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The Pascagoula (Mississippi) Abduction (Hickson & Parker; 1973)

It's fascinating to compare the two earliest sketches (as far as I'm aware) of the creatures to later interpretations of them.

The best known one is by Jim Flynt, a superintendent at the Walker yard:

View attachment 57343
An odd but nevertheless quite human looking creature in outline. Those 'ears' are quite close to the flappy things seen on some iterations of the Soviet submariners' equipment.

And then Tommy Blann, who actually interviewed the men during the Keesler visit - so very early on. Here we have the big eyes that later got 'edited out', plus very mechanical looking 'pincers':

View attachment 57344

Later on the 'creatures' lose their eyes, gain even longer arms, become more obviously alien / robotic / whatever (note also the 'craft' is now 30ft long):

View attachment 57346

In some depictions they become monopeds, while in others the artist just goes to town generally into full-on 'attack of the space mummies' territory. They've certainly caught people's imaginations.

View attachment 57347
This all reminds me of how Barney Hill initially reported seeing the aliens in peaked caps and uniforms not unlike those worn by the Nazis or perhaps Hells Angels, only for this was then ‘softened’ to be more alien in later accounts.

(personally I believe he was looking up at some bikers in the ski resort cafe with the long windows that overlooked his location as per one of the explanations in the excellent book Encounters at Indian Head).
 
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I'm wondering whether this event may have involved some sort of exposure to a (terrestrial) nerve agent. Especially since (at least) one of the pair was unconscious for a time. There are some pretty fast-acting nerve agents out there, as we discovered during the events in Salisbury.
 
This all reminds me of how Barney Hill initially reported seeing the aliens in peaked caps and uniforms not unlike those worn by the Nazis or perhaps Hells Angels, only for this was then ‘softened’ to be more alien in later accounts.

(personally I believe he was looking up at some bikers in the ski resort cafe with the long windows that overlooked his location as per one of the explanations in the excellent book Encounters at Indian Head).

One of the main points about Pascagoula is that much of it is characterised as unprecedented - particularly the entities. Yet Martin Kottmeyer notes there is a Peruvian case which has interesting links with Pascagoula in terms of cultural borrowing (and Pascagoula itself may go on to influence another APRO-investigated case, the Larson abduction).

In fact as my slightly tongue in cheek comments about the film 'Sleeper' were hinting, there is a lot floating about in background culture generally - images, ideas - that seem close to elements of Hickson's experience. What might have happened since is that those things that seem particularly distinctive (eg the entities having no eyes, or them having a single leg despite the fact Hickson never said this) have become emphasised.
 
I'm wondering whether this event may have involved some sort of exposure to a (terrestrial) nerve agent. Especially since (at least) one of the pair was unconscious for a time. There are some pretty fast-acting nerve agents out there, as we discovered during the events in Salisbury.

That's Nick Redfern's theory- he suggested it was 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate
 
Another theory to consider is whether the encounter makes any sense from the currently unfashionable Jungian perspective.

Mention of Matt Graeber reminded me that one of his cases, dating from 1974 in Philadelphia, is a favourite example of the academic / ufologist David Halperin in his argument that UFOs are a true 'myth' and represent some form of Jungian archetype. In very crude terms they're 'visions' that come from within ourselves but which we can still experience collectively (the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima is an important point of reference here).

I was interested to see if Halperin had written about Pascagoula. And he has!
He interprets their experience in fundamentally religious terms: "In other words, two men who went forth to catch fish were themselves fished for by a greater Fish, swallowed Jonah-like into the Fish’s belly. There’s nothing arbitrary or accidental about the details of their vision".

As an extra point, I see that Jung's model of the four-element template that underlies many 'visions' - three identical elements and one differing one; Halperin uses the example of the Belgian 'triangles' where three white lights surround a central red one - is actually replicated in Parker's later story of three robot like entities and one female one.

Another interesting perspective, anyway.
 
Actually, the real joke is that 'Sleeper' wasn't released until that December, so Hickson couldn't have seen it - though he could have done so prior to some later hypnosis sessions, maybe.
The Sheriff's department witness statements from the night of our incident, on 11 October, 1973 and next day, at Keesler AFB, include a description of the UFO/vehicle, which seemingly pre-dates this film.

