Pascagoula Abduction

Template:Infobox encountersThe abduction of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, also known as the Pascagoula Abduction is, after the Hill Abduction, among the best-known cases of reports of alien abduction.

The UFO Encounter

On the evening of October 11, 1973, 42-year-old Charles Hickson and 19-year-old Calvin Parker — co-workers at a shipyard — were fishing in the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. While fishing off of a pier at an abandoned shipyard, they heard a whirring/whizzing sound, saw flashing blue lights, and reported that a domed, football-shaped aircraft, some 100 feet across, suddenly appeared near them. The ship seemed to levitate about 14 inches above the ground.

A door opened on the ship, they said, and three creatures emerged and seized the men, floating or levitating them into the craft. Both men reported being paralyzed and numb. Parker fainted due to fright. They described the creatures as being roughly humanoid in shape, and standing about five feet tall. The creatures' skin was gray and wrinkled, and they had no eyes or mouths that the men could discern. There were three "carrot-like" growths instead - one where the nose would be on a human, the other two where ears would normally be. The beings had lobster-like claws at the ends of their arms, and they seemed to have only one leg (Hickson later described the creatures' lower bodies looking as if their legs were fused together).

On the ship, Hickson claimed that he was somehow levitated or hovered a few feet above the floor of the craft, and was examined by a mechanical eye that seemed to scan his body. Parker could not recall what had happened to him inside the craft, although later, during sessions of hypnotic regression he offered some hazy details. The men were released after about 20 minutes and the creatures levitated them back to their original position on the river bank.

Hickson and Parker contact police

Both men said they were terrified by what had happened. They claimed to have sat in a car for about 45 minutes, trying to calm themselves. Hickson drank some whiskey. After some discussion, they tried to report their story to officials at Keesler Air Force Base, but personnel told them the United States Air Force had nothing to do with UFO reports (Project Blue Book had been discontinued about four years before), and suggested the men notify police.

At about 10:30 PM, Hickson and Parker arrived at the Jackson County, Mississippi Sheriff's office. They brought the catfish they'd caught while fishing; it was the only proof they had to back up their story. Sheriff Fred Diamond thought the men seemed sincere and genuinely frightened and he thought Parker was especially disturbed. Diamond harbored some doubt about the fantastic story, however, due in part to Hickson's admitted whiskey consumption.

The "Secret Tape"

Diamond interviewed the men, who related their story. After repeated questioning, Diamond left the two men alone in a room that was, unknown to Hickson or Parker, rigged with a hidden microphone.

As Jerome Clark, writes, "Sheriff Diamond assumed that if they were lying, that fact would become immediately apparent when the two spoke privately. Instead, they continued to talk in the voices of the terribly distressed." (Clark, 447) (This so-called "secret tape" is held on file at the Jackson County Sheriff's department, and is available for researchers to listen to.) Parker, who seemed particularly shaken, spoke repeatedly of his wish to see a doctor. A partial transcript of their interrogation and of the "secret tape" is available at this external link; immediately below is part of the conversation on the "secret tape":

CALVIN: I got to get home and get to bed or get some nerve pills or see the doctor or something. I can't stand it. I'm about to go half crazy.

CHARLIE: I tell you, when we through, I'll get you something to settle you down so you can get some damn sleep.

CALVIN: I can't sleep yet like it is. I'm just damn near crazy.

CHARLIE: Well, Calvin, when they brought you out-when they brought me out of that thing, goddamn it I like to never in hell got you straightened out.

His voice rising, Calvin said, "My damn arms, my arms, I remember they just froze up and I couldn't move. Just like I stepped on a damn rattlesnake." [sic]

"They didn't do me that way," sighed Charlie.

Now both men were talking as if to themselves.

CALVIN: I passed out. I expect I never passed out in my whole life.

CHARLIE: I've never seen nothin' like that before in my life. You can't make people believe-

CALVIN: I don't want to keep sittin' here. I want to see a doctor-

CHARLIE: They better wake up and start believin'... they better start believin'.

CALVIN: You see how that damn door come right up?

CHARLIE: I don't know how it opened, son. I don't know.

CALVIN: It just laid up and just like that those son' bitches-just like that they come out.

CHARLIE: I know. You can't believe it. You can't make people believe it-

CALVIN: I paralyzed right then. I couldn't move-

CHARLIE: They won't believe it. They gonna believe it one of these days. Might be too late. I knew all along they was people from other worlds up there. I knew all along. I never thought it would happen to me.

CALVIN: You know yourself I don't drink

CHARLIE: I know that, son. When I get to the house I'm gonna get me another drink, make me sleep. Look, what we sittin' around for. I gotta go tell Blanche... what we waitin' for?

CALVIN (panicky): I gotta go to the house. I'm gettin' sick. I gotta get out of here.

Then Charlie got up and left the room, and Calvin was alone.

