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

This has probably got to be the most convincing account of alien abduction on record (That of Ipswich biscuit factory worker)
 
Without going into greater details, might I please run something by you all and welcome any feedback.

This is a news report I have come across:

"In the wake of Gulfport sightings of UFOs, residents of Pass Christian warily eyed the arrival this week of an unidentified stationary object on U.S. Highway 90.

Witnesses reported that the dome shaped structure landed in a flash of telephone pole floodlights on a mysteriously constructed platform.

Adjacent property owners who braved the unknown learned that the would-be spacecraft was actually an O'Dome model building under construction by the Sea Gull Construction Co. located in Pass Christian".

Compress_20220328_002612_2717-01.jpeg


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It's just that this sudden, seemingly almost overnight, construction - possibly moved, at least partially, by a large trailer, apparently occurred around the same date as the Pascagoula case.

Both the above account and a first newspaper report of the Pascagoula event, appear in the same newspaper, on 12 October, 1973.

Although there are obviously other factors such as the entities, however, statedly leaving that aside for the moment....

Isn't Highway 90 close to where the Pascagoula incident occurred?
 
... Isn't Highway 90 close to where the Pascagoula incident occurred?

Route 90 = Denny Avenue = the road passing over the Pascagoula High Rise Bridge (the bridge at the incident's scene).
 
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Route 90 = Denny Avenue = the road passing over the Pascagoula High Rise Bridge (the bridge at the incident's scene).
Thank you!

This is the two page article, which features our encounter story plus, separately, that brief feature and accompanying photograph in full.

I can locate no further information as regards where this pre-fabricated building was actually located, prior to completion. It's merely identified as seemingly a night-time operation, with accompanying lights, sometime that same week:

The Daily Herald
12 October, 1973

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_12_Daily_Herald(1).pdf

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_12_Daily_Herald(2).pdf
 
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The best information I can find out is that the O'Dome was a product of a firm called Tension Structures based in Plymouth, Michigan.

Now I assume this prefabricated fibreglass structure would have had to be delivered from Michigan to Pass Christian (just west of Pascagoula) where the construction contractor would have installed it. Would that route have naturally gone past Pascagoula on the way? (Google Maps suggests not, but the roads in 1973 may have been very different - or the dome could have come via an intermediary)
 
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Was the trailer escorted by (blue-lit) Mississippi Highway Patrol cars I wonder?
Although most newspapers carried the Associated Press (AP) newswire story, a few printed an alternative UPI news release, for example:

The Gaffney Ledger' (Gaffney, South Carolina)
Friday, 12 October:

Men Taken Aboard 'Saucer'

PASCAGOULA. Miss

(UPI)- Two Pascaoulga fisherman claimed that three space creatures with big eyes hauled them aboard a UFO and photographed them Thursday night, chief deputy Burney Mathis reported. today.

Mathis said one of the men was so shaken he confessed "he was going to get him a bottle."

The sheriff's deputy identified the men who made the report as Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. He aid they told him they were fishing from an old pier in the Pascagoula River south of US 90 when they observed the UFO emitting a blue haze.

He said they reported the UFO appeared to be about two miles away when first sighted but continued to move toward.

"It hovered about three feet off the ground and three whatever they were came out either floating or walking and carried us into the ship.” Mathis quoted the men as saying. The things had big eyes. They kept us about 20 minutes, photographed us, and then took us back to the pier.

"The only sounds they made was a buzzing humming sound. They left in a flash".

Mthis said Hickson and Parker described the "martians" as about five feet tall with two big eyes. They were "a pale color" and wore a skin-type covering. There was some type opening below their eyes.

Mathis said the men were so "scared" they couldn't describe the UFO other than to say it was not round. "They didn't even know whether it had any lights or not. They only said it was emitting e blue haze."

"Athe present time we just don't know what to believe," the deputy said. "The men are supposed to come back here this afternoon when they get their heads on straight and try to tell us again what they saw. They were so scared. I just don't know."

Asked where the men went. Mathis said Hickson apparently went back to his job at F. B. Walker Shipyards and Parker "said he was going to get him a bottle."
(End)

See:

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_12_Gaffney_Ledger.pdf

So, initially the entities were described as having two big eyes, were a pale color and wore a skin-type covering?

The witnesses also couldn't see what the object looked like, otther than it wasn't round. They also didn't see any lights, other than a blue haze?

