Okay... so... what was their story going to be when the kid showed up? How was the hoax to end?

[Zix]

? :shrug:

I'm, uhhhh, slightly confused. What was their plan? Was it going to be that actually the kid had never got into the balloon in the first place and it was all a misunderstanding?

Or was it.... something else...?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Have you seen these folks on TV? Do they seem capable of critical thought or organized plans?

:shrug:

[frebrd]

2. Who Cares?

:banghead:

[Zix]

5. Well, don't respond, then...

... :shrug: :eyes:...

[Eric J in MN]

3. The simplest explanation would be that they were planning to say all along...

...that Falcon was hiding in the attic.

That's what they did say.

[Zix]

8. Okay. It's just that the balloon's too small.

I suppose I'm attributing too much to the hoaxers.

[Eric J in MN]

10. The balloon being too small to lift the boy doesn't prove...

...whether the parents thought he was inside, though I think they knew he wasn't for other reasons.

[harun]

4. Looks like these people get drunk on attention, not a lot of planning involved.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Their plan unfolded per design. It was a big mistake, he wasn't in the balloon.

I can't think of anything else that would have made sense.

[CJCRANE]

7. That's exactly how it did end.

Then the kid inadvertantly blurted out the truth on CNN.

[deutsey]

9. Wasn't the original story they gave that the son was afraid his father would yell

at him for releasing the balloon?

In the father's warped imagination, he probably believed this would become one of those heart-warming "Awww" moments.

What an idiot.

[Eric J in MN]

11. No, the story was that the father yelled at the boy for getting in the balloon,

...and then the boy hid in the attic, but the father thought the boy was inside the balloon after the father released it.

That story doesn't make much sense, which is one of the reasons I think this is a hoax.

[deutsey]

12. I agree...it seemed to be a hoax to me when the balloon landed.

I wasn't following it on TV because I was at work, but I was following the thread here at DU.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. The whole thing seemed absolutely ridiculous from the beginning.

The people seemed ridiculous. The balloon was ridiculous. Their children were ridiculous. The idea that something as heavy as a child might be in the bottom of that listing balloon seemed ridiculous.

I, too, was at work that day and just caught a TV snippet when the story first began to break, and then after it resolved, but my initial reaction just looking at the balloon and hearing the supposed story was that there was decent odds that this might be some kind of hoax or stunt, and when I heard that the family were reality TV show people, my assessment of that likelihood instantly jumped to "over 50 percent".

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. I don't think they spent a lot of time thinking it through.