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

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Ted Phillips once said that the phenomenon seemed to undergo a fundamental change back in the 1980s. My question though is whether the phenomenon changed or did we, as observers, change?

In what way did we, the observers , change...?
 
In what way did we, the observers , change...?
In the 'Free West' we started to see the ostensible end of what is called the Cold War.

I remain hugely-convinced, that in reductionist terms, far too much of the classic UFO phenomenon 1947-1992 was in sync with the tensions between East & West....the evolution by the West of stealth techologies, prototype drones and the extended Space Race ie SDI and Spacelab following-on from Apollo: to me, it fits too well. Not perfectly, not in all cases, just in many (I do believe).

One commentator (whose name escapes me) claims that the advent of commonplace video cameras in the 1980s, and reinforced by the emergent internet from 1989 onwards also somehow contributed (counter-intuitively) to the sharp decline in sightings/reported abductions/pictures.

Correlation does not guarantee causation: but in this case, my instincts tell me these were all relevant contexts and contributory factors. I don't yet understand the mechanisms- but I have very strong justified hunches that I'm right (or at least not entirely wrong)
 
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In the 'Free West' we started to see the ostensible end of what is called the Cold War.

I remain hugely-convinced, that in reductionist terms, far too much of the classic UFO phenomenon 1947-1992 was in sync with the tensions between East & West....the evolution by the West of stealth techologies, prototype drones and the extended Space Race ie SDI and Spacelab following-on from Apollo: to me, it fits too well. Not perfectly, not in all cases, just in many (I do believe).

One commentator (whose name escapes me) claims that the advent of commonplace video cameras in the 1980s, and reinforced by the emergent internet from 1989 onwards also somehow contributed (counter-intuitively) to the sharp decline in sightings/reported abductions/pictures.

Correlation does not guarantee causation: but in this case, my instincts tell me these were all relevant contexts and contributory factors. I don't yet understand the mechanisms- but I have very strong justified hunches that I'm right (or at least not entirely wrong)
I'm not sure what you are saying there. Are you implying that all of these sightings from post WW2 onward were due to mis-idents of human technology? And why would the advent of new tech as in video, internet, and cell phones create a decline in sightings?

ps: Ted Phillips was a proponent of course of cataloging trace evidence which he found quite a bit of....not that it proves aliens but that something happened in those cases.
Also Dr Vallee has written several times about the periodicity or apparent reinforcement aspects of the phenomenon which he likened to a 'Control System' where the phenomenon, (whatever it entails or whatever intelligence is involved) seemed to follow patterns of activity seemingly to stay in the cultural zeitgeist of human thought. There is of course no real way to test such an idea but it is intriguing when one looks at the past history of the phenomenon going back decades and even centuries. People were seeing and having bizarre sightings long before the advent of modern tech, ideas and memes.
 
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Another thought on the human observational changes is that Dr Vallee as part of his speculative model said that it seemed like the 'phenomenon' was always a few decades ahead of us in it's apparent technological aspects.
There were airships in the 1890's ....not long before we had that tech....and then primitive looking basic saucers and cigar shaped craft.. ....and then black triangles and other more modern shapes...etc....as if the 'phenom' was mocking our own development in some bizarre manner. I'm not sure he ever elaborated on this but he did mention it in passing a few times. Some ufologists have said that the phenom was using current design features as holograms to hide in plain sight. The whole thing gets very strange and murky the more one looks into it.
 
In the 'Free West' we started to see the ostensible end of what is called the Cold War.

I remain hugely-convinced, that in reductionist terms, far too much of the classic UFO phenomenon 1947-1992 was in sync with the tensions between East & West....the evolution by the West of stealth techologies, prototype drones and the extended Space Race ie SDI and Spacelab following-on from Apollo: to me, it fits too well. Not perfectly, not in all cases, just in many (I do believe).