However, I have been thinking along similar lines, since my post #120:

"Just to note I happened to come across this...

"Eddie Hickson, Charlie's 29-year-old son, was on Marine duty in Okinawa when be read of the abduction. 'It shocked the hell out of me,' he recalled. 'When I was a kid, we went to see all the science-fiction movies, and he'd say 'there's no such thing'...".

Was there a film of that era which...

And then you hit the hurdle of it all being a hoax, which does not equate with the evidence that they clearly wanted no publicity, only to alert 'someone in authority'.
 
Here's the second segment - covering the object's positioning relative to the witnesses once it "landed."
Thank you for taking the time to document this - it is immensely helpful.

Having taken time to consider your summary, the one thing which first came to mind, remains unchanged...

Allowing for the fact there will almost certainly be variations, it is all relatively consistent.

I would be prepared to go further and say that after a thorough examination, evidence of this particular phase passes.

There is definitely more available and little-known evidence which might help our endeavours to unravel the facts and the following features some interesting case material - still working through it.

https://www.de173.com/calvin-parker-further-research/
 
... And then you hit the hurdle of it all being a hoax, which does not equate with the evidence that they clearly wanted no publicity, only to alert 'someone in authority'.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here ...

If they really didn't want publicity, why did they meet with an NBC crew on Saturday morning? And why did Hickson consent to appear on national TV (the Dick Cavett Show) so soon after finally agreeing to meet with the local press?
 
(Regarding my summary about the object's position and distance once it had "landed" ... )
... Allowing for the fact there will almost certainly be variations, it is all relatively consistent.
I would be prepared to go further and say that after a thorough examination, evidence of this particular phase passes.

I think I can explain the biggest variation in the position / distance claims. There are only two sources (cited to date ... ) which describe the object as coming to rest over the water rather than over the shore / ground:

- The Mississippi Press Register article on 12 October
- The Kingsport, Tennessee, article on 13 October (flagged as a UPI wire service story)

The local newspaper didn't speak with Hickson or Parker on the 12th. Whatever information they obtained they obtained from the sheriff's department. As noted in the Press Register story of the 12th, the sheriff's staff admitted they didn't believe the story at first. I therefore suspect the cops weren't paying all that much attention to details during the interview nor when answering the incoming phone calls that proliferated starting on the 12th. I further suspect the impression the object "landed" over the water was a casual misstatement by a cop who (for all we know) wasn't a party to the interview.

As I believe I've noted earlier, I strongly suspect the Press Register filed the story to UPI on the 12th. This then became the source for the Tennessee newspaper's repetition of the mistaken claim the object came to rest over water rather than land.
 
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I'm not sure I understand what you mean here ...

If they really didn't want publicity, why did they meet with an NBC crew on Saturday morning? And why did Hickson consent to appear on national TV (the Dick Cavett Show) so soon after finally agreeing to meet with the local press?

This all requires discussion - Klass's argument is that Hickson hoaxed the encounter with Parker an unwilling and uncomfortable accomplice.

It was the TV appearance that was the reason for the polygraph test which Klass presented as evidence of a hoax: Hynek refused to appear on TV unless Hickson was tested. The witnesses' lawyer procured an inexperienced polygraph operator from 100 miles away, which Klass felt indicated foul play. I have to admit it is certainly a bit odd, as for that matter is the men's decision to go the (closed) newspaper offices first rather than the police. I'm not sure I fully believe the 'witnesses didn't want publicity' assertion: even in the earliest police interviews Hickson is noticeably voluble and almost oddly eager to talk, even if he often can't be clear about exactly what he's describing.

As a more general point on publicity, I've also seen some modern day witnesses saying that they stayed silent because no-one wanted to talk about it at the time. However, newspaper accounts closer to the time suggest that Pascagoula went UFO mad for the best part of 6 months, with lots of sightings, obvious hoaxers, practical jokes etc - I've even seen it stated that the local high school cheerleaders changed their chant to reference UFOs, which seems to suggest a fairly general level of awareness.
 
The Sheriff's department witness statements from the night of our incident, on 11 October, 1973 and next day, at Keesler AFB, include a description of the UFO/vehicle, which seemingly pre-dates this film.

