A group of bands including REM and Pearl Jam have said they are to file a lawsuit aimed at accessing US documents on the use of music during interrogations of terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

The announcement on Thursday came as the bands expressed support for the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, launched by former US military generals and politicians.

The musicians launched "a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at the prison and other facilities".

The group said it was supporting "an effort seeking the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilised as an interrogation device".

Members of the group include Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

The two bands' music has been linked to interrogations at the prison, according to previously released government records.

"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured - from waterboarding to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts - playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums," Morello said.

"Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me."

Interrogation technique

Robert Gard, a retired US general, said the musicians' music "was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration's misguided policies".

The campaign cited a report released by the US defence department which referred to an interrogation method known as the "futility" technique, which included the playing of loud music to detainees.

Kate Doyle, a senior analyst with the National Security Archive, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request to release information on the use of music in detention centres, told Al Jazeera that they were hoping to identify and target documents that make reference to specific bands and songs.

"These musicians are outraged. They are outraged that their creative work has been used to potentially torture the detainees, and they want to know exactly how, when and why," she said.

"One measure of the impact of loud music, I think, is the repeated reference in interviews with former detainees and former guards, in the declassified documents we have already seen, to this tactic as something that the detainees really took note of.

"They really bothered and harassed them; they described being forced to listen, for example, to a dance version of an Eminem song for up to 24 hours at a time - as a way of harassing them, as a way of preventing them from sleeping."

DENVER (AP) -- The mother of the 6-year-old boy once feared missing inside a runaway helium balloon told Colorado sheriff's deputies that the whole saga was a hoax, according to court documents.

Mayumi Heene admitted to deputies that she and her husband Richard "knew all along that Falcon was hiding in the residence" in Fort Collins, according to an affidavit used to get a search warrant for the home.

She allegedly told investigators the incident was a hoax meant to make them more marketable to the media.

"Mayumi described that she and Richard Heene devised this hoax approximately two weeks earlier.... She and Richard had instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax," the affidavit released Friday said.

Richard Heene has denied a hoax. His lawyer, David Lane, said Friday he is waiting to see the evidence in the case.

"Allegations are cheap," Lane said.

Mayumi Heene's lawyer, Lee Christian, was traveling and didn't immediately respond to messages left with his office.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden has said he will recommend charges against the Heenes including conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities, and attempting to influence a public servant. The most serious charges are felonies and carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

Alderden said authorities also would be seeking restitution for the costs of the balloon chase, though he didn't provide a figure.

His office has said it will likely be next week before it forwards its findings to prosecutors to decide on charges.

In frantic calls to a TV station, 911 and federal aviation officials, the Heenes reported that they feared Falcon was in the homemade, saucer-like balloon when it was accidentally launched from their back yard last week.

Millions watched as media and National Guard helicopters tracked the balloon across the Colorado plains. It landed in a dusty farm field, where ground crews looked inside but found no sign of the boy.

Later, the relieved-looking couple reported Falcon had been hiding in their garage the whole time. But suspicion heated up when Falcon made a comment on CNN that sounded like "You had said we did this for a show."

Sheriff's deputies questioned the parents separately on Oct. 17, two days after the flight. Mayumi Heene told authorities "she and Richard Heene had lied to authorities on October 15, 2009 (the day of the flight)," the affidavit said.

She told investigators "that the release of the flying saucer was intentional as a hoax.... The motive for the fabricated story was to make the Heene family more marketable for future media interest," the affidavit said.

The Heenes twice had appeared on ABC's reality show "Wife Swap," and acquaintances said Richard Heene had plans for other possible shows.

The producer of "Wife Swap" had a show in development with the Heenes but said the deal is now off. The TLC cable network also said Heene had pitched a reality show months ago, but it passed on the offer.

Sheriff's officials declined to comment Friday.