One commentator (whose name escapes me) claims that the advent of commonplace video cameras in the 1980s, and reinforced by the emergent internet from 1989 onwards also somehow contributed (counter-intuitively) to the sharp decline in sightings/reported abductions/pictures.

Correlation does not guarantee causation: but in this case, my instincts tell me these were all relevant contexts and contributory factors. I don't yet understand the mechanisms- but I have very strong justified hunches that I'm right (or at least not entirely wrong)

My thoughts, too.

Also people aren’t outdoors as much as they used to be, and smoke less (so many old UFO reports from witnesses popping out for a smoke...!).

This case in particular supports Distortion Theory, too: http://caravaca102.blogspot.com/

Basically an unknown external agent (which could be an advanced alien technology) that projects to the witnesses and causes them to interpret what they are seeing in terms of what they know from science fiction etc., thus allowing the real goings-on to remain unknown.
 
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Calvin Parker (the younger of the two) has now written a book about his experience. And he's done an interview on "The Unexplained" podcast.

Now, this is real Hillbilly stuff, complete with the thickest southern accent you will ever hear. And it is easy to ridicule. But - I came away believing that the guy had experienced something.

Just quite what, I'm still not sure. But I don't think he made it up.

http://theunexplained.tv/paranormal-podcasts/edition-365-calvin-parker-pascagoula
 
Calvin Parker (the younger of the two) has now written a book about his experience. And he's done an interview on "The Unexplained" podcast.

Now, this is real Hillbilly stuff, complete with the thickest southern accent you will ever hear. And it is easy to ridicule. But - I came away believing that the guy had experienced something.

Just quite what, I'm still not sure. But I don't think he made it up.

http://theunexplained.tv/paranormal-podcasts/edition-365-calvin-parker-pascagoula

I listened to that podcast yesterday, very interesting stuff. I thought Mr Parker came across very well, he seems to be a guy who has come to terms with his experience and I'm glad he has now written about it.
 
Haven't heard the Unexplained one yet, but I did listen to this the other day and agree he seems very sincere. First time I'd heard him interviewed, though I'd read about the case.

Interesting. Will look out for reviews of the book before rushing into a purchase though.

 
Another thought on the human observational changes is that Dr Vallee as part of his speculative model said that it seemed like the 'phenomenon' was always a few decades ahead of us in it's apparent technological aspects. There were airships in the 1890's ....not long before we had that tech....and then primitive looking basic saucers and cigar shaped craft.. ....and then black triangles and other more modern shapes...etc....as if the 'phenom' was mocking our own development in some bizarre manner. I'm not sure he ever elaborated on this but he did mention it in passing a few times. Some ufologists have said that the phenom was using current design features as holograms to hide in plain sight. The whole thing gets very strange and murky the more one looks into it.

An alternative response to the same information is that people hallucinate what makes sense to them, and we should treat the effect as a form of brief, possibly environmentally driven schizophrenic episode where the brain enters a state where it superimposes dream imagery onto the waking world. I am not sure how else to account for people seeing flying ships straight out of Jules Verne back in the day (Robur the Conquerer etc.). Slice it any way you like, those ships couldn't fly in the real world.
 
An alternative response to the same information is that people hallucinate what makes sense to them,

That's a good angle, but can it explain more than one person hallucinating the same thing?

Slice it any way you like, those ships couldn't fly in the real world.

The question then is, what is the real world? It's not like there is a consensus on that.
 
^ Good point about reality.........but they could fly if they were 'anti gravity or some form of tech we aren't yet familiar with.
 
^ Good point about reality.........but they could fly if they were 'anti gravity or some form of tech we aren't yet familiar with.
And monkeys could fly out of the butts as well, providing extra lift.
 
^ That might happen if they have anti gravity alien butts.

:)
 
^ Good point about reality.........but they could fly if they were 'anti gravity or some form of tech we aren't yet familiar with.

Well, I'm thinking we are not dealing with flesh and blood aliens in nuts and bolts craft. I think this has to be something else entirely.
 
