What was I hoping for? Maybe something that would shake my conviction that the Colorado parents were really just using their son to parlay 15 minutes of fame into 30 minutes of a reality show.
And yes, for the record, I knew the odds were significantly against finding that something. I know that Richard and Mayumi Heene met in acting class, that the family has appeared on "Wife Swap" twice, and that the parents allegedly called media outlets before they called emergency services as their boy went "missing" in a Mylar balloon that just happened to look like a UFO.
Still, I had to hear the evidence for myself. If you do too, here it is:
The most striking part of this tape for me isn't the crying, or even the disclosure that the balloon "emits a million volts [of electricity] on its outer skin." (WHAT?) It's the fact that Richard Heene takes another call while he's on the phone with the 911 operator, and then appears to wander away before the call is finished. I understand that there are reasons to do this while you're on the phone with 911--maybe you've got to deal with an injured person right in front of you, or maybe the person on the other line can tell you how to save the day because it just happens to be MacGuyver. But in this reality, Richard Heene sounds a lot more like a man watching the television than one who thinks his kid might be gone for good.
