But What if “Balloon Boy” Wasn’t a Hoax?

But What if “Balloon Boy” Wasn’t a Hoax?

When filmmaker Gillian Pachter watched the 2009 “Balloon Boy” saga unfold live, she told The Hollywood Reporter, “I couldn’t take my eyes away.”

Same.

“I was scared, I but I was also very aware of how, like, special and strange it was that I was watching a livestream, you know?” the director of Trainwreck: Balloon Boy says about the next chapter in Netflix‘s excellent Trainwreck documentary, the anthology series that revisits headline-making events gone wrong. “Livestreaming was new, and I just couldn’t believe how clearly I could see it.”

After all, the streaming giant only just recently nailed that livestreaming thing itself.

On Oct. 15, 2009, Americans tuned in — however they could — to follow the insane and terrifying flight of Richard Heene’s experimental weather balloon/flying saucer. Heene’s 6-year-old son, Falcon Heene, was believed to be inside the contraption when it became untethered from the ground. As it turns out, Falcon was actually hiding in the garage attic and supposedly napped through the whole ordeal, which turned out to be no big ordeal at all — until later, when it was deemed a hoax perpetrated by inventor, amateur scientist and guy-who-acted-like-an-insane-asshole-once-on-an-episode-of-Wife Swap, Richard Heene.

Ultimately, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant; his wife Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false reporting to authorities. And then a decade later, weirdly and seemingly out of nowhere, the Heenes’ crimes were pardoned by the governor of Colorado.

“And I thought, ‘My God,’” Pachter recalled. “You always wonder, when people get pardoned, like, does that mean we got it wrong? Why were they chosen [to be pardoned]? Because they were so vilified.”

Maybe… it wasn’t a hoax?

“I also have a little boy who was about the same age, and I thought, ‘What kind of dad even pretends that his son is maybe going to fall out of balloon and die?’” she continued. “I mean, that’s just such a bizarre thing to even think — if you’re going to choose a hoax, why entertain the fantasy that your own child is in mortal danger?”

The Heenes now say they pleaded guilty out of concern that Mayumi could be deported if they didn’t play ball.

“The more I talked to [Richard], the more I started wondering if my understanding of the story was everything there was to know, and if there weren’t other truths behind it that I wasn’t aware of,” Pachter told THR.

That phrase “other truths” looms large in our “fake news” era, 16 years removed from “Balloon Boy.” Read our Q&A with Pachter below; the Balloon Boy installment of Trainwreck is available now on Netflix.

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So do you believe it was a hoax, or do you think it was real?

Sorry to be coy but look, if I didn’t think there was a very strong possibility that we got it wrong, and the thing wasn’t actually a hoax but a real panicked call to the sheriff because these people thought their son was up there — if I didn’t think that was a strong possibility, there would have been no point making the film, right? It’s not just a documentary that looks back at a crazy day in our social history — it is looking back to see whether we got it right or whether we got it wrong.

There’s a lot of evidence on both sides, and all the voices are in it. I guess I just feel really strongly that — I put everyone in there and I want people to look at it again, and I want people to hear from everybody. I want them to try to come to their own conclusion about who’s right and who’s wrong. Because the truth is in the heart of Richard Heene, right? It’s kind of unprovable. The question is, “What was in his heart when he called the sheriff? Was he lying or was he really panicked?” You’re not going to be able to actually prove that, so you’re going to have to just listen to people tell their truths and see who you believe.

The turning point in the public’s perception was when Falcon, asked on a live CNN interview why he didn’t come out of hiding if he heard his family calling for him, says, “You guys said that we did this for the show.” The media took that as a clear admission of a hoax, but in hindsight — and now as a parent myself — he was also just a tuned-out little boy.