An alternative response to the same information is that people hallucinate what makes sense to them, and we should treat the effect as a form of brief, possibly environmentally driven schizophrenic episode where the brain enters a state where it superimposes dream imagery onto the waking world. I am not sure how else to account for people seeing flying ships straight out of Jules Verne back in the day (Robur the Conquerer etc.). Slice it any way you like, those ships couldn't fly in the real world.
Hallucinations don't happen this way. In addition, while it is true that some aerial apparitions look like a caricature of future but foreseeable technology, flying disks and spheres themselves were never a piece of prospective technology nor part of public expectations. While it is true that since the early 80s, the face of ufology has changed, with a greater proportion of shapes refering to science-fiction, the majority keeps at best a distant relation to it. Also, UFOs are too often a mockery of current technology, and may even refer to past eras. While some late XIXth Century and early XXth Century apparitions were really baroque, many just looked like dirigeables, and such sightings still happened post-World War 2 and are even present nowadays, being now called ghost dirigibles. Was it Paul Devereux who had related his own experience (shared with other witnesses) of a huge Zeppelin-like airship in 1954 in an issue of Fortean Times ?
 
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One commentator (whose name escapes me) claims that the advent of commonplace video cameras in the 1980s, and reinforced by the emergent internet from 1989 onwards also somehow contributed (counter-intuitively) to the sharp decline in sightings/reported abductions/pictures.

Correlation does not guarantee causation: but in this case, my instincts tell me these were all relevant contexts and contributory factors. I don't yet understand the mechanisms- but I have very strong justified hunches that I'm right (or at least not entirely wrong)
I believe that there is a simple explanation : the elusiveness of UFOs, and in fact of all paranormal phenomena. While often ostensible and even provocative, they have a definitive aversion to leaving any tangible or incontrovertible evidence of their presence. Trying to monitoring them with sophisticated technological means never leads to more pictures, on the contrary, in fact it results in the absence of any phenomenon (or in their presence only in a location where it can not be filmed).
 
Calvin Parker (the younger of the two) has now written a book about his experience. And he's done an interview on "The Unexplained" podcast.

Now, this is real Hillbilly stuff, complete with the thickest southern accent you will ever hear. And it is easy to ridicule. But - I came away believing that the guy had experienced something.
Just finished listening to this podcast and I was impressed with Mr. Parker’s simple sincerity. Also with how deeply traumatized he appears to have been - he still can’t bring himself to listen to the recording of his hypnosis session with Bud Hopkins or to read the transcript. I came away feeling very empathetic toward him - he’s clearly a salt of the earth man who just wishes none of this had ever happened to him. I intend to read the book.
 
I believe that there is a simple explanation : the elusiveness of UFOs, and in fact of all paranormal phenomena. While often ostensible and even provocative, they have a definitive aversion to leaving any tangible or incontrovertible evidence of their presence. Trying to monitoring them with sophisticated technological means never leads to more pictures, on the contrary, in fact it results in the absence of any phenomenon (or in their presence only in a location where it can not be filmed).
This is currently my take on paranormal phenomena, under which I would class UFO sightings.

For me, it's like all those experiments trying to capture and harness psychic abilities etc by the CIA and Russia. You can't capture this stuff in a lab, anymore than 17th century law could prove witchcraft.

This stuff won't ever be "proven" because this stuff does not exist within the realm/reality/time/space that we do. Is my current thinking anyway. Always subject to change depending on what I've just read.
 
In the 'Free West' we started to see the ostensible end of what is called the Cold War.

I remain hugely-convinced, that in reductionist terms, far too much of the classic UFO phenomenon 1947-1992 was in sync with the tensions between East & West....the evolution by the West of stealth techologies, prototype drones and the extended Space Race ie SDI and Spacelab following-on from Apollo: to me, it fits too well. Not perfectly, not in all cases, just in many (I do believe).

