The Beauty of Balloons, or Why I Forgive Richard Heene

That Richard Heene is now so universally reviled is a testament to how utterly captivated we all were by the sight of a silver-foil balloon floating across the western skies. But why, exactly, was that? With all due respect to our concern for the six-year-old boy we thought was aloft, young Falcon Heene’s well-being was only peripherally important. Plenty of children go missing, but few become stories. Had Richard called 911 and reported that he’d last seen his son near a Greyhound bus station, almost nobody would have cared.

On the national stage, it’s not enough for a child to go missing; our emotions or imaginations must be stirred, too. So it was with Baby Jessica, who fell down a well in Midland, Texas — swallowed by the Earth itself, with its connotations of darkness and timelessness and the subconscious. So it was with Falcon Heene, whose balloon embodied freedom and air and dreams, the stuff of fairy tales.

However, a balloon is not marvelous simply because it’s airborne. So are airplanes — but would it have been anything more than a back-page story, had Falcon gone missing at a Jet Blue terminal? Airplanes embody conquest and control; they’re far less romantic. Orville and Wilbur Wright were smart and daring, but even the sound of their names rings of the prosaic utility into which their invention was finally pressed.

In contrast, the hot air balloon was invented by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier: improbably mellifluous names, as magical as their creation. A balloon is imagination and voyage, tied to our fingertips as children, and still tethered in the memories of our adult selves. To rise they require no effort, no roaring machines, no chest-throbbing takeoff — only release, an open palm. And once aloft, they can be steered, but only somewhat: they’re borne by wind, becoming creatures of clouds. Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot, but his great airborne adventure took place in a balloon reconfigured as a peach, and carried into the sky by seagulls.

And so we saw pictures of Heene’s balloon, and were frightened for Falcon, but secretly thrilled, too, and perhaps a little jealous. The child in all of us was in that basket, peering over the edge,  having the ride of our lives. Personally I find it hard to be outraged at Richard Heene: he cynically pulled our heartstrings, but for a moment the strings binding us to the everyday were cut.

Posted by Brandon Keim (Web/Twitter)

Image: “The Ascent of the Montgolfier Balloon at Aranjuez,” by Louis de Carmontelle.