However, I have been thinking along similar lines, since my post #120:

"Just to note I happened to come across this...

"Eddie Hickson, Charlie's 29-year-old son, was on Marine duty in Okinawa when be read of the abduction. 'It shocked the hell out of me,' he recalled. 'When I was a kid, we went to see all the science-fiction movies, and he'd say 'there's no such thing'...".

Was there a film of that era which...

And then you hit the hurdle of it all being a hoax, which does not equate with the evidence that they clearly wanted no publicity, only to alert 'someone in authority'.

I don't know that shared imagery from science fiction films necessarily means a hoax anyway - it could just form part of a mental library the men are drawing on to understand their experience.

What seems odd is that these experiences sometimes slightly precede the film, but not by long enough to actually have had an influence on the film. Halperin, who I mentioned upthread, found a great example in an Australian series called The Stranger which has an uncannily close match to the Zamora / Socorro UFO, but which was broadcast only a week after Zamora's sighting - and couldn't possibly have been influenced by it.

What was going on? Was it chance, or was the idea of the Socorro craft somehow out there waiting to be brought into being? This leads on to the Jungian interpretation of the Arnold sighting and its reporting: was it perhaps the case that Bequette's description of what Arnold saw as "saucers" wasn't actually a chance slip at all, given that it had such a dramatic resonance with the public?
 
This all requires discussion - Klass's argument is that Hickson hoaxed the encounter with Parker an unwilling and uncomfortable accomplice. ...

I agree this all needs discussion, but not exactly for the same reason (presuming to evaluate whether the alleged UFO encounter was a hoax). This was why I asked for clarification about CN's statement above.

There's an odd quality to the storyline of their actions following whatever-it-was that actually happened. In other words, there's strangeness about what they demonstrably did and how they acted regardless of the event they (mostly Hickson) claimed it was that triggered them.

Klass adopted the same orientation to the incident as everyone else - the encounter and the description of the encounter as a UFO encounter are subject to evaluation as if these two things must stand or fall as a single package deal.

From this viewpoint if the UFO allegations were fake the entire incident is fake (i.e., didn't happen at all).

Conversely, Harder and Hynek came to town hoping to demonstrate that if the allegations held together as a coherent and plausible narrative then the encounter was accorded confidence as probably true, even if it remained a matter of hearsay.

Nobody seems to have considered the middle-ground possibility that seems more and more plausible the more I examine the testimonies and evidence. This is the notion that something bad (at least as viewed by Hickson and Parker) really happened at the old Schaupeter shipyard that night, and the UFO narrative was concocted out of elements already "in the air" as a cover story to be preemptively presented so as to deflect whatever ramifications the two men (Hickson in particular) feared might come of it.
 
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I agree this all needs discussion, but not exactly for the same reason (presuming to evaluate whether the alleged UFO encounter was a hoax). This was why I asked for clarification about CN's statement above.

There's an odd quality to the storyline of their actions following whatever-it-was that actually happened. In other words, there's strangeness about what they demonstrably did and how they acted regardless of the event they (mostly Hickson) claimed it was that triggered them.

Klass adopted the same orientation to the incident as everyone else - the encounter and the description of the encounter as a UFO encounter are subject to evaluation as if these two things must stand or fall as a single package deal.

From this viewpoint if the UFO allegations were fake the entire incident is fake (i.e., didn't happen at all).

Conversely, Harder and Hynek came to town hoping to demonstrate that if the allegations held together as a coherent and plausible narrative then the encounter was accorded confidence as probably true, even if it remained a matter of hearsay.

Nobody seems to have considered the middle-ground possibility that seems more and more plausible the more I examine the testimonies and evidence. This is the notion that something bad (at least as viewed by Hickson and Parker) really happened at the old Schaupeter shipyard that night, and the UFO narrative was concocted out of elements already "in the air" as a cover story to be preemptively presented so as to deflect whatever ramifications the two men (Hickson in particular) feared might come of it.

That's an interesting position, but how do we square it with, in particular, the evidence of the clandestine police tape?

Although I would say that the dialogue recorded on the tape is very non-specific: the men don't really talk about the 'craft' or their apparent abductors in terms that allow comparison with the descriptions they give elsewhere.
 
That's an interesting position, but how do we square it with, in particular, the evidence of the clandestine police tape?

