Charles E. Hickson Sr., one of two men who reported they were abducted from the banks of the Pascagoula River by aliens in 1973, has died at the age of 80.
Hickson died Friday in Ocean Springs, officials with O’Bryant-O’Keefe Funeral Home in Gautier said Tuesday.
Hickson spent nearly 40 years reliving the reported encounter. He also co-wrote a book, “UFO Contact at Pascagoula.”
On Oct. 11, 1973, Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing on the Pascagoula River. What seemed to be the beginning of a peaceful night turned to chaos when the pair said they suddenly found themselves in a close encounter with an alien craft and its occupants.
Hickson, then 42, and Parker, then 19, did not want their account publicized, but a reported leak to the newspaper made publicity inevitable.
After reporting their account to the sheriff’s office, Hickson and Parker both passed lie detector tests and were even questioned under hypnosis. Investigators are on record saying the pair’s story never wavered.
“I am not trying to force anybody to believe anything. I just simply tell them what happened to Calvin and me, and they make up their own minds if they want to believe it or not,” Hickson said in a 2008 interview with WLOX-TV.
Parker, who was last reported living in Louisiana, has declined to discuss the matter.
According to Hickson’s account, two of the creatures from the ship seized him and another grabbed Parker, who fainted.
He said the aliens held them for about 20-30 minutes.
“Something came out of that wall, like a big eye. It came up in front of me, it went under me, and it came back up my back side. The next time I saw it, it came over my head in front of me. They turned me around and carried me right back out where they pick me up.”
Then, Hickson said, within the blink of an eye, it was all over. He said the UFO was gone, and the men were left wondering what had happened.
A native of Jones County, Hickson served in the Army during the Korean War.
He is survived by two sons, three daughters, a brother and a sister; and 10 grandchildren and 15 great- grandchildren.
A graveside service will be Thursday at 1 p.m. at McGill Cemetery in Sandersville. - picayuneitem
-----
The Pascagoula, Mississippi Alien Abductions - October, 1973
On the night of October 10, 1973, fifteen different people witnessed a UFO over a housing project in St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, Louisiana. Two of the witnesses were policeman. This sighting was only the beginning of what was to occur the next night on the nearby Pascagoula River. Two fishermen, nineteen-year-old Calvin Parker, and forty-two-year-old Charles Hickson were about to have an experience that would forever change their lives.
Parker and Hickson were good friends, and often fished together. They were both living in the town of Gautier, Mississippi. On one particular night, they were fishing the waters of the Pascagoula River, when suddenly they heard a strange buzzing sound. The two men immediately turned to see what the source of the strange noise was. They were shocked to see an egg-shaped object with bluish front lighting. The object was only a few feet above the water, and about ten yards from the two frightened fishermen.
While they sat stunned, a door opened in the UFO and three beings of unknown origin began to float toward the two. The beings did have legs, but did not use them. They literally floated across the water toward Hickson and Parker. The two fishermen would later attempt to describe what the beings looked like, saying "...about five feet tall, had bullet-shaped heads without necks, slits for mouths, and where their noses or ears would be, they had thin, conical objects sticking out, like carrots from a snowman's head."
Hickson sat frozen on the river bank. Suddenly, two of the odd-looking beings grabbed him, while the third being snatched Parker, who immediately fainted from fear. The beings supported Hickson by literally holding up his body. As they did, he felt numbness over his entire body. By some power he could not see, he floated into the bowels of the object to a brightly-lit room. The room had no gravity. He floated while a strange eye-like device moved over his entire body as if it was scanning him.
After the eye-like device was finished with Hickson, he was left floating in the room alone. The beings had probably left to examine Parker. Approximately 20 minutes after the ordeal had begun, it was over. Hickson was now floated back out of the craft. Back on the river bank, he could see Parker, who was crying and praying on the ground. Shortly, the strange flying object rose straight into the night sky, and flew away.
After collecting their senses and strength, they began to talk about what action they should take. At first they were afraid to report their experience, but they felt obligated to tell someone. What if these beings were taking other people in the area? Fighting fears of public ridicule, they called Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi. They were instructed to report their incident to the local sheriff's department.
