LOS ANGELES - A 6-year-old boy was initially feared Thursday to have taken off alone in an experimental balloon, leading authorities and national media on a wild goose chase for several hours, until the child was found hiding safely at home.

It appeared he had been hiding to avoid a scolding from his father.

“It was like a miracle to see him again,” said the boy’s mother, Miyumi Heene.

The flight of the flying-saucer shaped balloon captivated US broadcasters as it drifted over the Colorado landscape while rescuers struggled with a plan to bring the helium-filled craft under control and rescue the young boy.

Live television showed the balloon land eventually land softly without intervention in a ploughed field, but the boy was nowhere to found prompting fears that he could have fallen out of the balloon from a deadly height.

The drama started about 11 am when Falcon Heene, 6, and an older brother were playing outside. The brother told their parents that Falcon had got into a box attached to the balloon, untied the tether and taken off.

A television news helicopter soon spotted the balloon, and its pictures of the silvery, inflated craft were shown live across the country.

Some stations cut away from coverage as the balloon crash-landed in a field, hoping to spare viewers traumatic images of the child’s possible final moments. But the balloon came to rest softly in the dirt, and when rescuers rushed in they found it to be empty.

Amateur photographs appeared to show the balloon flying high above some houses with what appeared to be a small box falling from it.

Local reports quoted the family as telling law enforcement officers that a small box suspended from the silver balloon by string was not attached to the craft when it landed.

Police immediately launched a search but apparently overlooked the garage attic, where the child was later found hiding by the local sheriff.

Heene’s father, Richard, is well known in his community as a daredevil stormchaser and amateur scientist.

The family had once been featured on an episode of the TV reality show Wife Swap, in which the mothers of two often opposite families switch places for two weeks. Falcon’s mother, Miyumi, switched roles with a mother who criticised the family’s allegedly lax safety standards for the children.

Richard Heene told reporters that the boy had climbed into the utility compartment of the balloon and then accidentally untethered it. He managed to get out, but then hid in the attic as he was afraid of a scolding.

He eventually came out by himself.

“I’m really sorry I yelled at him,” a tearful Heene told reporters as he hugged Falcon.

“I will never do it again,” said the boy.

Colorado station KUSA said at one point that the helium-filled balloon was flying at around 30 km per hour at a height of 2,500 metres. It floated about 80 km before landing in an empty field.