Balloon boy parents sound distraught on 911 tape

Oct 21, 2009, 23:49 GMT

Los Angeles - Authorities on Wednesday released the recording of the emergency call made by the Colorado parents who sparked an international media frenzy when they reported their son had accidentally taken off in an experimental hot air balloon.

After an intense search it emerged that the boy Falcon Heene, 6, had never been in the balloon and police allege that the entire incident was a publicity stunt.

The tapes of the call that his parents Richard and Mayumi Heene made to the emergency response number 911 sound convincing.

Both parents appear tearful and confused as they tell the operator that the flying saucer took off between 15 and 20 minutes previously.

The tape, released by the Larimer County, Colorado Sheriff's Office, is filled with dramatic pauses and the parents repeatedly mention the age of their son and plead for a helicopter to be sent up to retrieve the balloon.

The apparent sense of dread however may be fake, officials have indicated. Sheriff Jim Alderden noted Sunday that the parents met while attending professional acting school and had plotted the incident in order to pitch a reality television show.

The Hennes communicated an air of desperation in their emergency call:

'I think my 6-year-old boy ... He got inside, and it took off,' Richard Heene tells the dispatcher.

'Ok, where is he at?' the dispatcher asks calmly.

'He's in the air,' Heene replies. 'He's only 6.'

Heene's wife, Mayumi, also spoke to the dispatcher.

'It's supposed to be tied down so it's just floating, and it's 20 feet up ... But I don't know what happened to the tie. But it got loose or something. So it's flying,' she says before breaking down into incoherent babbling.

The call sparked a massive rescue attempt and media frenzy as the Air Force and local television stations chased the large silver balloon for two hours across 80 kilometres of countryside before it landed with no-one inside.

Authorities then believed that Falcon had fallen out of the balloon and searched around the home and along the route before Falcon apparently showed up after hiding in the attic garage, saying that he had been scared of getting a scolding for playing with the balloon.