Akascribe A personal blog covering all manner of subjects

October 19, 2009

The “Balloon Boy” – Another in a Long Line of Hoaxes

Filed under: General — akascribe @ 5:12 pm

So now the other shoe has dropped.  It seems young Falcon Heene’s parents concocted the whole media event of their 6 year-old son “accidentally” flying across Colorado on a small helium balloon only to “discover” him hiding in the family home.  Local authorities are pressing felony fraud and endangerment charges.  Millions of dollars of search and recovery costs were expended in the rescue effort and there is hell to pay.  All, apparently, because the dad was a “shameless self-promoter” who wanted to get a reality TV gig.  If it weren’t so pathetic it would be amusing, but I bet the rescue workers who raced after the balloon in the mistaken belief a young boy’s life was in peril aren’t laughing.

This is, of course, only the latest in a long line of hoaxes, perpetrated either for personal gain or just for the perverse pleasure of befuddling a gullible public.  They continue to fascinate us and, in the case of the more elaborate and cunning hoaxes, even draw our admiration.  (I don’t count “Balloon Boy” in that company.)

Perhaps the most famous scientific hoax was that of Piltdown Man, which tweaked paleontologists with a faux “missing link” for decades, and for which the perpetrator has never been found (the amateur archeologist who discovered the remains has long been suspected of hatching the scheme).  Other hoaxes that stick out in my mind include: Clifford Irving’s bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes (which was the subject of the 2006 movie, The Hoax, by Lasse Hallström), the crop circles that began appearing in Britain during the 1970s, and the fake finish of the 1980 Boston Marathon by Rosie Ruiz.

What are we to make of all of these?  Other than the obvious:  some people will go to great lengths to perpetuate a lie.

I think they say more about the mark, in the parlance of confidence tricksters, than the con man himself.  Namely, that people want to believe in the ingenious concoctions that these hucksters dream up.  And have a healthy dose of the same human flaws as the perpetrators, such as greed, vanity and a general lack of a moral compass.  If we were all cynical pragmatists, then hoaxes would not find a receptive audience.  But who would want to live in a world populated entirely by cynical pragmatists?

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