**The father of a boy thought to have been carried away by a helium balloon before being found at home has denied that the incident was a media stunt.**Richard Heene said he was “appalled” at suggestions the disappearance of his son Falcon, six, may have been staged.
Speaking live on CNN, Falcon had said he heard his family searching for him but stayed quiet because his parents “said that we did this for a show”.
Richard Heene and his wife previously appeared on reality TV show Wife Swap.
TV network ABC described them as a “storm-chasing, science-obsessed family”.
The balloon drama was also played out on TV, with US networks devoting their airtime to live footage of the balloon over Colorado.
The balloon landed in fields and was surrounded by rescue vehicles after a two-hour flight.
But Larimer County sheriff Jim Alderden then announced that the boy had been found alive and well in a box in the attic of his family’s house.
Boy ‘confused’
The news delighted both the Heenes and the TV networks, startled by news that the six-year-old was in fact safe and well.
“We intend to go back and further ask the family to co-operate with our investigation”
Jim Alderden
Larimer County sherriff
However, questions over the family’s motivation later emerged during a CNN interview.
Mr Heene was asked by an interviewer to ask his son why he had not emerged from his hiding place when he heard his parents calling out his name.
Speaking hesitantly at first, Falcon answered: “You had said that we did this for a show.”
Pressed on what his son might have meant, Mr Heene struggled for an answer, saying that his son must have been confused by the family’s previous appearance on Wife Swap.
In a later segment of the interview Mr Heene avoided a request to ask Falcon once again what he meant by his comment, and instead rounded on his questioner.
“I’m kind of appalled after all the feelings that I went through, up and down, that you guys are trying to suggest something else,” he said.
Police official Jim Alderden said his officers had been convinced throughout the day that they had been dealing with a genuine situation.
However, he conceded, the CNN interview “raised some questions”.
“We intend to go back and further ask the family to co-operate with our investigation through answering more questions and resolve this issue,” he told the Associated Press.
Consistent story
Earlier, the balloon landed in fields and was surrounded by rescue vehicles after a two-hour flight.
Mr Alderden then announced that the boy had been found alive and well in a box in the attic of his family’s house.
He said the house had been searched twice, but the search had obviously not been thorough enough. He also said that police had questioned Falcon’s brother repeatedly after he said he saw him in the balloon.
“What he said was that he saw his brother climb into that apparatus and he was very adamant, they interviewed him multiple times and that was his consistent story,” Mr Alderden said.
“I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me,” Falcon said. “That’s why I went in the attic.”
Asked what he thought when the balloon had landed with no sign of his son, Richard Heene said: “The only thing I could think of was that he had fallen out.”
The silver balloon, apparently made by the boy’s father, reportedly reached heights of 7,000ft (2km).
It was floating about 40 miles north of Denver before it came down.