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

http://www.nicap.org/reports/731106pascagoula_report.htm

Here is a report of the various interactions with a submerged 'object' (or objects; the range of descriptions is quite broad) in the Pascagoula River a few weeks after Hickson and Parker's experience.

Interestingly, it's claimed here that "the Navy was reportedly preparing to launch the U.S.S. Spruance, the first of a new fleet of multimission destroyers with highly sophisticated electronics" at Ingalls Shipyard at the time of the events.
 
The more I read the above report, the more odd bits of it sound.

Was the object three feet long and four inches wide and located in only about six feet of water, as the contemporary newspaper report stated, or was it "more than nine feet in diameter, and [...] round and metallic"? as per the witnesses speaking in Stringfield's Situation Red: The UFO Siege?

They can't both be true.

I see that Lt Cmdr Craig Dorman, mentioned in the article, went on to become head of the Navy's anti-submarine efforts. Coupled with the authorities' apparent willingness to tell the press about how "totally new" and very strange the whole thing had all been, I really am wondering if this is a case of the Navy doing a bit of public head-scratching over "USOs" as a way of distracting from the possibility of a far more earthly bit of espionage only a few feet away from a lot of their latest equipment. To quote J. Lebowski, oh man, my thinking about this case had become very uptight....

Which of course might also provide a different context for the 'abduction' only a few weeks before, though I doubt we will ever know now.
 
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Given as he originally remembered nothing whatsoever, then no
 
Pascagoula-Encounter-site-in-1973.jpg


Image courtesy of Calvin Parker via Flying Disk Press.

The spot on the Pascagoula River where Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson were fishing the night they claim that they were abducted by aliens.

https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/people-places/the-pascagoula-abduction/

maximus otter
 
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Also given that the article wasn't even proof read before being published I would doubt that they even talked to him (and if they did they are probably also blowing anything he might of said out of proportion)
 
Some Internet sleuthing leads me to believe that the abduction occurred here:

Pascagoula-UFO-abduction-site-Fortean.jpg


I may well be wrong, but my chain of deduction is as follows:

a) Calvin Parker had just started a job at F.B. Walker and Sons Shipyard, which job had been secured for him by Charles Hickson.

b) "The men tried fishing in one location, but the swarming bugs prompted them to head back to the shipyard..."

c) "There were three shipyards in the Pascagoula area owned by members of the Walker family. The first was F. B. Walker & Sons, which was on the east side of the Pascagoula River, just north of Highway 90. The facility had been a shipyard since 1860, operated first by Miguel Pol, becoming Frentz Shipbuilding in 1878 and Gulf Ship in 1918. F. B. Walker bought it in 1933 and operated it with his sons Arnold and John. After F. B. Walker died, in 1940, his son John continued to operate the yard, which closed in 1978 and was taken over by Hudson Shipbuilders, (HUDSHIP)."

https://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/small/walker.htm

d) "HudShip was founded in 1978 by Wendle Huddleston, with Travis Short, Sr., as General Manager. The yard was on the east bank of the Pascagoula River, immediately north of Highway 90, on the site that had been F. B. Walker & Sons. See it from the air on Google here.

https://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/small/hudship.htm

The photo in my post #65 above therefore depicts the Pascagoula River High Rise Bridge carrying Denny Avenue over the river.

Copy and paste the following into Google Earth to be dropped at the junction of Cedar Street and Mill Avenue (the nearest point for Street View):

30° 22' 29.60" N, 88° 33' 33.21" W

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Some Internet sleuthing leads me to believe that the abduction occurred here:

Pascagoula-UFO-abduction-site-Fortean.jpg


I may well be wrong, but my chain of deduction is as follows:

a) Calvin Parker had just started a job at F.B. Walker and Sons Shipyard, which job had been secured for him by Charles Hickson.

b) "The men tried fishing in one location, but the swarming bugs prompted them to head back to the shipyard..."

c) "There were three shipyards in the Pascagoula area owned by members of the Walker family. The first was F. B. Walker & Sons, which was on the east side of the Pascagoula River, just north of Highway 90. The facility had been a shipyard since 1860, operated first by Miguel Pol, becoming Frentz Shipbuilding in 1878 and Gulf Ship in 1918. F. B. Walker bought it in 1933 and operated it with his sons Arnold and John. After F. B. Walker died, in 1940, his son John continued to operate the yard, which closed in 1978 and was taken over by Hudson Shipbuilders, (HUDSHIP)."

https://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/small/walker.htm

d) "HudShip was founded in 1978 by Wendle Huddleston, with Travis Short, Sr., as General Manager. The yard was on the east bank of the Pascagoula River, immediately north of Highway 90, on the site that had been F. B. Walker & Sons. See it from the air on Google here.

https://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/small/hudship.htm

The photo in my post #65 above therefore depicts the Pascagoula River High Rise Bridge carrying Denny Avenue over the river.

Copy and paste the following into Google Earth to be dropped at the junction of Cedar Street and Mill Avenue (the nearest point for Street View):

30° 22' 29.60" N, 88° 33' 33.21" W

maximus otter
Click to expand...

The shipyard they were fishing from was the closed Schaupeter shipyard (often misspelled "Shaupeter" in accounts). This seems to have been on the west bank of the river, so just across from the point you marked on the map, about where the "Pascagoula River Park" is today.
 
I have read about this account in the past but only now I have heard about the Evil Female Alien and he saw Angels with a OBE...maybe he is true
 
BS3 said:
The shipyard they were fishing from was the closed Schaupeter shipyard (often misspelled "Shaupeter" in accounts). This seems to have been on the west bank of the river, so just across from the point you marked on the map, about where the "Pascagoula River Park" is today.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply, the weekend intervened.

Thanks for the extra info. I did quite a bit of looking around, but was influenced by the location of the shipyard where both men worked, and the photo taken by Calvin Parker. Why trespass in another yard (Schaupeter) , when they'd have a semi-legit excuse to be fishing from their own workplace (F.B. Walker & Sons)?

I'd love to be closer to the exact locus of the incident, but now I'm a bit confused. Your version - Schaupeter - ties in with some assertions on the Internet that the incident occurred on the west bank of the river, rather than on the east as I had deduced. However, the marker unveiled in 2019 to commemorate the incident is placed not only on the east bank, but south of the bridge. See below:

Pascagoula-UFO-site-Fortean-02.jpg


Key:

1. (Orange): Possible location of F.B. Walker & Sons shipyard

2. (Yellow): Possible location of Schaupeter shipyard

3. (White): Location of the commemorative plaque:

Historical marker unveiled honoring possible alien abduction in Pascagoula​


6YRWTDOOINHWBBTVVCYE7VMZWA.jpg


maximus otter
 
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Schaupeter does however match with contemporary newspaper reports, e.g.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6283627/ufo-sighted-by-two-at-fb-walker/

The site seems to have been redeveloped soon after.

I seem to recall something that did suggest the exact location might have been in between the (road and railway) bridges (note the "high level" road bridge is relatively new; its predecessor was slightly to the south). There was a comment that the operator of the railway lift bridge saw nothing which suggests the site was clearly visible from the railway bridge. One of the men's accounts (Parker's?) also mentioned that he firsr thought the blue lights might have been the police, in the context that they weren't supposed to be there - which argues against the Walker yard.

One part of the canonical story is that Parker and Hickson did switch location during their fishing session, but then went back to the original location as the lights at the second one were attracting a lot of insects. There does seem to be quite a lot of variation in the story told over the years, such as how the object arrived - did they first notice it hovering over a nearby dump, or did they notice a light in the sky that descended?
 
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https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/pascagoulaupi.htm

Another contemporary source - again, the west bank is mentioned.

Here are a few more differences. The UFO approaches as follows: "they noticed a strange craft about two miles away emitting a bluish haze. They said it moved closer and then appeared to hover about three or four feet above the water". So, no hovering over a garbage dump behind them at this point (as per Hickson in 1986 here)?

Hickson says "Three whatever-they-were came out, either floating or walking, and carried us into the ship," officers quoted Hickson as saying. "The things had big eyes. They kept us about 20 minutes, and then took us back to the pier". I thought the 'robotic' entities had no visible eyes? And the experience was said to have taken over an hour here?

Rather like the Hopkinsville case there are a lot of variations to unravel.
 
