Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2018
PASCAGOULA – THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER
by: Philip Mantle
(Calvin Parker Debbi Jordan and Budd Hopkins)
(Calvin Parker)
PASCAGOULA, October 11th, 1973.
On the evening of October 11, 1973, 42-year-old Charles Hickson and 19-year-old Calvin Parker — co-workers at a shipyard — were fishing off a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. They heard a whirring/whizzing sound, saw two flashing blue lights, and reported that an oval shaped "craft", some 8 feet across and 8 or more feet high, suddenly appeared near them. The ship seemed to levitate about 2 feet above the ground. A door opened on the ship, they said, and three creatures emerged and seized the men, floating or levitating them into the craft. Both men reported being paralyzed and numb. Parker claimed that he had fainted due to fright. They described the creatures as being roughly humanoid in shape, and standing about five feet tall. The creatures' skin was pale in colour and wrinkled, and they had no eyes that the men could discern, and slits for mouths. Their heads also appeared connected directly to their shoulders, with no discernible neck. There were three "carrot-like" growths instead - one where the nose would be on a human, the other two where ears would normally be. The beings had lobster-like claws at the ends of their arms, and they seemed to have only one leg (Hickson later described the creatures' lower bodies looking as if their legs were fused together) ending in elephant-like feet. Hickson also reported that the creatures moved in mechanical, robotic ways.
On the ship, Hickson claimed that he was somehow levitated or hovered a few feet above the floor of the craft, and was examined by what looked like a large football-shaped mechanical eye, about 6 to 8 inches in diameter, that seemed to scan his body. Parker claimed that he could not recall what had happened to him inside the craft, although later, during sessions of hypnotic regression he offered some hazy details. The men were released after about 15-20 minutes and the creatures levitated them, with Hickson's feet dragging along the ground, back to their original positions on the river bank. Both men said they were terrified by what had happened. They claimed to have sat in a car for about 45 minutes, trying to calm themselves. Hickson drank a small amount of whiskey. After some discussion, they tried to report their story to officials at Keesler Air Force Base, but personnel told them the United States Air Force had nothing to do with UFO reports and suggested the men notify police. At about 10:30 p.m., Hickson and Parker arrived at the Jackson County, Mississippi Sheriff's office. They brought the catfish they'd caught while fishing; it was the only proof they had to back up their story. Sheriff Fred Diamond thought the men seemed sincere and genuinely frightened and he thought Parker was especially disturbed. Diamond harboured some doubt about the fantastic story; however, due in part to Hickson's admitted whiskey consumption.
The "Secret Tape"
Sheriff Diamond interviewed the men, who related their story. After repeated questioning, Diamond left the two men alone in a room that was, unknown to Hickson or Parker, rigged with a hidden microphone. Sheriff Diamond assumed that if they were lying, that fact would become immediately apparent when the two spoke privately. Instead, they continued to talk in the voices of the terribly distressed. This so-called "secret tape" was held on file at the Jackson County Sheriff's department, and has since earned wider circulation amongst UFO researchers and enthusiasts. Parker, who seemed particularly shaken, spoke repeatedly of his wish to see a doctor. A partial transcript of their interrogation and of the "secret tape" is available; immediately below is part of the conversation on the "secret tape", as transcribed by UFO researchers:
CALVIN: I got to get home and get to bed or get some nerve pills or see the doctor or something. I can't stand it. I'm about to go half crazy.
CHARLIE: I tell you, when we're through, I'll get you something to settle you down so you can get some damn sleep.
CALVIN: I can't sleep yet like it is. I'm just damn near crazy.
CHARLIE: Well, Calvin, when they brought you out-when they brought me out of that thing, goddamn it I like to never in hell got you straightened out. [His voice rising, Calvin said, "My damn arms, my arms, I remember they just froze up and I couldn't move. Just like I stepped on a damn rattlesnake." "They didn't do me that way", sighed Charlie. Now both men were talking as if to themselves.]
CALVIN: I passed out. I expect I never passed out in my whole life.
CHARLIE: I've never seen nothin' like that before in my life. You can't make people believe-
CALVIN: I don't want to keep sittin' here. I want to see a doctor-
CHARLIE: They better wake up and start believin'... they better start believin'.
CALVIN: You see how that damn door come right up?
CHARLIE: I don't know how it opened, son. I don't know.
CALVIN: It just laid up and just like that those son' bitches-just like that they come out.