CALVIN: It's hard to believe . . . Oh God, it's awful... I know there's a God up there...

Seeing that the police were skeptical of their story, Hickson and Parker insisted that they take lie detector tests to prove their honesty.

Publicity

Hickson and Parker returned to work the day after the encounter (Friday, October 12). They did not initially discuss their purported UFO encounter, but coworkers noted that Parker seemed very anxious and preoccupied. Within hours, Sheriff Diamond telephoned the men at work, stating that news reporters were swarming in his office, seeking more information about the UFO story. An angry Hickson accused Diamond of breaking his confidentiality pledge, but Diamond insisted he had not done so, and that the case was too sensational to keep quiet.

Hickson's foreman overheard the Hickson's side of the conversation, and asked what had occurred. Hickson related his story to the foreman and to shipyard owner Johnny Walker. After hearing the tale, Walker suggested that Hickson and Parker contact Joe Colingo, a locally prominent attorney (who was Walker's brother-in-law and also represented the shipyard).

Colingo met the men, and, during their conversation, Hickson expressed fears about having been exposed to radiation. Colingo and detective Tom Huntley then took Parker and Hickson to a local hospital, which lacked the facilities for a radiation test. (Clark's book does not make clear if Huntley is a police detective or a private detective.)

From the hospital, the men went to Keesler Air Force Base, where they were examined extensively by several doctors. Afterward, reported Huntley, Parker and Hickson were interviewed by the military intelligence chief of the base, with the "whole base command" observing the proceedings. (Clark, 448)

Colingo drew up a contract to represent Hickson and Parker. However, nothing came of this, and Hickson would later have nothing to do with Colingo, charging the lawyer with base financial motivations: Colingo, said Hickson, "just wanted to make a buck." (Clark, 449)

Within days, Pascagoula was the center of an international news story, with reporters swarming the town. Professor James A. Harder (a U.C. Berkeley engineering professor and APRO member) and Dr. J. Allen Hynek (an astronomer formerly with Project Blue Book) both arrived and interviewed Parker and Hickson. Harder tried to hypnotize the men, but they were too anxious and distracted for the procedure to work--Parker especially so. Hynek withheld ultimate judgment on the case, but did announce that, in his judgment, Hickson and Parker were honest men who seemed genuinely distressed about what had occurred.

Tiring of the publicity, Hickson and Parker went to Jones County, Mississippi (about 150 miles north of Pascagoula), where both men hoped to find relief with family members. Parker was eventually hospitalized for what Clark describes as "an emotional breakdown." (Clark, 449)

In an interview several years after the claimed UFO event, Hickson speculated that Parker fared worse after the encounter because he had never previously experienced a profoundly frightening ordeal. While Hickson described the UFO encounter as the most terrifying event in his life, he also noted that he had seen combat in the Korean War, and that he thus had some familiarity with a terrifying experience. The younger Parker, on the other hand, had never suffered through a terrifying encounter, let alone a bizarre confrontation with something that was not even supposed to exist.

Polygraph

As noted above, both Parker and Hickson volunteered to take polygraph exams to prove their stories. In the end, only Hickson did so, and the examiner determined that Hickson believed the story about the UFO abduction.

Aviation journalist and UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass argued that there was reason to question the reliability of Hicksons's lie detector exam, writing,

The polygraph test was given to Hickson by a young operator, just out of school, who had not completed his formal training, who had not been certified by his own school and who had not taken a state licensing examination. Furthermore, that the lawyer for Hickson and Parker - who also was acting as their "booking agent" - had turned down the chance to have his clients tested WITHOUT CHARGE by the very experienced Capt. Charles Wimberly, chief polygraph operator from the nearby Mobile Police Dept. Also, that the lawyer did not contact other experienced polygraph operators close to Pascagoula. Instead, the lawyer had imported from New Orleans - more than 100 miles away - the young, inexperienced, uncertified, unlicensed operator who, by a curious coincidence, worked for a friend of the lawyer! {[1]; emphasis in original)

Subsequent investigation by Joe Esterhas of Rolling Stone uncovered some additional information, leading to much skepticism about the abduction claim. The supposed UFO landing and abduction site was in full view of two twenty-four hour toll booths, and neither operator saw anything that night. Also, the site was in range of security cameras from nearby Ingalls Shipyard, and the cameras additionally showed nothing that night. {[2]}

Aftermath

Parker has avoided most public attention since the event. Hickson appeared on Dick Cavett's talk show in January, 1974, and speaks at occasional UFO conferences; he has co-written a book about the event with William Mendez titled UFO Contact at Pascagoula (1983, reprinted 1987).

References

Clark, Jerome, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink Press, 1998.
Hickson, Charles and William Mendez. UFO Contact At Pascagoula Gautier: Charles Hickson, 1987.

External links