Pascagoula UFO Abduction

[russhorseman]

Guys,

Best paranormal show in ANY medium, bar none. Thanks for what you do.

Is there any chance you can get a hold of Charles Hickson (the older gentleman abductee in the famed Pascagoula case) and perhaps get him on the show? That single case ignited my lifelong interest in the UFO phenomena.

I've written Mr. Hickson and purchased his book, "UFO Contact at Pascagoula," and also received a nice handwritten note from him. I don't think he's in very good health. Just my opinion. I know he's getting up there in age, and I'd love to hear what he would reveal to you.

His fishing partner, Calvin Parker, is nowhere to be found, I think by personal choice. He was never able to handle the aftermath of the abduction from what I've read.

I do feel the abduction was legitimate, but have a feeling that Mr. Hickson embellished it just a bit as time went on.

I've visited the site, which is now fenced off by private shipping related companies and difficult to get to. I actually went to the other side of the river (standing in the parking lot of a VFW) and looked across for the best view. Still brings chills.

Thank you, gentlemen, for a show I look forward to every week. You're the best.

Sincerely,
Russ Horseman

 

[David Biedny]

Russ,

Thanks so very much for the kind words!

I'll tell you what, your idea is an excellent one, if you by any chance have any contact info for Hickson, please share it with us and I'll follow up. I think he'd be an excellent guest for the show.

dB

 

[bobheck]

The Pascagoula case was very influential in my UFO interest as well, and really got me going on the subject. I was about 10 years old at the time and living in Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola is not too far from Pascagoula, and the story got a lot of local coverage.

That would be a great show I believe.

This page:

Alien Abduction: Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker - Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Says that Charles Hickson was 70 years old in 2001 and living in Gautier, MS. And that Calvin Parker was 47 and living in Texas.

 

[russhorseman]

David,

Thank you for your quick and courteous response. I'm honored to communicate with you. I respect your talents immensely (including the work you've done in the Photoshop field).

As far as I know, Mr. Hickson doesn't do emails. I have a handwritten letter from him with his address and phone number. Is there an email address I can send this information to? I don't want to post it in a forum without his permission. He wanted me to help sell some of his books for him, so the idea of reaching out to your audience might really have some appeal.

Again, I'm excited by the prospects of having this gentleman on your show. Personally, I believe his story 100%, especially since the sheriff left them in a "bugged" room and they never wavered. I can't wait to hear what your interview reveals.

Best to you and Gene.

Russ

 

[David Biedny]

Russ,

You can reach me via a private message right on these forums - click on my name, and you should see the option to send me a PM. And thanks!

dB

 

[russhorseman]

Bob,

Thanks for your reply. I share the same experiences as you do with this case. I remember being 12 years old in Maryland when this case broke. I saw the Dick Cavett show, the articles, and owned the comic book that pictured the horrifying abduction on the cover. I was hooked.

Something always brings me back. I recently started looking into the case again, and immediately thought of The Paracast. I travel frequently, and The Paracast podcasts get me through the long flights. I hope they can get Mr. Hickson (or even the elusive Calvin Parker) for the show.

Thanks again for your reply. I have a small beach house in Navarre Beach, just up the road from P'Cola. Beautiful place to live and visit.

Russ

 

[bobheck]

This is a long post, so bear with me.

I found a reference and link to the article pasted below on Wiki, and it was the first I had heard of this. If this is true, this is really neat.

Sorry if this is old news to anybody interested in this case, as I am. But this was new information for me and really got my attention.

Before I paste the entire article, I need to preface:

1. This is very interesting, apparently someone else saw the ship that Parker and Hickson saw.

2. The original article was supposedly an AP article written by a Natalie Chambers on October 21, 2001.

3. The article below was pasted from this link http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc822.htm

4. I cannot find the original AP article. If anyone has access to Lexus/Nexus or some other resource and can validate it that would be great.

5. I did find a 2005 article in The Mississippi Press by a Natalie Chambers. So apparently she was still reporting in 2005, unless this is a strange coincidence. http://www.gulflive.com/mississippipress/pdf/090605.pdf


========================================================
BEGIN ARTICLE
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PASCAGOULA - When Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker told the world in 1973 they were abducted by aliens while fishing on the Pascagoula River, few people believed them.

Now after 28 years, it appears they weren't alone in their experience on that Oct. 11 night.

A retired Navy chief petty officer recently contacted The Mississippi Press about the sighting that he can't forget.

Mike Cataldo of Rotonda West, Fla., said he was on the pre-commissioning crew of the USS Tunney under construction at Ingalls Shipyard. Dusk was setting in as he and crew mates Ted Peralta and Mack Hanna were on U.S. 90 heading to Ocean Springs. Peralta was driving, Hanna was in the front passenger seat and Cataldo was in the back seat.

