The Balloon Boy Hoax Solved
5280.com
5280.com
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Crazy story all around.