Friday's dramatic story of the runaway helium balloon over Colorado and the missing 6-year-old boy who was believed to have been a stowaway onboard had all the trappings of great television. It may be because it was made for TV.
Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden on Sunday said the balloon flight was a "hoax," and he expects criminal charges to be filed against the boy's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene of Fort Collins. The sheriff said the Heenes staged the event to raise their profile for a reality TV show they were trying to develop.
The Heenes, who deny the allegations, are veterans of the reality TV show "Wife Swap," having appeared twice.
If they staged the incident, they did quite a job. The coverage gripped TV viewers. The cable networks carried live video of the balloon, aimlessly floating over the Colorado sky, as anchors explained the details: After the balloon had gone aloft, the Heenes said they couldn't find their 6-year-old son, Falcon. He had reportedly been playing in the balloon's small cabin that day.
The parents made a frantic 911 call, setting off a massive search. When the balloon crashed, and Falcon was not onboard, there were fears the boy had fallen out. To the great relief of the millions of people watching, the boy was later found - alive and well - hiding in the garage attic of his home.
Alderden said his deputies initially thought it was "a legitimate incident." After further investigation, he concluded, "They put on a very good show for us, and we bought it."
Americans have been trained to buy into such shows because of the boom of reality TV. Over the past decade there have been any number of programs detailing the supposed "real" lives of any number of people, from Jon and Kate Gosselin's family to the glitzy Kardashians.
With set-up plots and situations, the shows blur reality, so it would be no surprise that the Heenes were just trying to do the same. And that is the problem: Sometimes it can be difficult to know what is reality on TV.