"We saw a very strange object in the horizon going from northwest across Highway 90. It was going pretty fast. It went down into a wood area and into the marsh. It hovered over the tree line, I guess, maybe a minute. We actually pulled off the road and watched it. We said, 'My God, what is that."' Cataldo said.

"We saw it, no question about it. We talked about it. Was it a shooting star, a meteorite? This was very different," he said.

Cataldo said the object looked like a large tambourine with little lights flashing on it.

"As quickly as we saw it, it just vanished," he said.

Cataldo said he had a second sighting minutes later, this time in St. Andrews as he neared his home.

"It wasn't as high up as we saw the first time. It was real," he said.

Cataldo said he rushed and told his wife what happened.

"I was almost hyperventilating. I wasn't shook up, but I was excited I saw this thing," he said.

The next morning, Cataldo contacted his executive officer on the submarine and made a report.

The following Monday, he contacted Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi and left his telephone number, he said.

"My executive officer and crew members thought we were just lunatics, just whacked out," he said.

"It never came up again. Keesler never called or did anything," he said.

"It was the strangest thing. It was kind of scary," Cataldo said.

Cataldo retired from the Navy 19 years ago. He was last in Jackson County in 1974.

Cataldo said he has never met or talked to Hickson.

Hickson said neither he nor Parker wanted their story given to the media. Their only objective was to notify the proper authorities, the sheriff's department.

"I've had a few people who said they didn't believe it, but I've never had any ridicule and my family never had. That's one reason when this thing first happened to Calvin and I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to be called crazy. But it seemed to me we had to tell the proper authorities," said Hickson, 70, who lives in Gautier.

The rest is history.

Hickson said he knows other people saw the space craft but wouldn't come forward.

"They would have sure helped us if they would have said something," he said.

Hickson penned a book about the encounter, was interviewed numerous times by the scientific community and made the circuit at seminars on extraterrestrial. In 28 years, he never deviated from his claim of the occurrence behind the old Shaupeter Shipyard building on the Pascagoula River - even under hypnosis.

Parker, who was 19 then, had trouble dealing with what happened. He is now living in Louisiana.

"He's not the same man as before. It just ruined him," Hickson said.

Hickson described the three creatures that floated out to them as pale, ghostlike and about 5-feet high. They had crab-like claws or pinchers and rounded feet. He said they appeared to glide rather than walk.

Hickson said he was taken aboard the oval-shaped, well-lit space craft and examined with some type of "eye."

"Some kind of way they examined me. I've had a feeling ever since it happened that they know where I'm at all times and what I'm doing," he said.

"These things are robots. I didn't see any eyes. They had no indication of breathing. They didn't have a mouth. It was a straight slit. It seems they had something to do and they just actually done it. Took us back out there, put us down and they left," he said.

Hickson said he does not know how long they were with the aliens but he would like another encounter with them.

"When it first happened, I wouldn't go in the night by myself. I would have nightmares. My wife really helped me get through this thing," he said. "Now the fear is all gone. I want to meet them again and see if they will take me to their world. I believe if they do, they'd bring me back. Our whole world here is getting into a terrible shape."

Glenn Ryder, sheriff's department shift captain that night the call came in from Hickson, said it was a busy night, around 11 p.m. when Hickson called from a pay phone and was insistent on talking to then-Sheriff Fred Diamond, who happened to be in bed.

Ryder said Hickson then asked for the second person in charge. That happened to be Ryder. Hickson told Ryder he had something to tell but feared Ryder would laugh.

Ryder told him to go ahead and when Hickson finished, he did laugh.

"I told him to wait there and I would come and talk to him. He said he was going back to his house and gave me the address so I could come there," Ryder said.

"Calvin Parker was just hysterical. He was having fits. I took them in the patrol car to the sheriff's office," Ryder said.

Hickson and Parker were questioned extensively apart and then put in a secluded room together where a tape recorder had been planted to catch them in a lie.

"That boy (Parker) was really shook up. Charles was composed. The boy had just come down here from Jones County had always lived out in the country. He kept telling Charles on the tape not to talk to us. He said if (Charles) told them anything about what happened they would come back and get them," Ryder said.

"One thing led to another. We went to the site at Shaupeter, where Colley Towing is now. He showed me where it landed and picked him up."

Ryder said no physical evidence of a landing - burn marks or footprints - were found.

He said after the story broke calls came in from across the United States, England and Canada.

"They were pretty well convincing something did happen to them," he said.

Ryder said there were other calls fielded about sighting of a streak of light that night, but only Parker and Hickson reported being taken aboard the space craft.

========================================================
END ARTICLE
========================================================

 

[bobheck]

A little more on the Mike Cataldo account and Natalie Chambers.

Pascagoula, Mississippi Abduction Eye Witness

Pasted here for archival purposes, in case the link ever goes dead. The source link at the end of the article is no longer valid. So, validation of the original AP article is still needed. But, if this is a first-person account on the phone and is true, how great is that?

======================================================
BEGIN ARTICLE
======================================================

On October 21, 2001, Natalie Chambers of the Associated Press
reported that a new witness to a legendary 1973 UFO incident has
recently surfaced. Chambers identified this individual as Mike
Cataldo, a retired Navy chief petty officer.

I was interested in more general details of this account, and
specifically the reference to "a report" Cataldo made with a
supervisor. This morning I conducted a YAHOO PEOPLE SEARCH
for the name Mike Cataldo and found his telephone number listed for
his residence at Marker Rd. in Rotonda West, FL.

Cataldo came to the phone and was surprised at my call, stating
that I was the first person to ever contact him about this UFO
sighting from 1973. He explained that he had been in touch with
Associated Press reporter Natalie Chambers, but only after
calling a Pascagoula, Mississippi newspaper a month ago. When
calling the newspaper, he asked to talk with an old-timer
employee at the paper, someone that might remember the
Hickson/Parker abduction. Cataldo said that when he talked with
Natalie Chambers, she made reference to the book entitled 'UFO
in Pascagoula.' Being unaware of this book, Cataldo was shocked,
saying "you gotta be kidding me!" to the reporter.

He went on to excitedly relate the story as it happened back in
1973.

"The story is very true," he assured while recounting the event.
"We (Cataldo, Ted Peralta and Mack Hanna) left the shipyard and
rode in Ted's Volkswagen to Hwy. 90, traveling west towards
Buloxi, Mississippi. It was not even dusk yet, there was still
some daylight to see by.

"When we first saw this thing through the windshield we thought
it was a shooting star, going from right to left, but then it
came down into a marshy, tree-lined area and hovered there for
about 30-seconds. It was spinning and had blinking lights on the
top of it all around its edge, all the way around it in a
circle. These were blinking lights arranged on it just like you
would tape lights to the side of a cake pan."

Cataldo affirmed that there was a definite structure to be seen,
not just blinking lights.

"This thing was like a whitish-gray colored sailor hat, or a
tambourine, and it was less than half a mile away and looked as
big as any big American airliner I've ever seen. And then it
just shot away, almost like it was just suddenly gone."

Cataldo said that shortly after the sighting he parted company
with Ted Peralta and Mack Hanna and changed cars. Then while
enroute to Ocean Springs as darkness was setting in, he saw the
same object a second time at about the same distance away,
watching it for another 45 seconds to one minute before it again
shot off in the same manner as before.

Mike Cataldo said that there were other motorists in the area
during each episode and that some of them had slowed down to look
at the ufo.

"We were the only ones on the road to stop and look at it
though," he said.

During this time, Cataldo said he never knew anything about the
Hickson/Parker claim. He went home, telling his wife about it.
Cataldo humorously recalled how his wife said he was
hyperventilating with excitement. He went on to liken the anxiety
and strangeness of the situation to a large snake sighting he had
years earlier in 1963, "Some things you see in your lifetime that
you just don't ever forget," he said.

The next day he returned to the site with Ted and Mack and they
parked their car at the shipyard area, talking about the
sighting from the previous day. They discussed what should be
done about it and if they should report what they saw.

Cataldo said that he felt the sighting should be reported and he
approached a man by the name of Nick, his division officer. He
then approached the executive commander, Lt. Commander
Heath and issued him a verbal report on the sighting. He said
that to his knowledge, Heath did not prepare a written report
concerning what was told to him.

"Not one of them took me seriously," he complained, "and I never
heard another thing about it. Nobody ever asked about it again.

"I never knew of the Hickson/Parker abduction until days later.
It happened on Thursday and it was not until the following
Sunday that I saw the headline in the morning paper about two
men taken aboard a Flying Saucer, I'm telling you I about died."

The next morning, Oct. 15, Cataldo said that he talked the
situation over with his wife and again decided that it would be
important to report the UFO sighting. At that time he placed a
phone call to a an assistant public relations officer Keesler
AFB. The female taking his call took the information, but
Cataldo said that once again nothing resulted from his
advisement.

