Claim: 'I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax'

And the "Balloon Boy" story gets even weirder. A disgruntled former employee of Richard Heene -- who was paid by Gawker for his published confession -- says:

I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax: For the first time, 25-year-old researcher Robert Thomas reveals to Gawker how earlier this year he and Richard Heene drew up a master plan to generate a massive media controversy using a weather balloon.

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