Balloon Boy hoax gets nod in Fall Out Boy's updated 'We Didn't Start the Fire' cover

Billy Joel's 1989 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire" got a modern-day update and — whether you like it or not — Fort Collins' infamous Balloon Boy hoax got a nod in the new song.

Fall Out Boy released their updated cover of "We Didn't Start the Fire" earlier this summer, continuing where Joel left off by listing off celebrities, politicians and historical and cultural events that have helped define the 34 years since the original song's release.

Musicians like Taylor Swift, sports stars like Venus and Serena Williams and major international happenings — from the advent of Myspace to the War on Terror — made the cut in the fast-paced song.

So did Fort Collins' infamous Balloon Boy incident, which catapulted the city into international headlines more than a decade ago.

What is the Balloon Boy hoax?

The saga started on Oct. 15, 2009, when Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed their youngest son — 6-year-old Falcon — had climbed into the bottom of a saucer-shaped weather balloon before it unexpectedly launched into the sky from their Fort Collins backyard.

A news helicopter ultimately found and followed the balloon as it traversed across three Colorado counties. Meanwhile, reporters on the ground — from the Coloradoan to CNN — descended on the Heene home as the story developed.

The ordeal seemingly ended when Falcon was found hiding in his family's attic. His parents claimed he was afraid of getting in trouble for playing in the balloon earlier and had fallen asleep while hiding — unaware of the mess that was unfolding outside the family's home and on television screens across the country.

‘Balunacy’: A decade later, fascination around Fort Collins' Balloon Boy hoax endured

The family's story, which was plastered onto newspaper front pages and broadcast onto televisions, soon fell apart during a live interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, when Falcon meekly admitted that his parents "said that we did this for the show."

The family had previously been featured on an episode of the reality series, "Wife Swap," and planned the stunt to generate interest in one of the various reality TV shows they had pitched to the "Wife Swap" production company, Mayumi Heene confessed later to investigators.

Richard Heene, who has publicly maintained that the incident was authentic, pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public official, a felony. He was sentenced to 90 days in the county jail, 60 days of which was to be served through work release.

In late 2020, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pardoned the parents, citing a need to move past the decade-old spectacle.

Listen to the 'We Didn't Stop the Fire' cover

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Balloon Boy gets nod in Fall Out Boy 'We Didn't Start the Fire' cover