Sheriff Fred Diamond thought their story was a hoax or trick. Trying to get to the bottom of their account, the two fishermen were placed in a room wired for sound. It was thought that they would discuss the joke between themselves, and their story would be found out. Instead, they continued to talk about the incident and seemed terribly distressed. Soon law enforcement personnel knew that something had certainly frightened Hickson and Parker, and that this was no joke.
Very quickly, details of the alleged abduction began to leak out to the public. First, the account of the incident was published in local newspapers, soon followed by the wire services. In a matter of a couple of days, the Pascagoula, Mississippi, abduction was a big news item over the entire United States. Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) sent University of California professor James Harder to investigate the story. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who represented the U.S. Air Force also would research the case.
Harder and Hynek did a lot of the investigative work together. The two well-known researchers first interviewed the two fishermen together. Harder tried to do regressive hypnosis on Hickson, but the abductee was so frightened, that the hypnosis was stopped. To get things off on solid ground, both of the witnesses took polygraph tests, and both passed without a problem. Harder and Hynek both believed that the two tormented men were telling the truth.
Esteemed UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek would proclaim that "... there was definitely something here that was not terrestrial."
Even after thirty-plus years, both Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson still testify to the same story, and have never wavered in their account of what happened that October night on the Pascagoula River.
__________________________
THE 'SECRET TAPE'
Sheriff Fred 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 about the incident and seemed 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 NICAP:
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 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." [sic]
"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.
Click for video
_______________________
From 2/28/08
Mississippi Man Recalls 1973 Alien Abduction
wlox - Flying saucers and aliens abductions sound bizarre to some people in South Mississippi, but 76-year-old Charles Hickson of Gautier claims he actually lived that nightmare."I was terribly frightened," Hickson told WLOX News.
Late one October night in 1973, Charles Hickson decided to go fishing on the Pascagoula River with his buddy, 19-year-old Calvin Parker. But something happened that night that would change their lives forever.
"It look to me like air, or steam, or something escaping from a pipe," Hickson said.
A piercing sound made Hickson and Parker stop what they were doing. That's when Hickson says he spotted a large UFO hovering behind them.
"It was some kind of craft, it was probably 30 or 40 feet. There were three things, they weren't human beings. I know now they were robots. "
The sight of the aliens is burned into Hickson's memory.
"They appeared to me that they had something like elephant skin, it was very wrinkled. These things came to us and took a hold of me, and one took a hold of Calvin. We went into that beam of light and they carried me aboard that craft."
He says the aliens held them for about 30 minutes.
"Something came out of that wall, like a big eye. It came up in front of me, it went under me, and it came back up my back side. The next time I saw it, it came over my head in front of me. They turn me around and carried me right back out where they pick me up."
The Hickson says, within the blink of an eye, it was all over. The UFO was gone, and the men were left wondering what happened.
"I thought it might be a threat to the country, some type of threat to the country. We talked it over again, and decided we would go the sheriff's department," Hickson said.
After the mysterious abduction, Hickson and Parker both passed lie detector tests and were even questioned under hypnosis. Investigators are on record saying the pair's story never wavered.
"I am not trying to force anybody to believe anything. I just simply tell them what happen to Calvin and me, and they make up their own minds if they want to believe it or not."
Now, 35 years later, Hickson says he still can't get the ordeal out of his mind.
"They're just simply unidentified flying objects that come from other worlds out there, and those worlds are, [pause] I have no idea. "
Hickson and Parker's alleged abduction played a crucial role in the creation of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle. The center is a centralized place for people to call and report strange and mysterious things they see.
NOTE: the original audio clips can be found here Classic Interviews from the very early days of Modern Ufology...Lon
Sources:
www.wlox.com
ufos.about.com
www.nicap.org/hicksontape.htm
www.unexplainable.net
www.users.waitrose.com
www.nicap.org/madar/psi-hickson
www.konsulting.com