A Colorado sheriff largely dismissed suggestions last night that a family of amateur scientists staged a hoax by reporting their six-year-old son had floated away in a home-made helium balloon.
The bizarre incident on Thursday gripped US television viewers as the silver balloon raced across the Colorado sky, tracked by US National Guard helicopters for hours before the boy, Falcon Heene, was found alive and well in his attic.
Questions about the saga were raised after Falcon was asked on CNN's Larry King Livewhy he had stayed in hiding so long when family members and other searchers were desperately calling his name.
"You guys (his parents) said that, um, we did this for the show," he said. The boy's father strongly denied in television interviews last night that the incident was a stunt.
"We believe at this time that it was a real event," Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told a news conference.
"We have to operate on what we can prove as a fact and not what people want to be done or what people speculate should be done," Sheriff Alderden said.
He acknowledged the boy's comment "has raised everybody's level of scepticism again and we feel its incumbent on us to go back to the family and re-interview them and establish whether in fact this was a hoax," Sheriff Alderden said.
The sheriff said that because of the "magnitude" of the balloon event, his office contacted social workers, but investigators asked them not to speak to the Heenes until the family had talked to authorities again.
Major Justin Smith of the sheriff's office said social workers were asked to get involved because of concerns about the family's storm-chasing. He said authorities wanted to make sure the children are in a healthy environment
Mr Heene vehemently denied that the events were a hoax, dismissing the claims as “extremely pathetic”.
Authorities had considered desperate measures to bring the craft down safely and, after discovering the boy was not inside, had begun scouring the countryside amid fears he had fallen out.
Richard Heene and his wife, Mayumi, and three sons have appeared on the ABC television reality show "Wife Swap" in which families swap mothers to deal with family problems.
Richard Heene said the balloon was part of an experiment by the family, which is known locally for its storm-chasing and scientific experiments.
Agencies