A silver spaceship winged its way across Colorado last week, pursued by military helicopters, news crews and the millions of office workers who were glued to the live feed.

"War of the Worlds," meet "Punk'd."

In our All News All The Time epoch, an endless loop of H1N1 flu updates, embassy bombings and trash can fires pass like white noise through our waking hours.

Then came the day a small boy went up, up and away in a balloon and captivated the desk-bound demographic.

Then it turned out the little boy didn't climb any higher than the attic of his Fort Collins home.

An ordinary house where he lived with his wacky parents -- now being charged with a variety of crimes.

Richard and Mayumi Heene should forget about the reality TV show they were allegedly angling for.

Hello, Reality.

The bill from the Department of Defense for the use of those helicopters? Child Protective Services, anyone? Hey, perhaps a class-action lawsuit: 20 million moms suing for pain and suffering.

Internet hits went haywire when the balloon blurb hit the Web.

Then came the video.

And the women in my pod -- a fairly representative sample of American motherhood -- were stricken.

Look at that thing go! Poor, poor balloon boy!

Is he still inside? Has he jumped?

No one knew, a fact that only added tension to the storyline. How high was that balloon, anyway? And weren't there a lot of mountains in Colorado?

And what kind of boy was the 6-year-old? The kind of boy who might be giggling on the floor -- feeling like the master of his own personal floating amusement park?

Or the kind who'd forgotten to take his Ritalin and was standing in a puddle of pee, sobbing for his mommy?

And what kind of mommy did he have, anyway?

One who'd been traded twice on "Wife Swap" -- that's what kind.

Of course, we were to discover this later, after the little boy -- with the appropriate name of Falcon -- lost the storyline on "Good Morning, America."

But for a brief time, we had our unreal reality.

A story with everything we crave in our podtime entertainment. Drama. Hilarity. Rubbernecking.

We had the tale of Balloon Boy as it unfolded before us. A bobbing balloon, the blue Colorado sky, a boy on a journey.

The uncut version. A kid out west with Huck Finn pluck, swept away like Dorothy by the prevailing winds and the carelessness of his caretakers.

Geez, and we worried what the teachers would think when we forgot to sign our kid's Friday folder two weeks in a row.

Most of the time our reality is so mundane -- Jimmy John's or Planet Sub for lunch today? Anyone feed the dog? -- we jump at the chance to witness someone else's.

Jon and Kate and their eight. Tattoo artists and cake decorators. Over-the-hill rockers and childless supernannies.

Stars dancing, top models competing, bachelors looking to get hitched or, at least, kissed, on TV. Farmers needing wives, rappers pimping rides, overaugmented housewives, twentysomethings living (and puking) on "The Real World."

The overweight being yelled into shape. Top chefs crying into their foie gras.

In my little cubicle corner on P Street, we sometimes think we'd make fairly good reality TV, usually after too much coffee. (We've considered offering ourselves up as sitcom fodder, too. "The Pod" -- a blend of "The Office" and "Seinfeld" -- with attractive and funny actors playing us.)

We've considered, briefly, installing a Web cam and seeing if our witty repartee could capture the attention of the masses and go viral.

And then we think again.

We know we're like everyone else.

Deadly dull most of the time. Mildly funny and marginally interesting in brief spurts, with wise and witty commentary on the real world around us.

Like that day last week, when we watched a silver spaceship balloon with a boy inside drift across our computer screens.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.