Presumably the object was always over the water, not on land, as the witnesses were then taken back to the pier?

This would seem to tie-in with a separate, UPI news release, quoting Hickson:

"They appeared to be floating across the water, a couple of feet high".

See also the following, UPI sourced account:

'Kingsport News' (Kingsport, Tennessee)
Saturday, 13 October

'Silver-Skinned Spacemen' Examine 2 Mississippians

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_13_Kingsport_News.pdf
 
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I've never been quite clear on exactly how the 'craft' approached. I've seen accounts stating it descended behind them, hovering over a rubbish tip of some sort and only being noticed when in that position, and others suggesting they watched it in the air first. Again there is confusion about how the entities are supposed to have approached over the water, if the craft was over land.
 
The best information I can find out is that the O'Dome was a product of a firm called Tension Structures based in Plymouth, Michigan.

Now I assume this prefabricated fibreglass structure would have had to be delivered from Michigan to Pass Christian (just west of Pascagoula) where the construction contractor would have installed it. Would that route have naturally gone past Pascagoula on the way? (Google Maps suggests not, but the roads in 1973 may have been very different - or the dome could have come via an intermediary)
This flyer suggests they could have been supplied through intermediary stockists. Also - look at that shape.

Tension Structures still exists as a component of EIDE Industries. They now specialize in tensile structures with high-tech fabric or membrane skins.

The O'Dome dates back to the dome building craze during the 1970s. It was a pre-fabricated modular tensegrity structure that had to be assembled on-site, so in newly deliverable form it wasn't transported as a pre-assembled whole.

This Q&A document gives more details about the O'Dome construction and on-site requirements for assembly / installation:

https://thefuturohouse.com/pdf/o_dome_qa.pdf
 
Tension Structures still exists as a component of EIDE Industries. They now specialize in tensile structures with high-tech fabric or membrane skins.

The O'Dome dates back to the dome building craze during the 1970s. It was a pre-fabricated modular tensegrity structure that had to be assembled on-site, so in newly deliverable form it wasn't transported as a pre-assembled whole.

This Q&A document gives more details about the O'Dome construction and on-site requirements for assembly / installation:

https://thefuturohouse.com/pdf/o_dome_qa.pdf

I see, all quite interesting (speaking as someone who builds things for a living).

So that seems to put the brakes on the idea the structure might have been moved along the road. Nevertheless a newly erected dome type structure along Route 90, possibly in the week of the sighting, is still an interesting bit of background.
 
Nevertheless a newly erected dome type structure along Route 90, possibly in the week of the sighting, is still an interesting bit of background.
Wish we knew where exactly..... the blue 'glow brought to mind some welding being undertaken - it wasn't that late at night and we know work was being carried out at night on the O'DOME structure, apparently being constructed that same week.

All of this, of course, raises fundamental problems with the entire abduction story, however, just out of curiosity, I wondered what a contemporary welding, protective mask might look like.

9f8642ccf7c7258211ebc20e8e4252ee.jpg


Didn't expect that!
 
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... So that seems to put the brakes on the idea the structure might have been moved along the road. ...

Not necessarily ... It could have been some other type of structure or object being moved.
 
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Wish we knew where exactly..... the blue 'glow brought to mind some welding being undertaken - it wasn't that late at night and we know work was being carried out at night on the O'DOME structure, apparently being constructed that same week.

All of this, of course, raises fundamental problems with the entire abduction story, however, just out of curiosity, I wondered what a contemporary welding, protective mask might look like.

View attachment 53593

Didn't expect that!

That's...quite something.

A common form of protective welding gear is a set of thick hide overalls - not unlike the description of the entities' skin. As for the crab claw like hands, leather welding mittens aren't a million miles off either.
 
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This Q&A document gives more details about the O'Dome construction and on-site requirements for assembly / installation.....
Found lots of new material now. There was one perspective I was hoping to find and this is close enough:

Screenshot_20220329-212838.jpg


If only those two front windows were seen from a distance...

Screenshot_20220329-213315~2.jpg


Still obviously speculation and I cant see where a welder would fit in, plus the entire abduction story behind some kind of misunderstanding.

The version of an entity with large eyes, 'pinkish wrinkled' skin and especially the lobster-like hands, might be more comparable with this, apparently contemporary photograph.

340px-DM40_thm.jpg


One thing which comes out of the earliest UPI newsfeeds is that Calvin Parker reportedly fainted at seeing the 'UFO' and couldn't remember anything.

