Let's hope balloon incident wasn't just a publicity stunt

We tend to believe Richard Heene of Fort Collins, Colo., when he says the bizarre events that played out Thursday afternoon weren't some sort of publicity stunt.

Thankfully, Heene's son was hiding in the rafters of their garage the whole time, rather than huddled in the basket of a makeshift balloon drifting through sunny Colorado skies, shutting down Denver International Airport for a time and scrambling military helicopters with plans for daring mid-air rescues.

The incident's cost probably ran into the millions of dollars, not to mention taking years off the life of emergency crews called to rescue the child.

Watching the incident via streaming video, we should have realized the deflating balloon did not carry even the weight a small child as it touched down gently on a plowed field.

The Heenes sound like an interesting family, involving their children in various science projects like storm chasing.

But we have to wonder how much the family's appearance on a television reality show and Internet video channels encouraged the adults to allow the boys to be involved in risky behavior.

Of course, there's still the possibility it was a media stunt, especially after Falcon, the boy thought to be in the balloon, said he didn't come out of the rafters because father "had said that we did this for a show."

We hope he wasn't referring to some type of a planned hoax. That would be an insult to all of those who responded to his family's call for help.