"I have never talked to the fella involved, Charles Hickson, and
I've never discussed this case or met with them at all, I never
knew them and I never saw anything and had no involvement with
what they said," Cataldo assured, "and I've never seen a UFO
since then, not at all. Not even before then. Was it real?
You're damn right it was real. I can't say anything about they
did or were involved in. I don't even know if what I saw matches
what they saw, but I know what I saw and where I was at. But
where we saw the thing going across the sky through our
windshield is basically the area where Hickson and Parker said
they were taken aboard. The time frame of our sighting might
have been around 6:00, but I can't recall for certain."

Cataldo said that two weeks after the sighting he left for
California on temporary duty. While there, he saw Hickson on the
Dick Cavette television show.

"I just couldn't believe it, here I was seeing this guy," he
said.

Mike Cataldo explained that he has not seen Ted Peralta for 21
years, but thinks he could possibly be in the San Diego,
California area. Likewise he has not seen Mack Hanna for about
23 or more years and suspects that he could also be located in
either Kentucky or Logan, West Virginia. In the intervening
years, Cataldo said that he has frequently told told his family
(wife, 2 sons and relatives) about the sighting.

Cataldo said that aside from this present call, he has not been
contacted by anyone regarding this except for his discussion
with reporter Natalie Chambers. He said that he has not seen the
newspaper article and would like to read it. He also said that
he received a message from a friend telling him that Paul Harvey
mentioned the story on his radio program yesterday, and wishes
he could have heard it.

I thanked Mike Cataldo for talking with me and told him that I
would be happy to E-mail him the text of the newspaper article
by Chambers. Although it is a disappointment to know that his
claims were probably not documented in a written report by his
supervisor, further interviews with Hanna and Peralta would
still be valuable to provide some verification of this alleged
sighting. A YAHOO PEOPLE SEARCH was conducted for their
names in the specified locations resulting in many returns and
as of this writing some of the names have already been
contacted but thus far with no success in finding the right
individuals.

Filed,
October 27, 2001
Kenny Young


sources:

http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/newwitness.htm

======================================================
END ARTICLE
======================================================

 

[EQ42]

Thanks for this info bobheck

 

[DVS]

Russ,

You can reach me via a private message right on these forums - click on my name, and you should see the option to send me a PM. And thanks!

dB

Do you ever check your PM's? Because I sent you one 2 months ago suggesting some music and I don't think you ever read it.

 

[ckbarrus]

This would a great case to take a look back at. It was a national news story for a couple days - I remember seeing a TV story about it all the way out here in California.

If anything, it might be neat to take a look back at the entire UFO wave of 1973. If I remember correctly, the Coyne helicopter encounter was only a week after Pascagoula and the Skylab 3 incidents occurred the month before.

 

[bobheck]

This would a great case to take a look back at. It was a national news story for a couple days - I remember seeing a TV story about it all the way out here in California.

If anything, it might be neat to take a look back at the entire UFO wave of 1973. If I remember correctly, the Coyne helicopter encounter was only a week after Pascagoula and the Skylab 3 incidents occurred the month before.

Yes, it WOULD be a great case to revisit. The people are still living, so it would be great to have that done before that changes.

I remember when this happened, I was a pre-teen growing up in Pensacola, FL, just a hop skip and jump from Pascagoula. Big news down there at the time. It was quite a 'happening'. I remember newscasts where people were freaking out at every noise in the back yard and calling police.

I distinctly remember a news cast from a Mobile, AL station (not sure which one, but it would have been NBC or CBS back then, the ABC station was in Pensacola) where a lady said that beings were approaching her home. The reason I remember it was because (meaning no disrespect to the woman, who was apparently not well educated) during the report, she was quoting someone else and said "It's them changs, they here!" As a child, I remember having difficulty converting "changs" to "things". That is exactly why this report stuck with me and is the only reason I brought that fact up. Memory is a peculiar thing, to be sure.

In any event, I remember her also stating that they had "ray guns".

Eventually, I believe this lady's story was totally discredited, because it went no where and died quickly.

But, it does demonstrate that it was big news on the Gulf Coast at least, and it did bring about some sense of paranoia. I lived it.

I would love to see this case revisted by someone with some clout.

 

[Flatwoods]

I agree it would be a great topic for a show, even if Hickson and Parker themselves can't be booked. I'd enjoy hearing any authoritative voice speak about this case.

The 1980's was the decade when the abduction phenomenon really emerged into the paranormal scene, and many UFO enthusiasts promoted the "grey alien" abduction experience as the most typical and credible form of encounter. In the process, many other kinds of encounters which didn't fit the mold often got overlooked and forgotten. I like the idea of giving those reports a fresh look. We might learn something.

 

[mikec]

[From a toy store in the very hip part of New York's East Village]