Meet Richard Heene, the Psyience Detective

Richard Heene has long collected data he hopes will prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields. It's a topic The Psyience Detectives take on in several episodes. Heene, of Fort Collins, Colo., reportedly began his amateur scientific research in 2002 with lab experiments and then moved on to dust devils in California before flying a plane around Hurricane Wilma’s perimeter in 2005.  His neighbor, Bob Licko, said he frequently sees the father of three working in the garage on various scientific projects, including a "flying saucer" and a machine that "puts out more power than it uses." Licko said it's apparent Heene loves delving into scientific endeavors.

"He's a storm chaser," neighbor Bob Licko told Foxnews.com. "But some of it is simply for his pure enjoyment." Licko said the Henne family is "a bit" unconventional, but he said he's never felt his three young sons — Falcon, Ryo and Bradford — were in any danger from their father's experiments.  "[Heene] runs a loose ship for the boys and lets them do their own thing," Licko said. "But regardless of the way he raises his boys, I think he's a very caring father. [He and his wife] care a great deal for their children." In this clip from the show, one of Heene's sons is visible in the backseat as The Detectives chase down a dust storm. 

Heene's business partner, Scott Stevens, said he was a radio show host when he met Heene, and he said he liked his hands-on approach to research. Stevens has a degree in broadcast meteorology; Heene has no professional science training. While most storm chasers track a storm from behind, Heene and Stevens followed the July 2007 storm by trying to intercept it head-on.<br> "There's no other way," Stevens told the paper. "We have to get right under it to collect our data."

A scene from the second episode of The Psyience Detectives. In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mq-671-dpg%20">Episode 2: Chasing Dust Devils</a>, the pair of explorers discover that magnetic fields seem to interfere with dust devils. Excitedly noting that the “power and the attention is completely and solely dependent upon the material that feeds it at the bottom,” Heene appears to try to "jump start" a dust storm with a lawnmower. 

Heene has a history of building his own devices, including a magnetometer-carrying rocket and a specialized racing bike he rode under storms. In this scene from Episode 2 of his show, the Psyience Detective races towards a dust storm. 

Heene's former business partner, Barbara Slusser-Adams, told Fox News that she split from Heene last fall in part because of the dangerous situations experienced by the young boys, particularly during Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.  "I had some problems with that," Slusser-Adams said of Heene's desire to take his boys toward the Texas coastline to track Gustav. "I did not feel I wanted to join them on that venture." In this clip from Episode 2, the Psyience Detectives run in and out of dust storms.

In Episode 5: 2012, The Best Evidence, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFKJCsqZLlA">the Psyience Detectives explore Mayan mythology</a> centered around the year 2012. Theorists speculate that the Mayans knew about a wobble in the Earth's axis that slightly changes the planet’s alignment every year.