By Marshall Zelinger
m.zelinger@krdo.com
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mzelinger

FORT COLLINS - You now know him as "Balloon Boy."  Six-year-old Falcon Heene was believed to have been floating through the Northern Colorado skies for more than two hours Thursday, in a helium weather balloon.  Instead, he was hiding from his parents the whole time in the garage attic.  Falcon's father, Richard, is an amateur scientist.  The balloon is a "low altitude vehicle" that is meant to float 50-to-100 feet in the air.  It was floating, but tethered down, near the home.  Somehow, the balloon came free.  Falcon's older brother Bradford said he had videotaped Falcon get inside the balloon before it took off, leading to a massive searched that captured a worldwide audience.

"Brad (Falcon's brother) said he saw it, then he said he videotaped it and we watched it back and sure enough he got in," said Richard.  "But obviously he got out, so I had to re-track back in my mind, did he fall out?  It was supposed to be tethered down.  It wasn't tethered properly and it took off."

Starting around 11:30 a.m., for more than two hours, you could see live video of the balloon floating through the air.  Around 1:40 p.m., the balloon landed fairly softly in a dirt field.  Emergency personnel tethered it down, popped holes in the balloon itself to keep it from floating again and found no sign of Falcon inside.

"Ah, that tore me apart. The only thing I could think of was that he had fallen out," said Richard.

Searchers then started looking along the flight path, for a possible attachment that fell off the balloon.  Just after 4:00 p.m., nearly five hours after the ordeal began, Falcon was found hiding at home.

"They searched the house, they searched the attic in the house, they searched the garage, but our guys did not climb up into the rafters of the garage and that's where he was hiding," said Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden.  "The deputies did not climb up and search in the attic.  Apparently he shimmied up this pole, climbed in and was hiding in the rafters of the garage."

"I was in the attic," said Falcon.  "(Dad) scared me because he yelled at me, that's why I went in the attic.  I didn't want to come out really soon or else he would yell at me and I would probably get in trouble."

"I yelled at him for going inside of it.  I'm really sorry I yelled at him," said Richard.  "How'd it feel to see my son again?  This is a relief, we're going to watch him a lot closer."

"This is not unheard of in law enforcement.  Apparently he thought he did something wrong, he thought he was going to be in trouble, then when everybody starts calling for him and particularly the media shows up, the police show up, he thinks he's in trouble and they hide," said Sheriff Alderden.  "I can't tell you how many of these I've been on where that's been the case."

"I really, really want to thank the local police department, Larimer County Sheriff and all of their efforts, these guys are great," said Richard.

During the news conference in front of the Heene home, Falcon tried walking away.  His mom, Mayumi had to catch him before he took off again.

"We don't ground our children, but we're going to talk to him," said Richard.

Many comments online question whether this whole ordeal was just an elaborate hoax.

"That's horrible, I mean after the crap that we just went through, no, no, no, no," said Richard.