Hickson also unquestionably claimed the beings had two large eyes, a factor which seems to have altered considerably.

Do the witnesses' original police statements exist online?
 
Found lots of new material now. There was one perspective I was hoping to find and this is close enough:

View attachment 53603

If only those two front windows were seen from a distance...

View attachment 53604

Still obviously speculation and I cant see where a welder would fit in, plus the entire abduction story behind some kind of misunderstanding.

The version of an entity with large eyes, 'pinkish wrinkled' skin and especially the lobster-like hands, might be more comparable with this, apparently contemporary photograph.

View attachment 53605

One thing which comes out of the earliest UPI newsfeeds is that Calvin Parker reportedly fainted at seeing the 'UFO' and couldn't remember anything.

Hickson also unquestionably claimed the beings had two large eyes, a factor which seems to have altered considerably.

Do the witnesses' original police statements exist online?

Yes, I'd previously thought about divers from the Navy shipyard, particularly given the supposed 'corroborating' witness from a few years back who said she saw some kind of figure splashing about in the water that night, just across from the apparent abduction site. Rather than an aquatic entity, why not a diver?

The more 'exotic' variant of this theory is the two men perhaps ran into some kind of espionage or counter-espionage operation involving divers and directed at the state of the art ship being completed at Ingalls yards just a short distance away.
 
I've never been quite clear on exactly how the 'craft' approached. I've seen accounts stating it descended behind them, hovering over a rubbish tip of some sort and only being noticed when in that position, and others suggesting they watched it in the air first. Again there is confusion about how the entities are supposed to have approached over the water, if the craft was over land.
I never understand that the female Alien scratched his eye, and choked him and the his blood was taken out of him and he went from knowing she was evil to have the best feeling in his life as he had a OBE and saw Angels ????????
 
I have come across the following, which is perhaps not such a well known depiction. I had never seen this before and at least it seems slightly closer to what Hickson originally described.

The Waco News-Tribune (Waco, Texas)
Monday 29 October, 1973

(...)

"Blann went to Kesler Air Force Base at Pascagoula to interview the two fishermen after their story made national headlines. Charles Hickson, 45. and Calvin Parker, 18, were examined by Air Force doctor Col. Robert E Smith, who confirmed the men had undergone an intense psychological experience. The two men described the creature who abducted them to Blann, who made a sketch of his impression of the interplanetary being.

"It took about 15 sketches for me to come up with the exact one, but the men confirmed that the drawing looked like what they saw," Blann said.

(...)

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_29_Waco_News_Tribune.pdf

Screenshot_20220329-233404.jpg
 
... Do the witnesses' original police statements exist online?
How about the audio recording of their interview with the police (11 October 1973)? Has anyone mentioned it since it surfaced in 2020?

NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT RECORDING:
'They didn't make it up.' Interview recording surfaces in Pascagoula alien abduction case
https://www.clarionledger.com/story...-interview-recording-has-surfaced/3264064001/

AUDIO RECORDING:
1973 Interview on Pascagoula alien abduction
 
How about the audio recording of their interview with the police (11 October 1973)? Has anyone mentioned it since it surfaced in 2020?
This is priceless evidence and certainly new to myself.

Only problem is, I can't make out some of the dialogue, due to the strtong indigenous accent!

Get the gist of it, although only listened to the first half, so far.

There seems to be some confusion in the early accounts, re the object visibly approaching from the water, as opposed to something being heard behind them and landing on the ground.

There's a perfect example in the following article, which also contains some pivotal evidence concerning the following day's events at work. Never seen this explained previously.

Dr Harder and Dr Hyneck's role is also further clarified. I didn't realise the Hyneck was apparently an advocate of the lamentable 'hypnosis".

Thankfully and rarely, the key data had already been obtained beforehand.

'Clarion-Ledger' (Jackson, Mississippi)
Monday, 22 October

Pascagoula Incident May Never Be Fully Explained

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_22_Clarion_Ledger.pdf
 
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I have come across the following, which is perhaps not such a well known depiction. I had never seen this before and at least it seems slightly closer to what Hickson originally described.

The Waco News-Tribune (Waco, Texas)
Monday 29 October, 1973

(...)

