A TRAGEDY AVERTED? OR A HOAX?

Yesterday, the nation watched as a silver balloon, looking very much like a homemade space ship floated freely, for what seemed like an eternity, around the friendly skies of Denver, Colorado. It had been reported that a 6 year old boy, by the name of Falcon, had crawled into the craft just minutes before it had accidently ripped from the tethers and been launched into space. Immediately after the incident began the boy's father reportedly called a local television station to "alert" them to the possibility of a tragedy unfolding. This began a 2 hour long series of live television coverage on virtually every news station across the USA.  When the craft finally landed after collapsing completely on one side, several people rushed in only to find the little boy missing. The search was on to find "Falcon." Did he fall from the balloon some where along the way after being whisked off into space? A ground search was begun with the hopes of  finding the boy alive. The entire nation prayed. But, lo and behold, after several hours, Falcon walked into the room in which his distraught mother was anxiously waiting for news about her son and announced, "I been hiding in the attic because my daddy yelled at me!" Everyone around the world breathed a long sigh of relief!
But then late last night I was watching replays of the story and I began to question the validity of it all. I started to really listen to everything the entire family was saying to the media. It seems the family had starred on 2 different episodes of the reality television show "WIFE SWAP" and the kids had done a "rap" video which has been currently viewing on "U-TUBE." The more the boy, Falcon and his father began to talk the more the story seemed to be spinning out of control. At one point Falcon told one news station that "it was all for show." Later when the father was asked if it was all done as a publicity stunt, he vehemently denied it.
To me, it was all starting to look like the nation had been duped. (Maybe Obama and this family have been schooled in this same area! There is a slight correlation between Obama's promises and whether he has also "duped" the American people!)  My question in this whole thing, "who is going to pay for all of the police, fire department, and other emergency personnel that was dispatched during this ordeal as it unfolded?" The Denver National Guard even dispatched a helicopter to try and possibly bring this craft down to safety. I think Law Enforcement and even Child Protective Services should be looking at this case much more closely.