An eccentric family in Colorado’s runaway balloon drama will be questioned to clear up suspicions of a hoax, but investigators are convinced they are telling the truth, police said on Friday.
Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said while police were adamant that the event that gripped US media on Thursday was real, officers would seek clarification of remarks made by six-year-old Falcon Heene.
Falcon became the focus of a massive multi-agency rescue operation after he was initially believed to have floated away on a homemade helium balloon built by his father for a weather experiment.
Heene was later discovered hiding in the attic of his garage to the relief of investigators and the boy’s family. Falcon fueled skepticism about the incident, however, during an interview with CNN’s Larry King Live late on Thursday.
Asked by his father, Richard Heene, why he had not come out of his hiding place sooner, Falcon replied: “You guys said that we did this for the show.”
The remark was swiftly seized upon by commentators and bloggers as evidence of a hoax, suggestions Richard Heene angrily denied on Friday.
Asked on NBC television’s Today show on Friday if the incident had been a hoax, Heene replied: “Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And now I’m starting to get a little bit ticked off. I’m repeatedly getting asked this in interviews.”
“What have I got to gain out of this? I’m not selling anything, I’m not advertising anything,” he said.
Yet the Heenes’ media offensive appeared to be taking its toll when Falcon vomited live on national TV in separate interviews.
Police chief Alderden said the Heene family would be re-interviewed, probably on Saturday, but stressed during a press conference on Friday that investigators believed they had not been hoaxed.
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