I actually said a prayer for what I thought was a poor, little frightened boy up floating away in that balloon. Shame on these cons for involving their kids and the whole country in their little publicity stunt! They should be billed for the trouble they caused.
I was praying all afternoon...all I kept thinking of was this poor boy racing through space scared out of his mind.
So did many of us pray for the boy.
I have done hoaxes in the past, but have been careful not to do anything that would cause people to pray based on false pretenses. That would be really bad.
There's a good chance they will be. Emergency services generally don't bill for things like car wrecks, etc., but it's fairly common to bill people for stuff like the guys that climb part way up buildings and get stuck.
With this thing running over a hundred miles and planes in pursuit and multiple jurisdictions involved, they may get a bill for over a hundred K.