Apparently, the Heene family has cribbed a page from Edgar Allan Poe. Though the family recently created a media circus with the false claim that their son had floated away in a helium balloon, the idea of a balloon hoax is not original. According to The Guardian, the April 13, 1844 issue of the New York Sun reported an exclusive account of the balloon “Victoria” crossing the Atlantic Ocean in just 75 hours. The newspaper published excerpts from the diary of the balloon’s navigators, and the story culminated with their “sighting” near the South Carolina coast. But, the entire account was revealed as a hoax a couple days later, with Edgar Allan Poe named as the perpetrator. (A real balloon would not make the transatlantic trip until 1919, when the British dirigible R-34 arrived in New York after a 108 hour voyage.) Always the master storyteller, Poe loved a good hoax, and the balloon story was just one of five hoaxes that he contrived through out his life. Like the Heenes, he was thrilled at all the public attention surrounding his fabrication: “. . . I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper.” Poe beat the Heenes to the punch by 165 years, though it seems unlikely that the family knew about the original hoax. At least no one has cause to call child protective services on Poe.

Poe’s talent at spinning a fictional tale was evident, hoax or not, and though he died at the young age of 40, many of his works have become a part of the American literary canon. In honor of the “hoax-lover” and in the spirit of Halloween, treat yourself to a tale from one of the original masters of horror and read one of Poe’s macabre classics: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death or The Raven. Happy Halloween everyone!

Read The Guardian article