"Blann went to Kesler Air Force Base at Pascagoula to interview the two fishermen after their story made national headlines. Charles Hickson, 45. and Calvin Parker, 18, were examined by Air Force doctor Col. Robert E Smith, who confirmed the men had undergone an intense psychological experience. The two men described the creature who abducted them to Blann, who made a sketch of his impression of the interplanetary being.

"It took about 15 sketches for me to come up with the exact one, but the men confirmed that the drawing looked like what they saw," Blann said.

(...)

www.forteanmedia.com/1973_10_29_Waco_News_Tribune.pdf

View attachment 53611

Hold on, so the entities' hands, according to the article, were clamps?

It's clear there is significantly more variation in the men's stories than is usually stated, not just in matters like how the UFO was first seen, but even in the description of the creatures themselves.
 
Just to reiterate that degree of variation in how the UFO arrived, not only do we have it turning up behind them hovering over a garbage dump in the 1973 Clarion-Ledger article above, but the same is stated in the same newspaper in 1986.

Yet the 1973 UPI report states "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".
 
Hold on, so the entities' hands, according to the article, were clamps?
It's clear there is significantly more variation in the men's stories than is usually stated, not just in matters like how the UFO was first seen, but even in the description of the creatures themselves.

The 29 October article illustrates this shift in description. It claims early reports described "silver wrinkled skin and crab-like hands", but in fact the alien (or one of the aliens) "... was wearing a silver suit and the hands the men were talking about were clamps that were probably operated from the inside of the suits."

This isn't just an apparent shift in physical details. It's also a shift from the biological / anatomical to the artificial in describing physical features.
 
... There seems to be some confusion in the early accounts, re the object visibly approaching from the water, as opposed to something being heard behind them and landing on the ground. ...

This aspect of the testimony has always been the part of the Pascagoula incident description that bugs me the most. There doesn't seem to be any coherent description of approach / arrival / departure by a single object or vehicle.

I've often wondered if the object's description was a sort of collage assembled from multiple otherwise unrelated observations.
 
I've often wondered if the object's description was a sort of collage assembled from multiple otherwise unrelated observations.
It absolutely does come across like this.

One other aspect is the implications our 'medical examination' involved 'futuristic' technology.... this was Earthly, prior to 1973:

Compress_20220330_111330_0040.jpg
 
The 29 October article illustrates this shift in description. It claims early reports described "silver wrinkled skin and crab-like hands", but in fact the alien (or one of the aliens) "... was wearing a silver suit and the hands the men were talking about were clamps that were probably operated from the inside of the suits."

This isn't just an apparent shift in physical details. It's also a shift from the biological / anatomical to the artificial in describing physical features.

Hickson early on developed the idea the entities were actually robots, although interestingly enough this didn't completely filter into most of his descriptions of them (which kept the more obviously biologically inspired greyish 'hide'). Given the degree of variance shown by the image above, I wonder if there was an element of the men tailoring what they were describing, perhaps even subconsciously, to the response they were getting from interviewers. The carrot-nosed, crab clawed entities never failed to grab people's attention so perhaps for that reason they were the ones the men carried on talking about.

It's also difficult to establish how much of the 29 October 'version' of the entities results from the input and assumptions of the person interviewing them, who was in this case a UFO researcher not a journalist. It's much more of a conventional 'spaceman' figure in some ways.

Another point that emerges from this: the men's experience seems to have been fairly malleable, as if shock led them to be extremely unclear as to exactly what they had seen and in what order. They may have been particularly susceptible to later 'editing' of their recollections (especially as Parker had barely any, initially).
 
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This aspect of the testimony has always been the part of the Pascagoula incident description that bugs me the most. There doesn't seem to be any coherent description of approach / arrival / departure by a single object or vehicle.

I've often wondered if the object's description was a sort of collage assembled from multiple otherwise unrelated observations.

As Kottmeyer has pointed out many aspects of this report are in part a collage of different, unrelated cases featured in the contemporary paperback UFOs over the Americas.
 
Route 90 = Denny Avenue = the road passing over the Pascagoula High Rise Bridge (the bridge at the incident's scene).
This is a most helpful article, featuring a photograph of the exact location.

Direcly across from where they were fishing, is indeed the bridge:

'The Daily Herald' (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Wednesday, December 21, 1977

www.forteanmedia.com/1977_12_21_Daily_Herald.pdf
 
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As Kottmeyer has pointed out many aspects of this report are in part a collage of different, unrelated cases featured in the contemporary paperback.
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. Then I see in the paper where he's been picked up by a UFO'."
 
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