On the evening of October 11, 1973, co-workers 42-year-old Charles Hickson and 19-year-old Calvin Parker told the Jackson County, Mississippi Sheriff's office they were fishing off a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi when they heard a whirring/whizzing sound; they also saw two flashing blue lights and an oval shaped object 30–40 feet across and 8–10 feet high. Parker and Hickson claimed that they were "conscious but paralyzed" while three "creatures" with "robotic slit-mouths" and "crab-like pincers" took them aboard the object and subjected them to an examination before releasing them.
Publicity
Within days, Pascagoula was the center of an international news story, with reporters swarming the town. UFOlogistsJames Harder of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and J. Allen Hynek interviewed the two men. Harder attempted to hypnotize them and concluded Hickson and Parker "experienced an extraterrestrial phenomena", while Hynek believed they had "a very real, frightening experience". Hickson later appeared on talk shows, gave lectures and interviews, and in 1983 authored a self-published bookUFO Contact at Pascagoula. Hickson claimed additional encounters with aliens in 1974, alleging that the aliens told him they were "peaceful". Parker later attended UFO convention. In 1993, he started a company called "UFO Investigations" to produce television stories about UFOs. Charles Hickson died of a heart attack at age 80 on September 9, 2011.
Skepticism
Aviation journalist and UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass found "discrepancies" in Hickson's story. When Hickson took a polygraph exam, the examiner determined that Hickson believed the abduction story, but Klass argued that the test was administered by an "inexperienced" operator and that Hickson refused to take another by a more experienced police operator. Klass concluded the case was a hoax based on these and other discrepancies. Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell wrote that Hickson's behavior was "questionable" and that he altered or embellished his story when later appearing on television shows. Nickell speculated that Hickson may have fantasized the encounter with aliens during a hypnagogic "waking dream state", adding that Parker's corroboration of the tale was likely due to suggestibility, since he told police he had "passed out at the beginning of the incident and failed to regain consciousness until it was over". In an appearance on the game show To Tell the Truth that was taped less than a month after the alleged abduction, Hickson also claimed that Parker was unconscious the entire time of the abduction.