Although I would say that the dialogue recorded on the tape is very non-specific: the men don't really talk about the 'craft' or their apparent abductors in terms that allow comparison with the descriptions they give elsewhere.

There's nothing in the portion of the conversation taped after the officers left the room that relates to whether or not they were lying or telling a tall tale. That's what the cops were interested in possibly capturing by leaving the tape recorder running, and they admitted as much.

One point that isn't addressed in any account I've seen to date is whether Hickson and Parker knew, had any reason to know, or could have suspected they were being recorded at all. I don't recall any description of the interview claiming the recorder was hidden. Most all the claims I've seen relating to the recorder being hidden became canonical much later, when the tape finally became available.

All I recall of the officers' statements at the time was that they left the recorder running when they exited the room.

There are only two passages in that last portion of the recording that can be construed as having any specific relationship to a UFO or aliens. The first concerns the uncertainty regarding how the "door" (hatch; opening; whatever) operated in whatever-it-was the object represented. The other is Hickson's tangential comment, "I knew all along they was people from other worlds up there."
 
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RE: Weather / Sky Conditions on 11 October 1973 in Pascagoula

According to National Weather Service records, the high / low temperatures for 11 October 1973 in Pascagoula were 82 F and 68 F. There was no precipitation on record.

Much of the attempted references to the incident's timeframe are cited in terms of when it became dark. Here are the sunset / night lighting stats for the evening of 11 October (from timeanddate.com):

Sunset: 1827

End of Twilight:
Civil: 1851
Nautical: 1919
Astronomical: 1947

The sky was therefore as "totally dark" as it was going to be shortly before 2000. This turns out to be potentially significant, given some of the times cited for the incident's start and / or the two witnesses' arrival at the Sheriff's Department.

"Totally dark" is merely a relative term on that particular night, because it happened to be the night of the full moon, which rose at 1759 on the 11th.
 
Now, about the time(s) claimed for the incident's occurrence, specific events within the overall 11 October storyline, and the sequence of any such subsidiary events mentioned ...

I've assembled another listing of snippets relating to these issues from the earliest documentation (we've seen so far), using the same format as my earlier listings. This listing includes an additional source - an interview conducted by a radio station reporter with Sheriff Fred Diamond on 12 October. This is an important source in which which Sheriff Diamond clearly and specifically states times for the incident's onset and the witnesses' arrival at the Sheriff's Department - times which don't match what's typically cited.

I've included any mentions of specific timepoints as well as passages indicative of relative ordering in happenings or actions. As it turns out, this is a very sparse and disparate data set.


EARLY DOCUMENTATION: TIME POINTS / EVENTS / EVENT SEQUENCING


SHERIFF'S OFFICE INTERVIEW: NIGHT OF 11 / 12 OCTOBER 1973

THE INCIDENT:
"It wasn't too long after dark."

CH claimed the visitors had left him alone (inside the object) for about 20 - 30 minutes.

CH claimed he'd had a drink 45 - 60 minutes before calling the sheriff's office.


THE INTERVIEW:
"approximately eleven o'clock Thursday evening" (11 October) (per Beyond Earth)

=====================
KEESLER AFB INTERVIEW: 12 OCTOBER 1973

"We hadn't been there very long" (Before the first cue to the object's arrival)
(At the Schaupeter site; 2nd fishing site that night)

(While Hickson was describing his experience inside the object)
Derrington: What time of day was this.
Hickson: It was at night.
Derrington: What time?
Hickson: Well, I don't exactly know what time it was because I don't have a watch. It was quite a while after dark.
Derrington: Quite a while after dark?
Hickson: Yes.

Derrington: How long were you on board?
Hickson: I don't know how long we were on board. There was no sensation of moving or anything. I don't know if we moved. I don't know. After it was all over we couldn't believe it and knew we couldn't convince people of what we seen and we waited a while before we went to the Sheriff's Department and told them. I wanted to get the military in on it. I didn't want any publicity and I didn't want any news people, but after I thought about it a while I figured that was what I should do.
Derrington: What time would you say elapsed from the beginning until you were released?
Hickson: Oh, it had to be -- it's hard to say.
Derrington: Was it hours or minutes?
Hickson: It had to be an hour or so. It had to be that long, but it seemed like an eternity. ...

