PASCAGOULA.
“On the night of October 11, 1973, Charles Hickson, 42, and 19-year-old Calvin Parker were fishing from a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi when they heard a whirring, zipping sound behind them.”
The beings were described as approximately five feet tall, with pale grey, wrinkled, bullet-shaped heads, no discernible neck, claw-like hands with only a thumb, and slits where a mouth and nose might be — robotic in appearance and movement. Hickson was paralyzed and floated into the craft, where he was subjected to an examination involving a floating "eye" that moved over his body. Parker fainted and could remember little. The entire encounter lasted approximately 20 minutes.
The two men reported the incident to Keesler Air Force Base, were directed to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, and were interrogated for hours. In a deliberate test, they were left alone in a room with a concealed recording device — and their terrified, private conversation matched their formal statements exactly. Both men passed polygraph examinations. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who served as the US Air Force's chief UFO investigator, interviewed them and concluded they were credible witnesses of an anomalous experience.
Calvin Parker, who long stayed silent and suffered severe psychological trauma from the encounter, eventually published his own account in 2018. He stated the beings communicated with him telepathically and that the experience was one of profound terror mixed with a strange sense of examination rather than malice.