CHARLIE: I know. You can't believe it. You can't make people believe it-
CALVIN: I paralyzed right then. I couldn't move-
CHARLIE: They won't believe it. They gonna believe it one of these days. Might be too late. I knew all along they was people from other worlds up there. I knew all along. I never thought it would happen to me.
CALVIN: You know yourself I don't drink
CHARLIE: I know that, son. When I get to the house I'm gonna get me another drink, make me sleep. Look, what we sittin' around for. I gotta go tell Blanche... what we waitin' for?
CALVIN (panicky): I gotta go to the house. I'm gettin' sick. I gotta get out of here. [Then Charlie got up and left the room, and Calvin was alone]
CALVIN: It's hard to believe . . . Oh God, it's awful... I know there's a God up there... Seeing that the police were skeptical of their story, Hickson and Parker insisted that they take lie detector tests to prove their honesty.
Hickson and Parker returned to work the day after the encounter (Friday, October 12). They did not initially discuss their purported UFO encounter, but co-workers noted that Parker seemed very anxious and preoccupied. Within hours, Sheriff Diamond telephoned the men at work, stating that news reporters were swarming in his office, seeking more information about the UFO story. An angry Hickson accused Diamond of breaking his confidentiality pledge, but Diamond insisted he had not done so, and that the case was too sensational to keep quiet. Hickson's foreman overheard Hickson's side of the conversation, and asked what had occurred. Hickson related his story to the foreman and to shipyard owner Johnny Walker. After hearing the tale, Walker suggested that Hickson and Parker contact Joe Colingo, a locally prominent attorney (who was Walker's brother-in-law and also represented the shipyard).
Colingo met the men, and, during their conversation, Hickson expressed fears about having been exposed to radiation. Colingo and detective Tom Huntley then took Parker and Hickson to a local hospital, which lacked the facilities for a radiation test. From the hospital, the men went to Keesler Air Force Base, where they were examined extensively by several doctors. Afterward, reported Huntley, Parker and Hickson were interviewed by the military intelligence chief of the base, with the "whole base command" observing the proceedings.
Colingo drew up a contract to represent Hickson and Parker. However, nothing came of this, and Hickson would later have nothing to do with Colingo, charging the lawyer with base financial motivations: Colingo, said Hickson, "just wanted to make a buck." Within days, Pascagoula was the center of an international news story, with reporters swarming the town. Professor James A. Harder (a U.C. Berkeley engineering professor) and Dr. J. Allen Hynek (an astronomer formerly with Project Blue Book) both arrived and interviewed Parker and Hickson. Harder tried to hypnotize the men, but they were too anxious and distracted for the procedure to work—Parker especially so. Hynek withheld ultimate judgment on the case, but did announce that, in his judgment, Hickson and Parker were honest men who seemed genuinely distressed about what had occurred.
Tiring of the publicity, Hickson and Parker went to Jones County, Mississippi (about 150 miles north of Pascagoula), where both men hoped to find relief with family members. Parker was eventually hospitalized for what was described as "an emotional breakdown."
In an interview several years after the claimed UFO event, Hickson speculated that Parker fared worse after the encounter because he had never previously experienced a profoundly frightening ordeal. While Hickson described the UFO encounter as the most terrifying event in his life, he also noted that he had seen combat in the Korean War, and that he thus had some familiarity with a terrifying experience. The younger Parker, on the other hand, had never suffered through a terrifying encounter, let alone a bizarre confrontation with something that was not even supposed to exist.
On September 9, 2011, Charles Hickson died at age 80, but never backed off the alien abduction story despite ridicule. As noted above, both Parker and Hickson volunteered to take polygraph exams to prove their stories. In the end, only Hickson did so, and the examiner determined that Hickson believed the story about the UFO abduction.
Aftermath
Calvin Parker has avoided most public attention since the event. Hickson appeared on Dick Cavett's TV talk show in January 1974, and spoke at occasional UFO conferences; he co-wrote a book about the event with William Mendez titled UFO Contact at Pascagoula (1983).