Derrington: During this time do you recall seeing Mr. Parker?
Hickson: I don't recall seeing him until after I was out.
Derrington: You didn't see him on board?
Hickson: No, sir, I didn't.

Derrington: When was the first time you noticed Calvin?
Hickson: When they brought me back out on the ground, I believe, is when I seen him again.

Derrington: Did you discuss what had happened between you?
Parker: I passed out. I did not remember anything.
Hickson: We discussed what had happened to me. We talked a while trying to decide what to do. We drove to a quick service store and discussed it for almost an hour before we decided to go to the Sheriff's office...

Derrington: When you regained consciousness, where did you go first? After you left this area?
Hickson: Well, we went over across— we live in Gautier. We stopped over there at the — close to the Li'l General Curb Market and talked about it a long time again.
Derrington: What time was this now?
Hickson: Oh, this must have been — aw heck, it was around 10 or 11 o'clock, or something like that.
Huntley: They came into the Sheriff's office at, I believe, 1118...

=====================
MISSISSIPPI PRESS REGISTER: 12 OCTOBER 1973

"shortly after dark" (When the object came to rest and they first saw it)

Afterward, they went to the newspaper office. "No newsmen were present, however, and they decided to go to the sheriff's office."

Larry Booth (service station on Rt. 90 @ Market St.) reported he'd seen a UFO circa 2000 heading eastward.

=====================
SHERIFF DIAMOND INTERVIEWED BY A RADIO REPORTER ON 12 OCTOBER MORNING (AFTER THE INCIDENT & NIGHT VISIT).
http://www.noufors.com/Pascagoula_Abduction_Audio_Files.html

Diamond stated the 2 men were fishing "shortly after 8 o'clock" when the incident began.

- Sheriff: The object had been spotted circa 45 minutes earlier in the Van Cleave (sp?) area / community northwest of the incident site. Two or three other people had seen it in Pascagoula.

- Reporter states the incident apparently happened "early yesterday evening, say around (1930 or 2000)", then asks why they waited so long to contact the sheriff's office.

- Diamond: They didn't know who to report it to. They first went to the newspaper, but the newspaper was "closed."

- Diamond: "It happened shortly after eight o'clock, and they were in the sheriff's office here around nine or five minutes to nine."

- Reporter: We'd heard they arrived at the sheriff's department around 2300 - 2315. Diamond reiterated what he'd stated (2000 and 2055).

=====================
GAFFNEY (SC) LEDGER: 12 OCTOBER 1973 (UPI)

Quoting Chief Deputy Burney Mathis (who hadn't been in the night interview) quoting the men:
"They kept us about 20 minutes, photographed us, and then took us back to the pier."

=====================
KINGSPORT (TN) NEWS: 13 OCTOBER 1973 (UPI)

"Jackson County Chief Deputy Barney Mathis said the men told him they were fishing from an old pier ... about 7 p.m. Thursday."

"They kept us about 20 minutes, photographed us, and then took us back to the pier."

=====================
MISSISSIPPI PRESS REGISTER: 18 OCTOBER 1973

"It all happened, Hickson, says, at 8 p.m. last Thursday while he and Parker were fishing ..."

"I hadn't drank anything," Hickson told officers, in a recorded interrogation. "But in the 45 minutes before I decided to call you, I did drink then. ..."

=====================
MISSISSIPPI PRESS REGISTER: 19 OCTOBER 1973

Hickson (describing the exam inside the object):
"The two things left me for a while, maybe half a minute, and I was in there just motionless."

=====================
BERKELEY DAILY GAZETTE; 19 NOVEMBER 1973
NOTE: This is essentially a clone of the 19 October Mississippi Press Register article.

"The two things left me for a while, maybe half a minute, and I was in there just motionless."

=====================
CLARION-LEDGER (JACKSON MS): 22 OCTOBER 1973

The visitors released the 2 men "after an indefinite period."

"After being released, the men went first to the offices of the Mississippi Press in Pascagoula. No one was there so they told their story to the sheriff's Department."

"Following their experience the next day the men reported for work at 7."