One thing that keeps striking me is that the object is described by Hickson as having "two blue pulsing lights" at the front. Why is this such a close match to vehicle emergency lighting? Police forces across America appear to use various combinations of red and blue lights, or red only, but I note that the Mississippi Highway Patrol, at least, uses blue lights only.
 
Going back to an attempt to pin down the exact site:

This page shows the pier in Parker's photo above but with the railway bridge in the background, while here is Hickson at the same pier with the (old) road bridge visible. So - it is certainly on the west bank between the two bridges, the road bridge to the north and the rail bridge to the south.
 
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BS3 said:
Going back to an attempt to pin down the exact site:

This page shows the pier in Parker's photo above but with the railway bridge in the background, while here is Hickson at the same pier with the (old) road bridge visible. So - it is certainly on the west bank between the two bridges, the road bridge to the north and the rail bridge to the south.
Click to expand...

Excellent!

This now suggests strongly that the locus was at what is now known as Signet Maritime Corporation, on the west bank of the river, between the road- and rail bridges:

Pascagoula-abduction-Fortean-Signet-yard.jpg


Here's a view of that location, as seen looking south from the road bridge:

Pascagoula-abduction-Signet-site.jpg


That would put the river bank at the centre of the facility at about:

30° 22' 12.32" N, 88° 33' 51.49" W

*cracks knuckles*

maximus otter
 
It's interested me whether the chaps mistook an astronomical body for the blue light/s they reported seeing.

greenwichmeantime.com tells me that sunset for Pascagoula, MS was at 1727hrs Central Standard Time (UTC-6) on Thursday 11th October 1973.

The sighting was reported to have been at 1900hrs-ish on that date, so the sun had been down for about 90 minutes.

A favourite "UFO" for the unwary is Venus. Stellarium tells me that Venus was low, and sinking, in the WSW at 1900hrs, i.e. almost exactly behind the observers if they were at the river bank, facing the river:

Pascagoula-Venus-Fortean.jpg


Venus (highlighted) lower centre

Venus would have been out of sight to the observers below the horizon by about 1915/1930hrs.

As the chaps faced the river, drowning worms, these are the celestial objects in front of them:

Pascagoula-Mars-Fortean.jpg


Mars (highlighted) and the Moon

Mars had risen into view above their horizon at about 1820hrs, and was climbing and heading to the right as seen in the above screen grab.

NOTE: As the witnesses' exact location and elevation, and the Pascagoula skyline in 1973, are lost to us, the above illustrations and remarks are my best guess.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
It's interested me whether the chaps mistook an astronomical body for the blue light/s they reported seeing.

greenwichmeantime.com tells me that sunset for Pascagoula, MS was at 1727hrs Central Standard Time (UTC-6) on Thursday 11th October 1973.

The sighting was reported to have been at 1900hrs-ish on that date, so the sun had been down for about 90 minutes.

A favourite "UFO" for the unwary is Venus. Stellarium tells me that Venus was low, and sinking, in the WSW at 1900hrs, i.e. almost exactly behind the observers if they were at the river bank, facing the river:

Pascagoula-Venus-Fortean.jpg


Venus (highlighted) lower centre

Venus would have been out of sight to the observers below the horizon by about 1915/1930hrs.

As the chaps faced the river, drowning worms, these are the celestial objects in front of them:

Pascagoula-Mars-Fortean.jpg


Mars (highlighted) and the Moon

Mars had risen into view above their horizon at about 1820hrs, and was climbing and heading to the right as seen in the above screen grab.

NOTE: As the witnesses' exact location and elevation, and the Pascagoula skyline in 1973, are lost to us, the above illustrations and remarks are my best guess.

maximus otter
Click to expand...
What about the 3 'robots' that came out of this thing??
 
maximus otter said:
It's interested me whether the chaps mistook an astronomical body for the blue light/s they reported seeing.

greenwichmeantime.com tells me that sunset for Pascagoula, MS was at 1727hrs Central Standard Time (UTC-6) on Thursday 11th October 1973.

The sighting was reported to have been at 1900hrs-ish on that date, so the sun had been down for about 90 minutes.

