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Homemade Balloon Lands Near Denver Airport, Wife Swap Son Missing

Update 8am EST 10/16: The boy was found hiding in the attic at this house. Since then, the family has been interviewed several times, managing to embarrass themselves when the boy possibly revealed it all as a hoax on Larry King Live and then vomited live on air during the Today Show. We're sure this story will continue.

This afternoon, an emergency story gripped the nation and the internet as it was announced that a 6 year-old boy, Falcon Heene, had taken off in a homemade UFO-shaped balloon and was floating towards Denver International Airport, causing helicopters and air traffic authorities to mobilize in order to track it and bring it safely to the ground.

The balloon, a weak craft with a plywood bottom and a small door through which it is believed the child entered, floated between 5,000 to 7,000 feet for hours, taking off from near Ft. Collins and landing a field near Hudson, CO. The child was not inside of the craft and the search for him continues.

In the meantime, we have realized (as has Huffington Post) that the boy is the son of one of the families featured on the popular TV show Wife Swap. The family, the Heenes, were the reckless family who were stormchasers and daredevils; the wife was switched to a ultra safety-conscious mom. The episode was so spectacular that it opened the season for the show, and one of the children notoriously says "F*ck these rules" to the swapped mom. Check out a clip of that here.

The video, after the jump.