=====================
APRO BULLETIN V22 NO 2 (SEPT / OCT 1973; ISSUED LATE '73 OR EARLY '74)
HARDER'S REPORT

"The actual incident took place between 9 and 10 in the night of the 11th but the two men waited a full hour before going to the sheriff's office, debating whether or not they would be believed."

"Hickson estimated that they were in the ship between 14 and 20 minutes after which they were "floated" outside and returned to their original location."

"After about an hour passed the two men, after debating whether to report it, called the Sheriff's office and then went down and made a statement to Deputy Ryder."

=====================
FLYING SAUCER REVIEW (FSR): V 19 NO. 6 (NOV - DEC 1973; Issued in early 1974)
NOTE: This article apparently is a clone of the Berkeley article of November 1973.

"The two things left me for a while, maybe half a minute, and I was in there just motionless."
 
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I'm really interested by @EnolaGaia's idea of it being a conscious hoax to cover up, or deflect, something bad. I think it's helpful to summarise the explanations put forward for this case as I don't think this idea has been suggested before:

1. The 'hypothesis of truth' - generally accepted by many ufologists, in this case. It happened as Hickson described it.

2. The fraud hypothesis - Klass. Hickson needed money and made the story up, with Parker a not particularly willing accomplice, based on inconsistencies in the story and the polygraph issue.

3. Hypnogogic hallucination - Nickell, based on certain features which seem to suggest it. Hickson hallucinated the episode, perhaps with an ordinary stimulus, and somehow drew Parker into it.

4. The 'parasociological' / Jungian hypothesis - Nugent. The experience, again possibly with an ordinary stimulus, was a shared, essentially religious, 'vision' with symbolic meaning for the witnesses (and us).

5. The 'chemical warfare' hypothesis - Redfern. There was an extraordinary stimulus - in this case a clandestine test of a nerve agent, probably 'BZ', based apparently on local rumours. This may have even been carried out with the intention of stimulating an abduction-type experience.

Lastly my own suggestion is that the men might have been caught up in some type of Soviet espionage (or even American counter espionage) activity, as discussed above.

Has anything else been suggested? I think the idea of it being a deliberate cover story is quite new.
 
Hadn't heard that one before.
The sheriff must be referring to Vancleave:

Thanks for checking ... Yep - that fits. That's the place name I was pretty confident I heard him saying in the radio interview, but I was too caught up in tracking down and examining other stuff to take the time to confirm a local place fitting the apparent name.
 
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Another thing I'd wanted to track down was some details of the supposed corroborative sightings by Broadus and Booth - just to see what they were supposed to have spotted. Colingo, in the Keesler interview, claims that Broadus saw the object for about three minutes from a location near the road bridge - elsewhere I have seen references to an object 'streaking' overhead, which might suggest a bolide passed in the sighting time frame (there are a number of meteor showers around this time of the year, none major).

I can see through Google Books that Jerome Clarke's High Strangeness discusses both sightings and uses relatively - though not exactly - contemporary sources. I was hoping that APRO or someone had tracked down these witnesses at the time.
 
Actually I'm wondering if 'Vancleave' referred to the Broadus sighting. In the below article by Philip Mantle it appears as "Vancleef":

https://www.theufochronicles.com/2018/10/pascagoula-ufo-incident-new-witnesses.html

Funnily enough in view of the 'religious vision' interpretation of the Pascagoula incident, one of the witnesses here - the woman in the car with Broadus and Sigalas - says "I think I saw God".

I think this is very significant.

As for the sighting itself:

As we kept driving the object following us was at an altitude of about 3000 feet. By reducing our speed, the object did the same thing and then by increasing our speed then the object sped up as well. We kept doing this for about 10 miles. After a while as we turned towards Vancleef the object stopped, then approached us a little and then disappeared

Sounds impressive - a bright cylinder pacing the car. But....the "car pacing" effect sounds a bit like a misidentified astronomical object.

.I must tell you that we were heading north and the object was on our west side

Didn't @maximus otter show that Venus was due west at this time?
 
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... I think it's helpful to summarise the explanations put forward for this case ...
Has anything else been suggested? ...

Thanks for compiling that list of possibilities. I don't know of any additional hypotheses, but then again I don't claim to know all the responses and debates this incident engendered over the decades.

