Pascagoula, Mississippi
30°22′N, 88°33′W — Jackson County, Mississippi Gulf Coast — small city on the Pascagoula River
What's documented
Pascagoula is a city on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, population ~21,000. On the evening of 11 October 1973, shipyard workers Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker reported being abducted by crab-clawed humanoid entities from the bank of the West Pascagoula River while fishing. Both passed polygraph examinations administered the following day at the Jackson County Sheriff's Office. The case file is held at the University of Southern Mississippi's archives.
Notable & intriguing
-
On 11 October 1973, Jackson County Sheriff Fred Diamond left Hickson and Parker alone in an interrogation room and recorded their unwitnessed conversation. The recording captures Parker (then 19) crying and Hickson (then 42) attempting to calm him, neither knowing they were being recorded. The Sheriff's Department concluded the men were sincerely terrified.
Mississippi Press, 12 October 1973; Eddie Walker, Sheriff's Department audio transcript
-
Calvin Parker, who never spoke publicly about the case for 40 years, broke his silence in 2018 with the publication of 'Pascagoula: The Closest Encounter — My Story.' Parker stated his account remained consistent with his 1973 testimony. He died on 24 August 2023.
Parker, 'Pascagoula: The Closest Encounter' (Flying Disk Press, 2018); New York Times obituary, 31 August 2023
-
In 2019, additional witnesses to the original 11 October 1973 event came forward — Maria Blair (then aged 22) and her husband, who had been fishing 200 yards upstream and observed a bright object near the riverbank during the time window of the Hickson/Parker incident. Their statements were authenticated by case investigator Philip Mantle.
Mantle & Hansen, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Pascagoula UFO Case' (2018, supplemental edition 2019)
Public-record imagery
