Hoax! | E2 | Balloon Boy

Noble Blood

iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ ? minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For a few tense hours in October 2009, the entire world watched as a homemade aircraft purportedly carrying a 6-year-old boy drifted in mid-air on live television. When the balloon landed, there was no boy inside.

Sources: Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 1: “Heene/Martell”
Wife Swap Season 5, Episode 18: “Heene/Silver”

The video that I showed Dana of the YourShakeDown invention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xAX2Y8-g4g

Compilation of news coverage from the time of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlwBcvb9RA

Internet Historian video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhUvm8SunY&t=1s

Richard Heene’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY

The gawker essay: https://www.gawkerarchives.com/5383858/exclusive-i-helped-richard-heene-plan-a-balloon-hoax

Transcripts from 911 and CNN: https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ng/date/2009-10-21/segment/01

The Denver magazine that cracked the case: https://www.5280.com/the-balloon-boy-hoax-solved/

More reporting:

https://people.com/human-interest/10-years-later-balloon-boy-dad-insists-saga-no-hoax/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345497/Four-years-Balloon-Boy-aged-10-finally-set-worlds-youngest-heavy-metal-band-brothers.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/us/19balloon.html

https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/us-news/infamous-balloon-boy-starts-tiny-home-building-business-in-florida/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:04.8	You're listening to Hoax, a production of IHeart Podcasts.
0:11.0	Folks, it's a hoax.
0:13.5	I don't know what ever seems to believe me
0:16.8	when I swear I never was to see them.
0:20.4	I'm left wondering.
0:25.5	Welcome to Hoax, a new podcast.
0:27.8	Or is it? It is.
0:29.3	Every episode, we sort through the lies we wish were true and truths that sound like lies.
0:33.6	This is not just another scam and scandal podcast. Oh, no.
0:36.8	These are stories of pranks and grifts throughout history so big and bold. They make us question why we believe. I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz. And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show. So, Dana, yes. This is my first episode that I'm in charge of. And I'm so excited, and it is a topic that I
0:56.3	have been just chattering about to everyone I run into. When we talked about doing this podcast,
1:02.2	this was like the first idea you had. Yes, I really lit up on it. I'm like picturing a text
1:07.1	with a lot of exclamation points and me being like, can I do this topic?
1:11.2	Dana, what comes to mind when I say the words, balloon boy?
1:15.5	I vaguely remember a news story. I could not even tell you when, like, when, like, maybe I was
1:21.5	in high school. So let's say, like, you know, Facebook era. Let's say, like, I'm going to say
1:25.8	2010.
1:34.6	And what I remember is there was a story that a boy from a family was missing.
1:38.1	And then they said that he floated away in a balloon.
1:40.9	And then it turns out that he wasn't missing.
1:42.0	He was just hiding.
	...

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