I'm still quite open to the possibilities you list as numbers 1 through 4 (broadly defined). I tend to discount the other two as over-stretching in a conspiratorial direction that doesn't make sense. Just to summarize with regard to these two ...

The hallucinogenic / chemical experiment hypothesis doesn't really fit the scenario, the place, or the aftermath. There's little point in testing a psychoactive agent on unwitting subjects unless reliable collection of data about the effects is assured. Pascagoula would be an odd choice of testing area, and neither the USAF nor the USN would be the prime candidate for involvement, in developing or testing such a chemical agent.

I'm still open to the idea some form of drugged state or intoxication was involved, but the alleged scenario and happenings don't fit an experiment.

The espionage angle similarly doesn't ring true for me. The proximate event was the imminent launch of the Spruance - a new and new-class-defining destroyer built at the Ingalls shipyard roughly a mile south of the incident location. There was nothing significant to be learned by secretly examining the ship once it was constructed. It doesn't make much sense to launch underwater agents from a mile away when they could easily be slipped into the water from a (e.g.) fishing boat passing close to the shipyard. I have a hard time believing anyone would equip a diver-spy with a bulky dry suit designed to be used by special forces in an amphibious assault. If the Soviets wanted to learn any secrets about the Spruance or any other vessels being built at Ingalls they would have infiltrated the shipyard (or any of a number of contractors elsewhere) to gain access to blueprints, tech specs, etc.

I'm still open to the idea there was a diver / sub-surface element in play. After all, there was a reasonably substantive USO incident in the same general area soon after the time of the Hickson / Parker incident. I just don't think any such element makes sense in connection with espionage and Ingalls.
 
Having thought about it a bit more:

The Broadus / Sigalas sighting, which seems to have been just 45 minutes or so earlier in the Vancleave / Gautier area, is one of the main bits of external corroboration from early on: Colingo mentions it at Keesler AFB, the Sheriff mentions it in a radio interview.

Yet reading the description - a bright light pacing the car to the west, where Venus was setting that evening - there seems a strong argument this was a classic astronomical misperception. Despite this Venus seems to have been sufficiently bright that some of those in the car became frightened, were praying, and suggested they "saw God".

This might have real significance for the Hickson / Parker event, though not the significance that Colingo and the others thought.
 
Having thought about it a bit more:

The Broadus / Sigalas sighting, which seems to have been just 45 minutes or so earlier in the Vancleave / Gautier area, is one of the main bits of external corroboration from early on: Colingo mentions it at Keesler AFB, the Sheriff mentions it in a radio interview. ...
This might have real significance for the Hickson / Parker event, though not the significance that Colingo and the others thought.

Agreed ... However ... Some of the reported sightings claimed the object was moving across the sky. Some of the sighting reports that surfaced much later even made reference to objects landing / hovering at ground level. For example, the sighting by USN Petty Officer Cataldo:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc822.htm
http://www.nicap.org/reports/731011pascagoula_newwitness.htm

The subset of all the contemporary sightings that involved a static observer seeing an object traverse the sky and / or the even smaller subset citing something occurring near or at ground level still interest me.

If nothing else, these more interesting third party sightings may well correlate with the blue light(s) seen at a distance (which would become increasingly blended into the Hickson story as time went on). Nonetheless, I strongly suspect the blue light(s) aloft and the object that "landed" weren't the same thing. Related, maybe, but not one and the same ...
 
Some initial comments about the timing of cited events and sequence(s) of events (cf. my compilation of notes drawn from the earliest documentation) ...

When did the incident occur - relative to being at the old Schaupeter site (the 2nd site at which they fished that night)?

The timing of their arrival at the river and their shift from the first to the second location is almost never mentioned. The only clue emerges in the Keesler interview on the 12th, when Hickson stated they "hadn't been there very long." Absent any clues as to when they moved to the Schaupeter site, this comment is essentially useless.

When did the incident occur - relative to darkness falling?

Sunset was at 1827, and the end of the last twilight / dusk phase was at circa 1947. Hickson only alludes to "dark", and there are no comments (I've seen) that suggest any of the incident's events occurred during the dusk / twilight phase. Depending on what Hickson considered "dark", any estimate based on darkness falling is fluid and cannot be pinned down from the documentation we've seen.

