle reunion – but instead they discover no boy inside. What appears to be a tragedy takes a sharp turn into something else. Public sympathy quickly turns into righteous outrage, as Balloon Boy quickly becomes one of America’s most infamous and bizarre news stories.”
As of the publication of this story on Thursday, Trainwreck: Balloon Boy — which was released on Netflix on Tuesday — is No. 4 on the Top 10 most-viewed movies list on the streaming platform.
Who All Appears In ‘Train Wreck: Balloon Boy’?
Trainwreck: Balloon Boy features both archival and new footage of Richard Heene, as well as his wife, Mayumi, and their sons, Falcon, Ryo and Bradford, who were 6, 8 and 10, respectively, at the time of the “Balloon Boy” incident in 2009. Richard, Mayumi, Bradford and Falcon Heene participate in the documentary with new interviews, while Ryo does not.
The documentary also features interviews with a couple who were neighbors of the Heenes, as well as a pair of journalists who recalled the events and a new station helicopter pilot who covered the incident.
In addition, Bob Hefferman, an investigator with the Larimer County (Colorado) Sheriff’s Office who investigated the Heenes after the “Balloon Boy” incident is interviewed, as is Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden and the Heenes’ attorney, David Lane.
Consisting of new and archived interviews, as well as video footage from news outlets, law enforcement and home video taken by the Heene family, the “Balloon Boy” incident began on Oct. 15, 2009, when the saucer-like device that Richard Heene filled with helium became untethered and began floating away. The inadvertent launch of the saucer was caught on videotape, as was the panic after Falcon’s older brother, Bradford, yelled that the 6-year-old could not be located.
Since the boy liked to play around inside the saucer, Richard Heene believed that his son was inside the lower compartment of the device and he and Mayumi Heene called the Federal Aviation Administration and 911, followed by a plea to a local TV station to use its helicopter to help locate the flying sauce.
Before too long, the live coverage of the silver device flying in the air was picked up by the likes of MSNBC, Fox News and CNN on cable, followed by coverage on all the major broadcast networks.
Richard and Mayumi Heene and their sons in “Trainwreck: Balloon Boy.”
Netflix
After reaching altitudes as high as 10,000 feet during its 2 1/2 hour flight, the saucer came to rest in a farm field 55 miles away, where officials and a news photographer found out that the boy was not inside. Following worries that the boy possibly fell out of the saucer, the Heenes say Falcon appeared inside their home. As it turns out, Falcon, after being ordered away from the device earlier in the day, recalled going to his “new hiding spot” in the garage attic and fell asleep.
While the Heenes largely declined interviews after Falcon was found safe, hours later they agreed to an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Larry King Live — and it changed everything.
During the interview, Blitzer asked Falcon if her could hear people calling him as the search unfolded. Falcon acknowledged that he did and Richard repeated Blitzer’s question and asked his son why he didn’t come out of the garage. Falcon replied, “You guys said … that, um … we did this for the show.”
When Blitzer asked Richard, “What did he mean, ‘We did this for the show?’” the father replied, “Um, I have no idea. I think he was talking about the, uh, media. They’ve been asking him a lot of questions.”
The documentary then cut to a new interview with Richard, who said, “He’s only 6. Just 6 years old and people read into that whatever f—— thoughts they wanted to read into … and after that is when everything blew up.”
As a result, the Heene family immediately fell under intense scrutiny by law enforcement officials and the press, who began to question if what happened with the flying saucer was a publicity stunt.
“It was the biggest nightmare ever,” Richard said in the documentary.
Reflecting on his “We did this for the show” answer, Falcon Heene said during the documentary, “I think it was crazy how I was able to just say a single sentence and affect the whole state of the country.”
An image of the Heene family’s flying saucer in “Trainwreck: Balloon Boy.”
Netflix
In the next few days, the press began to dig into the Heenes’ past — which included an appearance on the reality show Wife Swap — and the tension began to mount as accusations were leveled against the family that the balloon launch was for publicity.
In the Trainwreck documentary, Hefferman said that he “learned that the Heenes had been working very hard to try to get themselves a TV show. It would be helpful if they ended up in the news or got their name out there somewhere. I think that’s what their motivation was for this whole hoax.”
“That makes no sense. I never even would have considered doing something that was going to turn on me and potentially send me to jail,” Richard said in the documentary. “Like, how am I going to get a TV show doing that?”
Trainwreck: Balloon Boy shows footage from the days following the launch, including law enforcement video of Richard and Mayumi Heene taking polygraph tests, which led to the couple hiring attorney David Lane after criminal charges were filed.
Falcon Heene in “Trainwreck: Balloon Boy.”
Netflix
Where Is The Heene Family Now?
One month after the “Balloon Boy” incident, the Heenes went to court, where Richard Heene pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant and Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false report, per History.
The rationale for the plea deal, as Richard Heen said in the documentary, was that he feared that their family could be separated had they lost the case at trial. Per the plea deal, Richard Heene was sentenced to 30 days in jail, while Mayumi Heene was sentenced to serve 20 days of community service.
Ninety days later, Richard Heene finished his jail time, and in the documentary, he recalled telling his probation officer that he wanted to move because of the attention he and his family were attracting.
“After this whole incident, we came to Florida and started a new life and found a place.” Richard didn’t give the location of where the family was living, but said it “feels like a fortress.”
“It’s a place where you can hide and just forget about what happened,” Richard Heene said.
Richard Heene in “Trainwreck: Balloon Boy.”
Netflix
According to Colorado Governor’s Office records, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis granted Richard and Mayumi Heene a pardon on Dec. 23, 2020.
“In the case of Richard and Mayumi Heene, the ‘balloon boy parents, we are all ready to move past the spectacle from a decade ago that wasted the precious time and resources of law enforcement officials and the general public,” Polis said in a statement.
“Richard and Mayumi have paid the price in the eyes of the public, served their sentences, and it’s time for all of us to move on,” Polis’ statement continued. “It’s time to no longer let a permanent criminal record from the balloon boy saga follow and drag down the parents for the rest of their lives.”
“I’m surprised that the governor pardoned him without reaching out to us in law enforcement or anybody that had been involved,” Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said in the documentary. “The thing that upset me is he did without having Richard make any sort of admission to his guilt.”
At the conclusion of the documentary, Richard Heene reminisced one more time about the flying saucer experiment and hinted that he was working on another invention.
“With the flying saucer coming to an end, it’s kind of a sad story because I loved it — but that doesn’t hold me back,” Richard Heene said in the documentary. “I’m working on something new … and it’s going to be really big.”
Trainwreck: Balloon Boy is streaming on Netflix.
