Somewhere in the Skies - Just Another Tin-Foil Hat | The Pascagoula Abduction

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

On October 11th, 1973, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker witnessed a UFO while fishing off of a pier on the Pascagoula River. What followed was a bizarre tale of grey, wrinkly space beings, Air Force interest, and one very pesky unidentified submerged object. Subscribe to Just Another Tin Foil Hat on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JustAnotherTinFoilHat Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomewhereSkies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somewhereskiespod/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/somewhereskies/videos Website: http://www.somewhereintheskies.com Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U Read Ryan’s articles at: https://medium.com/@ryan-sprague51 Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Produced by LIONSGATE Copyright © 2024 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Just Another Tinfoil hat with your host, Zilia Edgar. Join Zilia as she walks us through some of the most bizarre UFO cases and incidents of high strangeness. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just another tinfoil hat. Welcome to my show. Today we are going to be discussing a classic weird encounter, and that is the Paskagull abduction. Now again, the 1970s were seriously just a fantastic time for all things weird, and weird is exactly what this event was. October 11th of 1973, around 8 o'clock in the evening, two men, Charles Hickson, who was 42 at the time, and Calvin Parker aged 18, both co-workers at a shipyard and good friends, were fishing off of a pier on the Pascagoula River in Pascagoula, Mississippi, when they heard this loud pulsing or humming sound. And really interesting thing to note here,

and this was pointed out by John Keel in the 8th Tower, but Pascagoula is actually also known as the singing river, due to this peculiar humming or buzzing noise attributed to it. On the flip side, humming and buzzing-type noises are also very common in UFO encounters, and a great example of this is the incident in Fatima. Moving on. The two men, their attention arrested by this noise, saw a brilliant flickering blue light moving over the water towards them. It came closer and stopped, hovering about eight feet over the ground as they were still standing on the pier.

And according to an interview with J.L. and Heinek, who investigated this case, the area over which the object was hovering was actually this auto-wrecking yard, with land directly beneath it being composed of broken up rocks and gravel. I mean, shout out to all the gravel pits and dumps that John Keel suggested to stake out. And at this point where it's hovering over the auto yard, the object is described as a football-shaped object, about 30 feet long and 10 feet high, topped with a dome-like structure. So at this point, the blue light, which apparently was still surrounding the object, went out,

and an opening just appeared in the craft. Three entities showed up in the opening. They were described as being vaguely humanoid-ish, with no neck, the head kind of morphing into the shoulders, standing about five feet tall and covered in a wrinkly gray skin. They had pointed noses about two inches long, and on either side of the head pointed ears, which looked almost identical to the nose.

A slit stood in for the mouth, and according to Hickson, the area above the nose was too wrinkly to tell whether they had eyes or not. Their arms were slightly disproportionately long, and terminated in kind of crab claw-like hands or mitten-like hands. The legs apparently had feet which resembled kind of an elephant's, according to Hicksons. Now, the beings floated out of the craft, and down the about 20 yards to the pier where Hickson Parker were just standing, apparently struck completely senseless by the sighting. Two entities grabbed Hickson, one for each arm, and there was still a third entity left to grab Parker,

who, at this point, according to Hickson, Hickson had fainted. Now later, much later, Parker would actually claim that he was not unconscious during this event, that he did indeed experience the whole thing. And then through regression hypnosis, he claimed remembering being taken on board the craft and subjected to your very classic alien abduction type scenario, complete with a very classic invasive medical examination. However, according to all the initial reports, Parker remained unconscious all the while Hickson's encounter went on. Hickson said that when the beings grabbed his arms, there was a pain in his left that immediately vanished as soon as it happened,

but from that point on, he became paralyzed and physically unable to feel. Now, he was taken on board the object, the inside of which was blindingly bright, though he was actually unable to close his eyes. While inside the object, a large eye about the size of a basketball apparently moved over Hickson's body examining him. When this, albeit far less invasive examination than your typical alien abduction medical procedure occurred, the two entities reappeared, picked Hickson up as they had before, and floated out of the opening and deposited him back on the pier, where Calvin was still standing. This is another one of those weird transitional points where things just don't seem to add up. According to Hickson, Calvin fainted and was being held by the creature.