A favourite "UFO" for the unwary is Venus. Stellarium tells me that Venus was low, and sinking, in the WSW at 1900hrs, i.e. almost exactly behind the observers if they were at the river bank, facing the river:

Pascagoula-Venus-Fortean.jpg


Venus (highlighted) lower centre

Venus would have been out of sight to the observers below the horizon by about 1915/1930hrs.

As the chaps faced the river, drowning worms, these are the celestial objects in front of them:

Pascagoula-Mars-Fortean.jpg


Mars (highlighted) and the Moon

Mars had risen into view above their horizon at about 1820hrs, and was climbing and heading to the right as seen in the above screen grab.

NOTE: As the witnesses' exact location and elevation, and the Pascagoula skyline in 1973, are lost to us, the above illustrations and remarks are my best guess.

maximus otter
Click to expand...

Here's a thing: has anyone, in all the reams written about this case, pointed out that Venus was very bright and near the horizon behind the men as they faced the river - in other words in about the same direction as they supposedly saw the hovering UFO? I can't recall seeing it mentioned, or the fact that Venus would have set about 20 minutes after the start time of their sighting - in other words, the same length of time the men originally estimated the experience as lasting?
 
What about the 3 robots that came out of this flying thing?
Were they the planet Mars?
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
What about the 3 robots that came out of this flying thing?
Were they the planet Mars?
Click to expand...

Good question. As I said, I don't think Hickson was making any of this up. He believed what he had seen, I'm sure of it.

One potential sceptical explanation put forward by Joe Nickell (I emphasise potential here) is that the experience was created by the witness entering a form of hypnagogic state, a waking dream. It bears a couple of signs of this. If something - Venus? Mars? A vehicle? had triggered Hickson while in this state then who knows what he would have seen, or thought he was seeing.

A while upthread I mentioned that the extremely distinctive 'robots' were in fact quite similar to some equally unusual entities in a South American case described in a widely available paperback. Other bits of the case - the fish shaped UFO, the 'eye's that examined Hickson- resemble different cases in the same book. Could Hickson have read it and subconsciously recycled elements into dream imagery? One thing that's been pointed out is that the South American entities were described in a chapter titled "The Flesh Crawlers" - and curiously, the phrase Hickson used to describe the entities was that they made his "flesh crawl".

Parker initially didn't remember the robots; he passed out and remembered nothing, except extreme fear.
 
As for how two men might have entered such a hypnagogic state - I don't know. Fishing in a darkening environment might certainly be one way to do it, though some types of fishing are a bit more meditative than others.
 
BS3 said:
... One thing that's been pointed out is that the South American entities were described in a chapter titled "The Flesh Crawlers" - and curiously, the phrase Hickson used to describe the entities was that they made his "flesh crawl". ...
Click to expand...

Just a note ... As a vintage native of the southern USA I can assure you "making (one's) flesh crawl" was a very common turn of phrase back in the Sixties / Seventies.
 
Just my opinion that too much is being read into the Parker / Hickson case.
It is simply what it is, both were unsophisticated country men out for a few hours of fishing, horrendously frightened and puzzled by these alien entities that picked them up to examine them.
They both had puncture marks on their arms which they could not explain.
And other witnesses saw this UFO flying in that exact area.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
Just my opinion that too much is being read into the Parker / Hickson case.
It is simply what it is, both were unsophisticated country men out for a few hours of fishing, horrendously frightened and puzzled by these alien entities that picked them up to examine them.
They both had puncture marks on their arms which they could not explain.
And other witnesses saw this UFO flying in that exact area.
Click to expand...

No, I do agree that Hickson and Parker seem straightforward and their fear was real. A lot of abduction experiencers tend to conform to a particular type described as 'status inconsistent' - imaginative, intelligent people stuck in a lifestyle or profession they are unhappy with (this holds with other anomalous stuff than UFOs too - eg the family at the centre of the whole strange "Dalby Spook" / talking mongoose story, who were a classic example). I do not think Hickson and Parker conform to this pattern at all, and the incident is unusual in that respect. Hickson apparently came in as moderately 'radical' - as opposed to conservative - on personality tests, but that is not in itself reason to suspect he was even capable of consciously inventing the whole thing.
 
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