One commentator (whose name escapes me) claims that the advent of commonplace video cameras in the 1980s, and reinforced by the emergent internet from 1989 onwards also somehow contributed (counter-intuitively) to the sharp decline in sightings/reported abductions/pictures.

Correlation does not guarantee causation: but in this case, my instincts tell me these were all relevant contexts and contributory factors. I don't yet understand the mechanisms- but I have very strong justified hunches that I'm right (or at least not entirely wrong)
Not quite what you mean, but this made me remember that sometime during the 80s there was a UFO flap in my hometown. Two aunts witnessed what they thought were UFOs, and there was a report in the local rag about police officers chasing a UFO.

I grew up believing totally that UFOs were alien visitors, because all the adults around me talked like they were a reality. Unusually for strange phenomenon, I don't remember anyone being a skeptic. It just seemed an accepted fact that we were being visited by things from outer space.

I'm not sure that's how it is nowadays. My brother saw a UFO a couple of years ago, was very affected by it, him and his girlfriend. Yet same family members now scoffed! I think there really may be a cultural context in which people are primed to believe or not.
 
This is currently my take on paranormal phenomena, under which I would class UFO sightings.

For me, it's like all those experiments trying to capture and harness psychic abilities etc by the CIA and Russia. You can't capture this stuff in a lab, anymore than 17th century law could prove witchcraft.

This stuff won't ever be "proven" because this stuff does not exist within the realm/reality/time/space that we do. Is my current thinking anyway. Always subject to change depending on what I've just read.

I have also came to a similar idea after reading Dr Vallee's books many years ago....I think that it's quite likely real biological aliens exist since imho evolution in some form has most likely happened elsewhere in the Galaxy...but this does not explain all the 'alien visitations' and 'sightings' over the centuries. It's likely these are 'something else'.....what that is is open to debate on a metaphysical level imho.
 
The Pascagoula incident has now been commemorated with a historical marker.
Historical marker commemorates reported alien abduction

A historical marker has been placed near the river where two men in southern Mississippi said they were abducted by aliens in 1973.

News outlets report the city of Pascagoula dedicated the marker Saturday at Lighthouse Park.

Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker said they were on the shores of the Pascagoula River when what appeared to be aliens pulled them onboard a UFO, examined them for about 30 minutes and then returned them to Earth.

Both reported the event to the sheriff’s department and were checked out at a hospital after it happened Oct. 11, 1973. The story has become known worldwide. ...
SOURCE: https://www.apnews.com/a63cf0d131184c24bd9da6ad1fcf23dc
 
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New article...

The men claimed they were abducted by aliens. In Mississippi, police believed them.

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Calvin Parker stands with family members at the historical marker in Pascagoula, Miss., that depicts the night he and Charles Hickson said they were abducted by aliens in 1973.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...-marker/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.57aa1b4db4a3
 
https://www.wlox.com/2019/03/15/pascagoula-ufo-new-witness-comes-forward/

I'm not sure whether this 2019 story was generally overlooked (I certainly hadn't seen it until now) but an apparent corroborating witness has been found for an event which until now had a notable lack of them.

I have no idea as to the veracity of Blair's tale but even so I find it interesting that she only describes seeing a light in the sky, rather than anything landing, and something that "looked like a person in the water" rather than a person getting abducted by nightmarish-looking entities. If nothing else it might suggest some possible triggers for the mens' experience?
 
In particular I'm thinking that as the major US Navy contractor Ingalls Shipyard was located just down the river, is there any likelihood that Hickson and Parker actually saw divers from the shipyard or the Navy itself emerging from the water? I have no idea whether the nature of the river at this point would make such a thing possible.
 
In particular I'm thinking that as the major US Navy contractor Ingalls Shipyard was located just down the river, is there any likelihood that Hickson and Parker actually saw divers from the shipyard or the Navy itself emerging from the water? I have no idea whether the nature of the river at this point would make such a thing possible.
https://ingalls.huntingtoningalls.com

"Ingalls Shipbuilding is located in Pascagoula, Miss. on 800 acres of land along the Pascagoula River. Employing 11,500 employees, Ingalls is the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a major contributor to the economic growth of Mississippi and Alabama. Ingalls is the largest supplier of U.S. Navy surface combatants, and has built nearly 70 percent of the U.S. Navy fleet of warships".

That is no small or insignificant shipyard.

The Soviets would have been very interested in what was going on there, so possible Cold War goings-on, and then there is the possibility of a chemical spill spreading intoxicating/incapacitating fumes and the clean-up team wearing NBC suits...?
 
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https://ingalls.huntingtoningalls.com

"Ingalls Shipbuilding is located in Pascagoula, Miss. on 800 acres of land along the Pascagoula River. Employing 11,500 employees, Ingalls is the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a major contributor to the economic growth of Mississippi and Alabama. Ingalls is the largest supplier of U.S. Navy surface combatants, and has built nearly 70 percent of the U.S. Navy fleet of warships".

That is no small or insignificant shipyard.

The Soviets would have been very interested in what was going on there, so possible Cold War goings-on, and then there is the possibility of a chemical spill spreading intoxicating/incapacitating fumes and the clean-up team wearing NBC suits...?

Yes, think they built submarines there too.

One thing I did note when re-reading a few accounts was that one of the men (can't remember which off the top of my head) talked about looking across the water at a moored barge of some sort, and first seeing the blue lights of the 'UFO' behind the barge. To me this suggests the object, if there was one, was more or less at water level - a boat? Some kind of submarine? There are plenty of things that could have triggered the experience.

There is also that other strange incident a few weeks (?) later where an underwater lighted object was reportedly 'chased' in the Pascagoula River estuary by the Coast Guard. Maybe there really was a bit of espionage going on? There are plenty of alleged incidents of Soviet divers infiltrating US facilities - if Hickson and Parker really had stumbled on anything of that kind, they were probably lucky to have escaped alive.
 
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Calvin Parker appeared in a documentary a few nights ago (he was with Charles Hickson back in 1973 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, when they were abducted by aliens and returned), saying how he was disgusted with his treatment after the incident, and has kept mostly hidden all these years.
Charles Hickson, who died in 2011, never changed his story. By now surely something is known about what these UFO's are, about time they told us.
And those 'creatures' that took Parker and Hickson aboard were certainly not human, according to them.
 
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New article...

The men claimed they were abducted by aliens. In Mississippi, police believed them.

View attachment 18466
Calvin Parker stands with family members at the historical marker in Pascagoula, Miss., that depicts the night he and Charles Hickson said they were abducted by aliens in 1973.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...-marker/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.57aa1b4db4a3
And here is an actual witness who came forward (I've read there are others) to say she actually saw this ufo:

https://www.wlox.com/2019/03/15/pascagoula-ufo-new-witness-comes-forward/
 
In this case I don't think Hickson and Parker were simply making things up. It's been suggested that the experience was largely fantasised by Hickson with a possible financial motive (his finances were in a poor state immediately before the event), but the story feels too incoherent for this and there seems little opportunity for personal gain. The only impact on the men's lives appears to have been a negative one.

One mark against the literal reality of the experience is that several key elements of the case seem to be traceable back to a 1968 mass market paperback UFOs Over the Americas, including the entities themselves. This doesn't preclude the case having some level of reality, though - if only as an emotional event. Interestingly a psychologist who examined the witness in the case with antecedent entities ("C.A.V") felt the episode was a stress-induced hallucination triggered by the witnesses' business difficulties.
 
Interesting that the Pascagoula Police Department believed Hickson and Parker, along with others who actually saw the UFO.
Having seen a huge UFO myself, I don't believe these men were making up stories, not everyone is a liar or a con artist.
 
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