On the evening of October 11, 1973, two Mississippi men who had just gotten off work went fishing on the Pascagoula River and, by their account, ended up aboard something that was not from here.
More than five decades later, the Pascagoula abduction keeps drawing new retellings. The latest is Pascagoula 73, a four-part docuseries produced by Danny Weir and written by Weir with longtime UFO researcher Philip Mantle, available on Amazon and YouTube. It revisits one of the most discussed alien abduction cases in American history.
The Night on the River
Charles Hickson, then 42, and Calvin Parker, 18, chose an abandoned shipyard on the west bank of the river. Hickson described a screeching sound behind them, like air or steam escaping from a pipe. According to the two men, strange beings took hold of them and brought them aboard a craft, where they were examined for about half an hour. Parker later described the entities as having elephant-like skin and claw-like hands.
Afterward they talked it over and decided to go to the sheriff’s department. Parker’s first instinct, which Hickson initially shared, was to tell no one at all.
The Secret Tape
What gives Pascagoula its reputation is what happened next. Law enforcement reportedly left the two men alone in a room with a recorder running, and the tape caught them talking about the experience and how frightened they were, before they knew anyone was listening. Mantle, who published Parker’s books through Flying Disk Press, points to that recording as evidence of how genuine their fear was.
UFO researcher James Harder reached Pascagoula within 36 hours to interview and hypnotize them. Parker later underwent a hypnotic regression with researcher Budd Hopkins, and the transcript was published. Hickson wrote a book, UFO Contact at Pascagoula, with William Mendez, and claimed further contacts in 1974, at a tree farm in January, at his home in February, and again on Mother’s Day.
A New Witness Steps Forward
The docuseries also features Maria Blair, who with her late husband, Jerry, was on the opposite side of the river that night. She says she had experiences of her own. Mantle, who is a close friend of Parker, calls Pascagoula the best documented case of its kind.
The Skeptical View
Skeptics have offered hoax, hallucination, and confabulation, along with the idea that stress and a culturally reinforced abduction narrative can shape a story over time. Hypnotic regression, which played a role in the case, is widely regarded as an unreliable way to recover memories.
Proponents answer that the men were recorded at their most unguarded and that their testimony stayed consistent for decades. Whether you find that persuasive probably depends on how you weigh a recorded moment of fear against a lack of physical evidence.
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