He comes back, Calvin is just standing there. But see, and that's just, those are the interesting points about this case, as things don't seem to add up, yet it's a very good case that every investigator who was there at the time really believed these people believed it had occurred. Now, again, Calvin's standing there, Hickson's deposit back on the pier. There's the same buzzing noises before, a blue flashing, and the craft is just gone. The whole experience allegedly took between 30 and 40 minutes. So the two men contacted the authorities, and they moved kind of down the line before finally contacting the sheriff, who questioned them thoroughly and then for added measures, hit a secret tape recorder

in the room before letting them converse privately. So the conversation that ensued, which of course they had no idea as being recorded, was pretty much the two men absolutely freaking out over what they had experienced. And, you know, that really lends to the credibility. It wasn't like they were saying, you know, geez, you know, we pulled the wool over their eyes or anything like, I don't know what hoaxers would say, you know, just conversing with each other. But, It seemed like they were both trying to rationalize with the other what had happened, more than anything. Now, not only was there the police investigation, there was also a slightly bizarre matter of hypnotic regression, which was actually done by, of all people, an engineering professor from Berkeley,

and it was cut short when the men began reacting with absolute sheer terror. Beyond that, there was a small issue of the Air Force investigation. So, according to Hickson's account, Kiesler Air Force Base was actually the first authority he turned to, and was turned away from, with a recommendation that they called the local authorities and a statement that the U.S. Air Force just really wasn't into UFOs anymore. However, it's apparent that somebody was. Hickson and Parker and the company, Deputy Tom Huntley, arrived at the base with a police escort and were greeted by masked-gloved scientists.

Not only was there a radioactivity check and examination, but an interrogation viewed by the top brass as well as a boatload of doctors. I mean, it sounds like an X-Files episode, really. Now, note of the Mothman prophecies, among the many, many questions asked of the men, were many questions regarding their personal lives, things like diet, family history, and bodily wounds. Interesting.

So, after this event, both men experienced awful headaches and nightmares. Hickson had a small wound mysteriously open up and bleed before just as mysteriously vanishing and closed up. Parker suffered two nervous breakdowns from the incident, and it's really only recently that he's decided to come forward. about his experience. Now, Hickson, on the other hand, was decidedly more forthcoming about what had happened, and it's probably best summed up in his first words from the police interview.

Even though it'll be the laughing stock of the county, I'll tell what I've seen and the experience I've had. After the experience, Hickson apparently had many other sightings of UFOs. In an interview with UFO researcher Ray Stanford, in the August 1978 UFO report, Stanford even brought up the fact that Hickson was rumored to have been followed by UFOs after the event. And this statement was definitely strengthened when a UFO actually showed up in his presence at Stanford's Project Starlight International Site. Not only did Hickson have lasting personal effects from the incident, but there is also a small thing of note about him prior to the experience. And this was noted by NBC reporter Ralph Bloom and restated in the Mothman prophecies. He was never able to wear a watch.

They would never keep correct time no matter which type he tried or they would just stop altogether. You know, Keel points this out as a possible bio-energetic anomaly. Now, the really interesting to note about this case, I mean, it's a classic case of high strangeness UFO abduction, what isn't interesting about it? But the thing that stands out to me is a certain lack of confirmation. Before I continue, I want to really make it clear that everybody who investigated this case genuinely believed that they believed what had happened, whether UFO researchers, local authorities, they were all of the opinion that Parker and Hickson were telling the truth about

what they believed they had experienced. The pier upon which Hickson Park was standing, where the entire event took place, was in full view of a nearby drawbridge night attendant, also in full view of highway tollboots, and also in full view of the security cameras at a naval installation across the river. No one at any of these three stations saw anything, no lights, no 30-foot craft, no gray wrinkly space beings. So what does this mean? You know, You know, I think it's easy at this point to say, well, it didn't happen. Three separate observation points saw absolutely nothing. We have nothing to go on.