There is, however, an obvious discrepancy between two original accounts regrading Hickson's placement of the incident relative to the onset of darkness. He told the cops it "wasn't too long after dark." In the Keesler interview Hickson said the incident occurred "quite a while after dark", and he confirmed this claim when asked directly immediately after making it.

When did Hickson and Parker finally arrive at the Sheriff's Department?

All the accounts I'd initially seen / reviewed put the arrival and start of the interview sometimes around 2300. Detective Huntley (sp?) was present at the Keesler interview the following day and is quoted as saying they arrived around 2318. I thought this was a rare reliable fixed time point until I listened to Sheriff Diamond's taped interview with a radio reporter the following morning. The reporter specifically asked about the time of the men's arrival and interview. Diamond firmly stated the incident happened around 2000 and the men arrived at the Sheriff's office circa 2055 - 2100. The reporter double-checked that, and Diamond reiterated these times.

Diamond is the only source (I've seen) that claims these times, but he was there. This raises a major conflict - not only for the timing of the interview, but also for the feasibility of the men's alleged events and actions between the end of the incident and their final arrival at the Sheriff's office. For example, Hickson stated in the Keesler interview that it was as late as 2200 or 2300 when they were at the convenience store where they discussed things "a long time" and made their phone calls.

I'll post more later ...
 
Perhaps we might turn this on its head and ask what was in it for the 'alien intelligence' involved in this encounter? Why choose that location, especially given it was so close to a naval base? There were and are easier locations in which to carry out their activities. Why those two men in particular? There doesn't seem to be anything unique about these guys, it is not as if they were Einstein-like geniuses holding nuclear secrets or advanced scientific theory in their heads. The risks of detection seem to outweigh the supposed benefits when they could easily have picked up two men fishing on some remote river miles from anywhere. So what was the motive and reward for the 'alien intelligence'? It is difficult to discern one. For me, there is either something folkloric about this location and they experienced what our ancestors would have termed "the fate folk" and such like or it was something earthly connected with that naval base and two men who perhaps got in the way
 
Perhaps we might turn this on its head and ask what was in it for the 'alien intelligence' involved in this encounter? Why choose that location, especially given it was so close to a naval base? There were and are easier locations in which to carry out their activities. Why those two men in particular? There doesn't seem to be anything unique about these guys, it is not as if they were Einstein-like geniuses holding nuclear secrets or advanced scientific theory in their heads. The risks of detection seem to outweigh the supposed benefits when they could easily have picked up two men fishing on some remote river miles from anywhere. So what was the motive and reward for the 'alien intelligence'? It is difficult to discern one. For me, there is either something folkloric about this location and they experienced what our ancestors would have termed "the fate folk" and such like or it was something earthly connected with that naval base and two men who perhaps got in the way

There is indeed something about the location, activity, time of day that has a folkloric dimension - or perhaps a religious one. As already noted, we have two fishermen, caught by an object later described as a 'fish' shape (and for that matter by two entities with some aquatic qualities). The location is at the border of two 'worlds' - land and water; it's even between two bridges, and the incident happened at some fairly poorly defined time between night and day (in most retellings, anyway). Isn't that where you might run into (a) God?

I suppose the point is that whatever actually happened, even independent of an external 'intelligence', these resonances come out in the way the witnesses experienced, memorised and later retold the story.
 
Perhaps we might turn this on its head and ask what was in it for the 'alien intelligence' involved in this encounter? Why choose that location, especially given it was so close to a naval base? There were and are easier locations in which to carry out their activities. Why those two men in particular? There doesn't seem to be anything unique about these guys, it is not as if they were Einstein-like geniuses holding nuclear secrets or advanced scientific theory in their heads. The risks of detection seem to outweigh the supposed benefits when they could easily have picked up two men fishing on some remote river miles from anywhere. So what was the motive and reward for the 'alien intelligence'? It is difficult to discern one. For me, there is either something folkloric about this location and they experienced what our ancestors would have termed "the fate folk" and such like or it was something earthly connected with that naval base and two men who perhaps got in the way
My take on it has always been that:
- It was dark
- Parker and Hickson were isolated and alone
- They were somewhat cornered with the river on one side
- They could be easily and quickly picked up and examined

This UFO was cruising the area and spotted these two men.
 
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