FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Questions about Thursday's worldwide balloon boy odyssey were swirling Friday after the 6-year-old boy involved seemed to say it was all a stunt.

During a live interview on Larry King Live on CNN Thursday night, Falcon Heene, of Fort Collins, said he had heard his family calling his name.

"You did?" the boy's mother, Mayumi Heene, asked.

"Why didn't you come out?" Richard Heene then said on national television.

Falcon answered, "You had said that we did this for a show."

When Richard Heene was pressed by fill-in host Wolf Blitzer to explain what his son meant, he became uncomfortable, finally saying he was "appalled" by the questions. He added that Falcon likely was referring to all the media coverage.

When pressed by reporters outside his home after the CNN interview, Heene reacted angrily.

"'Let me interrupt this real quick because I can see the direction you guys are heading on this," Richard Heene said. "We weren't even going to do this interview. I'm appalled after all the feelings I went through that you guys are trying to suggest something else."

Mayumi Heene added, "All I know is, it was real. I really thought we might have lost him."

On Friday, Richard Heene again lambasted speculation that the ordeal was a hoax.

"I went through such a roller coaster of emotions (Thursday), to have people say that, I think, is extremely pathetic," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

"I'm not selling anything. This is what we do all the time."

TMZ.com reported the Heene family has been pitching a reality show about the family, as one TV source put it, "all over town."

"We're told Richard Heene pitched a series to Reality Real, as well as RDF Productions. RDF produces 'Wife Swap,' on which the family appeared back in March," the Web site reported.

On Friday, Falcon got sick twice on national television when he and his father were asked during separate TV interviews what he meant about his comment that "we did this for a show."

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said Friday his investigators believe there was no hoax, but investigators will seek a new interview with the family after the CNN broadcast to clarify the statement.

"Certainly, that statement that was made last night on the interview raises the questions again," Alderden said. "We do intend to go back and try and re-interview the family."

Alderden said an expert told them the helium balloon was capable of lifting the boy into the air.

"We did contact a professor at CSU with the expertise to determine the payload and lift (of the balloon) and he informed us that a balloon of that size would handle a payload of 80 pounds. The boy weighed 37 pounds, so it remains conceivable that a boy of that size could have been in the balloon.

"We were convinced (Thursday) after talking to parents and having investigators on scene during the duration of event, that the parents were being honest. Their verbal, body language and emotions were consistent with events taking place, believing their child was in the aircraft. Our people didn't think this was being faked."

He said that once Falcon came out of hiding, the parents allowed investigators to question Falcon alone, and they did not appear to have anything to hide.

However, after seeing the CNN interview, Alderden wanted to know why Falcon said, "We did this for the show."

"If it turns out to be a hoax, we will seek restitution by whatever means possible," Alderden said.

He also said his office had contacted child protective services and asked them not to contact the family until his investigators had a chance to interview them again. He said he hoped to talk to them Saturday.

Alderden could not estimate how much it cost to search for the boy but said they were "soft costs" -- costs in manpower and personnel overtime. The cost to fly the two helicopters from the Colorado National Guard, alone, was $14,500.

Volunteers who helped search for the boy said they didn't feel it was a waste of time or resources and that it was the best ending anyone could hope for.

Maj. Justin Smith, with the Larimer County Sheriff's Office, said there have been no previous calls to the home and no previous indication of problems at the home.

"There's nothing throughout and certainly nothing in the end that would indicate there would be any grounds for criminal charges," Smith said.

Boy Gets Sick On National TV

During an interview Friday morning on "Good Morning America," Falcon said: "Mom, I feel like I'm going to vomit." He then left the room with his mother and could be heard gagging.

During a live interview on NBC "Today," simultaneously on Friday, Falcon threw up into a container when his father was answering the same question.

Falcon vanished around the time that a homemade helium balloon floated away from his home, setting off an instant worldwide obsession as authorities scoured the plains of northern Colorado for the youngster and millions of people watched live coverage on their televisions.

Thursday afternoon, Falcon's emotionally drained and relieved parents recounted their roller-coaster day before a bank of TV cameras, about an hour after the boy came out of hiding.

Richard Heene said the family thought Falcon had scrambled inside the weather balloon's equipment compartment, because he told his 10-year-old brother "he was going to sneak inside."

"I saw him go under (the balloon) and I saw the door shut," his brother, Bradford, told "Good Morning America."

The family said they videotape all of their experiments, and they had video that showed Falcon climbing in the balloon before it took off. However, that part of the video was not released Friday morning with the rest of the home video of the launch.

While clutching a glow stick, the impish Falcon explained that he climbed up the rafters in the garage and hid there after his father chastised him for climbing into the balloon earlier in the day.

"He scared me, because he yelled at me," the boy said in a high, thin voice. "So I went in the attic. I heard shouting. I didn't want to come out very soon, or else he would yell at me. I thought I would get in trouble."

The father explained that he barked at the boy to not climb in the lighter-than-air balloon because its outer skin is charged with a million volts of electricity to help steer it.

"It's potentially dangerous if you get inside and the electricity comes on," said Richard Heene, who said he feared his missing son might have been electrocuted in the runaway balloon.

"I'm really sorry I yelled at him," Heene said as choked up and cradled his son in his arms. "He scared the heck out of us."

When a reporter asked if the boy was "grounded" for his high-flying hoax, the parents said no.

"We don't ground our children. But we're going to talk to him," the dad said.

Heene said the balloon wasn't tethered properly, and "it was a mishap. I'm not going to lay blame on anybody."

When authorities didn't find the boy after the balloon crashed in a field, the father said: "That kind of tore me apart. The only thing I could think of was he had fallen out."

Then, after hours of waiting inside the home for news, mom and dad learned their youngest son was alive.

"My legs got weak. I couldn't even walk from one room to the next," Richard Heene said. "How did it feel to see my son again? It was a relief and we're going to watch him a lot closer."

"I thought this was going to be the worst day of my life, but it turned out to be the best day of my life," Falcon's mother, Mayumi Heene, said.

The parents repeatedly thanked the local police and sheriff's departments -- and even news helicopters -- for searching for Falcon.

"You guys are great," Richard Heene said.

Heene Family Background

The Heenes are amateur storm chasers who are known to take their children along as they pursue bad weather, and the family has appeared twice on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," most recently in February.

"When the Heene family aren't chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm," according to the show.

7NEWS meteorologist Richard Ortner interviewed the family about their storm chasing during Hurricane Gustav last year. He called the father "very intelligent and wildly creative."

A friend blogging about Richard Heene said he was "an amazingly creative human (now turned mad scientist) who insists on repeatedly proving that there is a very fine line between genius and insanity."

Heene published a book called "The Official Offensive Driving Handbook" and was convinced he had found the secret of an antigravity device in the cyclonic action of tornadoes.

Worldwide Reaction

The sage garnered worldwide attention as major cable news networks started carrying the live feed from Airtracker7 as it chased the balloon.

Newspaper Web sites from London to Hong Kong carried front-page updates of the unfolding drama.

The story even spurred some to design commemorative T-shirts that said things like "Go Falcon, Go" and "The Truth Is Out There ... Or At Least In Falcon's Attic."

The story of "balloon boy" was the top-trending topic on Twitter Thursday and Facebook users had three fan sites up. However, another Facebook group was called "Arrest the parents of 'Balloon Boy.'"