There was no physical evidence either. But then, Trudeau Valley's adage to the phenomenon negates itself. In this case, the phenomenon also negates the negation. While no one right at Ground Zero saw anything, you then have multiple cases, which strengthened the notion that something odd really was happening around Pascagoula in that time. Located about 30 miles from Pascagoula is the town of Tanner Williams, Alabama. A three-year-old child reported to his mother that he had been playing with some old monster, a thing with gray wrinkly skin and pointed to ears in their backyard earlier that day on October 11th.

Now, following the release of Parker's book in 2018, a flood of witnesses have come forward to say that they had experiences that same night, most of them relating to anomalous lights or lightball phenomena. Now, from the time, though, some weeks after the Paskill incident, You have a really great account of a USO and unidentified submerged object. November 8th, the Cincinnati Post reported that a man named Raymond Ryan, his son, and Raymond's twin brother, Ramey, and his son, this feels like some sort of brain teaser,

observed a mysterious object while fishing on the Pasco Gula River the previous Tuesday. Apparently, an underwater light followed Raymond's boat, and that his best attempt to get rid of the light by smacking it with an oar, really didn't do much, and only dimmed it. He described the object as about nine feet in diameter and shaped kind of like a parachute. When the light was on, it showed a milky white, even above the surface of the water. It moved off towards the deeper water and a move that Raymond felt was evasive, and he actually planned that he wasn't going to tell anyone about it, but then he decided to tell his twin

brother, Ramey. So the two men went back out, found the light, and this is when they decided, well, beyond poking it with oars again, this is when they decided to involve the Coast Guard. So the Coast Guard then sent out a boat to find the object, which they did. And at this point, was described as a bright metal object with an amber beam, only about 45 inches in diameter. And at this point, it was in four to six feet of water, moving about four or six knots, and going on various courses. The Coast Guard actually attempted to retrieve the object and failed miserably every time they tried to do so.

It would go out and then move away and come on again. So it's just interesting, because as with many cases of UFO high contact, a larger question than did it really happen emerges, and that's the question of what something really happening might entail. Heineck, who did investigate this incident, genuinely believed their account. He also said that the effects on the witnesses could be likened to something more like the shock of religious experience. Only instead of the Blessed Virgin, Hickson and Parker saw, you know, elephant-skinned, mitten-handed monstrosities coming out of a UFO. As to whether or not there was a physical craft, and therefore physical creatures, and therefore a physical occurrence,

there really is no evidence of that. And in fact, a very specific lack of corroborate evidence from the three points of the observation nearby, the toll booth, the drawbridge, and the security cameras. So, you know, if the 30-foot-in-diameter object really did come over to hover over that rubble-filled auto yard, glowing blue and sticking around for half an hour, you'd think that someone other than two victims would have seen something. And again, this is not at all to say that it didn't happen. I think that many of these cases, however, we're focusing so hard on the physical evidence when in reality something may be incurring, that just is on a threshold, something that can be both material and immaterial.

And it's this point that's really, it's hard to kind of wrap your brain around that and harder still to pin it down. I mean, because then, too, you know, yes, you have that lack of corroborating evidence, but then you have so many other accounts from that time. I mean, the Coast Guard chasing the USO, you have the different accounts of things seen in the sky. And most striking to me, the child who saw a wrinkly gray monster earlier that same day, this all points to something occurring, something objective. and it's this back and forth of confirmation and refutation that many, many people who encounter

the paranormal in any of its different fields seem to go through. I mean, a classic example of this is my favorite case of UFO contact the sign of encounter. I mean, if UFO occupant handy pancakes, you're just going to assume that they're made out of moon dust. But of course, that is absolutely not the case. The question remains, though, do we throw these cases out, or do we include some level of negative confirmation as only natural when dealing with the unnatural? All that said, I am Zelia Edgar.

Signing off. This has been just another tinfoil hat with Zelia Edgar. Be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. For full video versions of these episodes, be sure to subscribe to Just Another Tinfoil hat on YouTube. Thank you for listening. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no.

That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply.