Pascagoula, Mississippi

30°22′N, 88°33′W

Jackson County, Mississippi Gulf Coast — small city on the Pascagoula River

[from the public record]

30.3667, -88.5500 · view on OpenStreetMap →

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 items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.

Suggested watching

Sci Fi Investigates — Pascagoula (2006) episode

dir. various · various · 44m

Sci Fi Channel investigation revisiting Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker on-site at the pier. Sheriff's-office audio of the unguarded conversation that lent the original report its credibility.

the sheriff's-office tape is the irreducible piece of evidence

Public-record imagery

The Pascagoula River at Pascagoula, Mississippi — the bank where Hickson and Parker were fishing on 11 October 1973. Wikipedia Commons · No restrictions · Mississippi Department of Archives and History · circ

Pascagoula in 1943 — when the Ingalls Shipyard launched destroyers for the Pacific War. Three decades later, the same shipyard contractors who built warships here would dispatch Sheriff Fred Diamond to investigate Hickson and Parker's claim. Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · USGS · 1943

The town sign at Pascagoula, Mississippi. The Hickson-Parker incident — the most thoroughly investigated 'abduction' case of the 1970s — was supported by polygraph results, an unexplained military radio call, and a UFO sighting by Mobile police chief Vernon Boyer that same night. Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · User:Staecker · 2006

A vintage Pascagoula postcard captioned 'the famous Singing River, known through the world for its very mysterious music.' On the night of 11 October 1973, fishermen Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker reported being taken aboard a craft from these banks. Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Boston Public Library · 2011

Referenced in the codex

2. The Operators, Several Kinds A field guide to the menagerie. Stewards, Technicians, Watchers, and the question of the Apkallu. With an argument that the operator-side has been a coalition, not a monolith, the whole time.
4. Maintenance The procedure spelled out — Approach, Sedation, substrate diagnostics, pineal recalibration, memory overlay, Release. Why the cribriform plate, why the calcite, why the owl.