Calvin Parker – my story
As soon as I began talking with Calvin he made it abundantly clear that he had never, and I mean never told his side of the story and he now wanted to set the record straight. It wasn’t long before Calvin and I decided to work together on his own book which we entitled ‘PASCAGOULA – THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER, MY STORY BY CALVIN PARKER’. The first thing that Calvin wanted to put straight was his statement that at the beginning of the close encounter in 1973, when he and Charles Hickson saw the 3 entities ‘float’ out of the craft that he ‘passed out’. This was not true as Calvin had not passed out at all and he had a full recollection of being taken on board the UFO and was subject to a similar ‘examination’ as Charles Hickson was. So why did he and Charles Hickson say that Calvin had ‘passed out’ and he had no recollection of what took place onboard the UFO. Well, the reason behind this was to protect Calvin. He was only 19 years old at the time and Hickson was 42. Throughout this whole affair Charles Hickson had always sought to protect his young friend and he thought to say that he ‘passed out’ and therefore had no memory of the abduction would help protect him. This is the story that is in Hickson’s book and it is in all the articles written about them. But it was not true. Calvin Parker did not pass out and he had a full recollection of being taken onboard the UFO just the same as Hickson had. Calvin’s recollection of this event features in chapter 2 of his book but it pretty much mirror’s what Charles Hickson had to say and how he described their close encounter.
Budd Hopkins in 1993
Calvin had, down through the years, lost most of his documentary information about his encounter - especially when his home was under 8 feet of water after hurricane Katrina. One thing that Calvin did tell me was that in 1993, twenty years after his encounter, he was persuaded by a friend to visit alien abduction researcher and author Budd Hopkins in Florida. Budd was speaking at a UFO conference in Florida and Calvin somewhat reluctantly agreed. For those who are not aware Budd Hopkins was a New York artist who probably became the world’s leading researcher of alien abduction cases and he was trained in and used regressive hypnosis to help abductees reveal more of their encounters. He was also an author of such books as ‘MISSING TIME’ and ‘INTRUDERS’. Sadly Budd Hopkins passed away in 2011.
Calvin went on to tell me that at his meeting in 1993 with Budd Hopkins that he was offered the chance to have Budd conduct a regressive hypnosis session with him back at his hotel. Again somewhat reluctantly Calvin agreed. Calvin had no recollection of what transpired during the hypnosis session but he did inform me that the session was tape recorded. Now I knew that Budd had passed away so I asked his long time friend and colleague Peter Robbins what had happened to all of Budd’s research. He informed me that it had all been given to another abduction researcher, Dr David Jacobs. I quickly sent an email to Dr Jacobs asking him if he had a copy of the tape from Calvin’s hypnosis session with Budd and thankfully he did and with Calvin’s permission Dr. Jacobs sent me a copy.
Now this is a cassette tape and my tape player had long since bit the dust. Thankfully a new one wasn’t that expensive and I was now able to listen to the cassette tape and transcribe it for inclusion in Calvin’s book. The full transcript is in Calvin’s book. The hypnosis session with Budd and Calvin took place on the 14th of March, 1993. The first thing to hit me when listening to the tape was hearing Budd’s voice. I knew Budd pretty well and he had stayed at my home on one occasion and he was a lovely guy. So slowly but surely I managed to transcribe the two sides of this tape. There are bits and pieces in the tape where the talking can’t be transcribed as it is just too quiet, but the majority of the tape was good enough to transcribe. There is one section of the tape that I don’t like and that’s when you hear Calvin screaming. I mean literally screaming in pain. Thankfully this didn’t last long and Budd was able to calm Calvin down.
To my surprise, the hypnosis session produced quite a lot of information that had not previously been available. Calvin goes on to describe his encounter with a ‘female alien’ on board the UFO who he believed was going to kill him. Calvin at one point attacked this female alien in an attempt to kill her first and allow him to escape. Calvin also claims that this female alien hurt him and here is a quote from the transcription:
CALVIN: And she has something in her hand, (inaudible) ….she’s takes the thing down my nose (inaudible) around my nose and she’s reaching for my lip. And she pulls my lip up and I feel a stinging and my, my blood pressure, I don’t know what it is and I can’t catch my breath and I’m bleeding and my lip is bleeding and I remember my prayer (inaudible) …what it is. And then the blood just starts rolling, it rolls and (inaudible)……face and she grabs me by the side of the face (inaudible). And all I could think of was killing her, but I knew that I was gonna die in there, (inaudible). Then everything just settles down, so, I just kinda, lowered back down.
BUDD: Now your senses are very, very sharp and clear. Now you know that Charlie has been with you. Do you hear any sounds that would suggest that Charlie is somewhere nearby. Any noises?
CALVIN: No sounds, no noises except for, sounds like rain dripping into a bucket, just a steady drip, drip, drip, drip.
BUDD: Let’s just see if you could hear Charlie call you.
CALVIN: I don’t hear Charlie.
BUDD: Okay. (inaudible)…What’s this dripping? Is this close to you (inaudible)?
CALVIN: Close, real close. I’m thinking its blood, my right hand. That bitch just cut my right hand now, I’m bleeding, just a steady drip of blood onto the floor. I can see it, she’s sat there. On the outside of my right hand, she’s cut it. She’s really just pushing me now too far. I will get out of these straps. I will get a hold of her now. There’s no doubt, and I’m just fighting with everything I got in me now, because this is getting like, this strictly is not right.
BUDD: I’m sure it’s not. She has no right to do this to you without asking your permission.
CALVIN: And I don’t know what it is she put in my right hand. And I remember seeing it and I see it now, black and it almost resembles a needle. And there’s a serious cut and now she’s cutting it, it’s really bleeding now; she’s cutting into my right hand, right on the outside. And then, it’s like a miracle, it’s just quit bleeding and it’s healed.
BUDD: Okay.
CALVIN: But there’s some object, definitely still there. It’s in my hand.
BUDD: There’s an object inside your hand?
CALVIN: Yeah, she put it in there.
BUDD: Okay, you will be able to tell us exactly where that is and you can point that out to me. Okay, just concentrate where that is in the hand and you can point that out to me. (Inaudible).
CALVIN: She’s cleaning my feet and I can see her. She’s pulling and tugging and I don’t know, I don’t know what she’s doing, she’s, but I feel a real serious pain in my left foot where she’s pulling (inaudible)….she’s really pulling me with some little, and my shoe fell off. And now she’s undone a strap, all the straps. She’s taking the straps off and this is my time to get out of here now, time to go. Tell her adios, I’m going and now I can’t move, just here, the straps are gone but I can’t move. She’s trying to pull my clothes off and I still can’t move, yet for some reason I just pushed up on my heels and helped her. I’m in total agreement with everything she’s doing now. I don’t care what she (gap in tape for some unknown reason.). I don’t know what this is, I don’t know what she’s trying to do now but it looks pretty serious to me. I can see her sitting her head up and I’m looking now, staring at her. Clothes is down, got blood all over the front of my shirt, and I guess she’s a little (inaudible……..I just wish she’d go ahead and leave me alone, ugh, (inaudible)…..oh, damn, it’s burning all over, it’s going all over. It does, it’s burning. It feels like the blood was pumped out of me, lead inside. She put hot.
[Philip feels Calvin was trying to say something like 'She put hot lead in me,' but he was in such an emotional state at the time it came out this way instead - editor]
BUDD: Were you (inaudible)?
CALVIN: (inaudible)…Christ, oohhhh. (Calvin makes an uneasy noise as if he’s in severe pain).
BUDD: Easy, easy, you’re okay Calvin.
CALVIN: (Still makes an awful noise as if suffering in some way).
BUDD: Easy, take a deep breath. (Calvin’s can still be heard making a noise as if in great discomfort and pain). I’m gonna put my hand on your shoulder, as soon as you feel my hand on your shoulder you can breathe. Feel my hand on your shoulder. You can breathe now. Feel, the breath is coming back, your breath is coming back, feel my hand on your shoulder, breath is coming back. Okay, it feels much better, that was bad but now easing off, easing off, easing off (in the background you can hear Calvin’s breathing returning to normal), easing off, you can breathe. That was tough but it’s in the past, now it’s in the past, you’re okay. Tell me what you think happened there; we don’t have to do that again. Just what you feel happened, what do you think happened?
CALVIN: She’s injected something (inaudible).
BUDD: Where did she inject it?
CALVIN: In the side of my hand.
BUDD: Did you feel something going in?
CALVIN: Oh yeah, it was going in and then I felt blood coming out, warm blood. I feel like she changed all my blood out of my veins. I’ve never felt anything that hot (inaudible)….in all my life.
BUDD: Did you feel it all the way in your hands, your arms and your feet?
CALVIN: It was all over.
BUDD: All over your whole body?
CALVIN: Even the bottom of my fingers felt like they’d just exploded. Well she’s done it now; (inaudible)….She’s leaving now. I’m able to move. I start to feel a little bit better. It still hurts; oh boy does it hurt bad.
BUDD: Does it hurt all through your body or is it just in the one place where she injected?
CALVIN: All over.
BUDD: The whole body?
CALVIN: Uh, uh. All over. I’m able to get up now, I’m getting up now and I look at the table but it’s not a table. I don’t know what it is, it’s clear, all the way, but it’s not glass. I put my shoe on and I pull up my pants.
BUDD: There’s one thing I want you to do when you’re getting ready there, Calvin. Look around and you might see something similar that looks like writing, some kind of funny writing. You might see something like that or maybe you don’t see anything like that. Look around and see if you notice anything. On the table or on the wall, or anything, something that looks like kind of funny writing.
CALVIN: Ain’t writing.
BUDD: You don’t see anything, okay.
CALVIN: No writing.
BUDD: Okay. Maybe there’s nothing to see then, okay.
CALVIN: I see me.
BUDD: Okay. You see you. You’re getting up there and you get your shoe back on?
CALVIN: Uh, uh.
BUDD: You get your pants back on and everything. What do you feel like doing now?
CALVIN: I’m looking at, I’m looking around, I’m looking at the ceiling, I’m looking at the floor and I’m looking around for a door to get out. I know I came through a door. But I see me in a mirror, but I also see something else in the mirror. I’m not there by myself. I have a real strange feeling that I’m being watched, I’m being watched, that’s what I’m feeling, it’s more than that.
BUDD: Do you think one person’s watching or two, or more?
CALVIN: No, watch, just watching.
BUDD: Just watching?
CALVIN: Electricity is bouncing off of the walls (inaudible)…little balls of electricity just bouncing and bouncing. I remember dodging them; I was dodging them there from one side to the other.
BUDD: When you look in that mirror do you think you can actually see faces in there?
CALVIN: Oh yeah there’s faces all in there.
BUDD: What do they look like?
CALVIN: I don’t know but there’s faces in there. There’s faces all in there. But she’s coming back in the room, the door opens and I can leave. She walked in and I grabbed her. I got her round her skinny - ass little neck and I’m choking her right now and she’s fixing to go with me. And I’m beating her head against this mirror and there’s some kind of black stuff, yuk, coming out. And then through the door the thing that brought me in and I felt a stinging again.
BUDD: Where’s that black stuff coming from, look at the face?
CALVIN: She’s got ears; it’s coming out of her ears.
BUDD: She’s got big ears, little ears?
CALVIN: Oh, she’s got ears like, like us guys, (inaudible)….bigger, she’s skinny, a skinny little thing.
BUDD: What color hair does she have?
CALVIN: Her hair was bluish-green, but the lights were bluish-green.
BUDD: Right, so it’s hard to tell?
CALVIN: Right.
BUDD: Was her hair loose and curly?
CALVIN: Yeah, yeah, loose and curly, a lot less of it though.
This is just a sample from the entire transcript that is published in full for the first time in Calvin’s book. Whether you feel that regressive hypnosis is a useful tool when investigating such encounters or you are of the opinion that it should not be used at all, you can’t fail to see how it can affect the subject, in this instance Calvin Parker.
Calvin’s book brings to light a great deal of new information for the first time. New information on one of the classic close encounter cases of all time. Just to give you an example of what this book contains:
1: Calvin Parker tells his full story for the first time.
2: Not only does Calvin Parker detail the full story in full, he now also supplies details of his other close encounters.
3: Added to this he provides a personal insight into how this event affected him and his family.
4: The book includes a full transcript of the Sheriff Departments 'secret tape' made only hours after the event.
5: Along with this the also books includes the full transcript of their interview at Keesler Air Force Base the day after the encounter.
6: A real asset for this book is the full transcript of the hypnosis session conducted on Calvin Parker by the late Budd Hopkins in 1993. This tape has never been published before and is a real eye-opener. It is published here exclusively for the first time in full.
7: The book of course will also be fully illustrated.
As a UFO researcher for nearly 40 years now the Pascagoula encounter is one that has always fascinated and intrigued me in equal amounts. As a result, it was a real pleasure to work with Calvin Parker and help bring his side of the story to the public domain. Calvin Parker’s full story is told here for the first time and I sincerely hope that you will be as fascinated and intrigued by it as I am.
PASCAGOULA – THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER will be published in paperback and kindle on September 1st and will be available on Amazon.
About the author: Philip Mantle is a long standing UFO researcher and author from the UK. He was formerly the Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and the MUFON Representative for England. He is the founder of FLYING DISK PRESS and can be contacted at: http://flyingdiskpress.blogspot.co.uk/
