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The Balloon Boy Hoax Solved
- StavrosK 7y agoI'm a bit confused. So they really didn't know the kid wasn't in the balloon?
- tjwds 7y agoThe ending got really dark, really quickly, but this is what I got out of it: It's heavily implied that the writer thinks Mayumi was telling the truth in her written account, despite what she and Richard said when they called back: that Richard asked Falcon to hide in the basement, and when he wasn't down there, they were legitimately concerned that he could have actually been in the balloon.
- StavrosK 7y agoYeah, you're right: > According to Mayumi’s notes, all of that had been an elaborate ruse. Now, it appeared, they were doing it again, this time for an audience of one.
- geowwy 7y agoYes. He asked his kid to hide in the attic, but instead the kid hid in the basement. When he couldn't find his kid in the attic he assumed the kid was actually in the balloon, so he freaked out and started calling the media and authorities. I'm not sure whether he originally planned to get the authorities involved or not. In any case he planned a hoax but it backfired on him big time.
- c3534l 7y agotl;dr the kid hid in the attic instead of the basement, so they were actually unsure where he was, but it was still a hoax
- macintux 7y agoIt was probably intended to be a hoax, but it sounds as though they had a legitimate concern he actually was in the balloon, which...makes it not a hoax? Crazy story all around.
- mattmaroon 7y agoThanks! I'm not sure if I have just lost my attention span, or writers are just writing 10 times as many words as they really need to to get paid, but I didn't get three sentences into that.
- m3kw9 7y agoDidn’t get what Mayumi wrote that was a lie.
- bArray 7y agoThe Internet Historian did quite a good cover of this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY
- starpilot 7y agoThis is at odds with the article. IH (whom I'm a big fan of) makes a good case that it wasn't a hoax at all, but he didn't talk directly to the family like in this article. I'm not sure which to believe.
- lerie 7y agowhy are these old ass stories making it to the top?
- gomijacogeo 7y agoThis is not a well-written article and is in a style that is almost impossible to scan. tl;dr: 1. Richard, the perpetual fuck-up and fame whore. 2. The balloon-boy saga. 3. The balloon-boy aftermath, and legal consequences. 4. Richard whines that his felony conviction prevented him from striking it rich on Shark Tank and tries to turn his kids into a heavy metal version of Hanson. Fails, of course. 5. Later, the author gets access to the wife's case file through her lawyer and finds contemporaneous notes she wrote detailing the planning of the balloon-boy hoax. 6. When confronted with this evidence, Richard needs a few days to process. 7. When Richard finally contacts back, the wife all of a sudden breaks down and confesses the notes were a lie made after the fact to protect the family - Richard is simultaneously shocked at the betrayal and urging her to speak up so the reporter can hear her. 8. Reporter concludes Richard is still full of shit and coaxed the wife into claiming the notes aren't valid.