I have a very similar thought. “What news story has ever flipped on 10 words uttered by a 6 year old?” I can’t think of another. It wouldn’t be admissible in court, it’s not evidence. There’s no way that could be taken seriously in any form of criminal process at all. And yet it completely flips the public’s view and the sheriff’s view. I was sort of dying. If only we had been able to turn back time and say, as a follow up question, “Falcon, when you say, ‘You said, we did this for the show’ — which show are you talking about?” If there had been about five more sentences, even from a 6 year old, you might have been able to get to grips with it. But like, 10 words, which were “You guys said we did this for the show” — I’m just astonished that people think they know what that means. Because I have no idea what that means.

When I was asking the Heenes about it, they have various explanations, but their initial one is, “I have no idea why he said that.” Everybody needs them to have this . And they did sort of search for and find — according to them — this explanation of Falcon getting confused with the reporters that were around in the aftermath. But actually, it seemed like the most genuine response for them was, like, “He said dumb shit all the time. We had no idea what he was talking about or why he would be under that impression.” That, to me, is very realistic. As somebody who has had a 6-year-old boy, I just don’t understand why people were so sure they knew what that meant. Because I’m not.

You told me Richard wasn’t hard to find — in general, is it easier to get access to your documentary subjects these days than it used to be?

I think it’s actually gotten harder. It’s not like the Heene family was particularly naive about the media. They were really hard-nosed and really suspicious, and they were really not interested in getting involved with anybody that was in the media. So it was actually years of talking to each other.

People aren’t stupid, and they can tell whether you’re sincere or not. I was sincerely open to them in a way that people who had approached them before were not. I wasn’t faking it, and they knew that. At the end of the day, it’s not a documentary about me and my opinions, it’s a platform [on which] they tell their full story, and so does everybody else. But I did think there was cause to give them that opportunity.

Are you friends with Richard at this point?

Richard and I are incredibly different. I really like him. He’s not a straightforward person, he’s not an easy person. He’s not even a consistent person. I wouldn’t have sunk all this time into that family if I didn’t find them massively engaging and fascinating, and if I didn’t actually like them. I don’t think I’ve ever made a program about anybody I didn’t like. [I’m] very drawn to getting to know somebody who maybe a lot of people don’t like, and seeing what they dislike in them. So I think there’s a lot to like in him — and the boys are great — charming, smart. It’s really funny to have met them as adults when I saw this home-video stuff of them when they were crazy little kids.

Richard was an asshole on Wife Swap, but that may not be the best format to judge anybody. He’s a really smart guy, maybe a bit tortured…

The sort of essence that I found really engaging is a classic American archetype. He’s a dreamer, right? Some people would see him as a con man, which is another classic American archetype. But I see him as a dreamer. Here’s this guy who was not formally educated to be a scientist — [he’s] incredibly inventive, crazy out-of-the-box thinking. The whole flying saucer thing was that it was going to be this dirigible that was going to replace cars, and we’re going to be like The Jetsons and be commuting to work on these things. You have to just love that totally outrageous, outsized imagination. And everything with that family was so outsized, and that is wonderful. And it all went wrong, but it’s still wonderful to have done the crazy things, which is what that family has always done.

They’re a crazy family, but they also seem like a lovely familythat does everything together.

And they still do. They’re really, really tight. They’re very uniquely bonded.

Did Richard have any Wife Swap-esque blowups with you?

No. He did pull out on the morning of filming, but that’s less uncommon than you would think in my line of work. He’s very moody… you never totally know where you [stand]. So I didn’t even know until the cameras were rolling that we were going to really be able to make this. But no, if he had ever shouted at me, I wouldn’t have stood for that — but I felt that we were very familiar with each other by that point.

He did have these incredibly fierce dogs that kept on throwing themselves at me, which was distracting. So I was not being attacked by Richard Heene, but I was definitely being attacked by his dogs.

Dangerous dogs or yappy dogs?

I’m not a great judge — I’m not a dog person. I feel like, if it has fangs and it’s taller than I am on its hind legs and it’s coming at me [in a way that’s] not like a hug… but I don’t really know dogs.

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Trainwreck: Balloon Boy is now streaming on Netflix.