Historical marker erected in Mississippi to commemorate alleged alien abduction

PASCAGOULA, Miss. - Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker of Pascagoula, Mississippi, claimed they were abducted by aliens and pulled on board a UFO to be examined on Oct. 11, 1973, and now a historical marker has been placed near the Pascagoula River to commemorate the alleged event.

The city of Pascagoula dedicated the marker on Saturday near the boat launches at Lighthouse park, according to a city release.

Hickson and Parker maintained the same story in the decades following the event, though Hickson was far more vocal than Parker, who tried to distance himself from the encounter for years. In 2018, Parker came forward with his full story when he published a book, called "Pascagoula -- The Closest Encounter, My Story," detailing that October night.

Both men say that they were fishing in the early evening from a dock on the Pascagoula River when a bright blue light appeared, reflecting on the water, which they then realized was an aircraft unlike any they'd ever seen.

"It was hard to tell with the lights so bright, but it looked like it was shaped like a football," Parker told the Clarion Ledger, "I would say, just estimating, (it was) about 80-foot. (It made) very little sound. It was just a hissing noise."

Parker says that three legless creatures, one with grey wrinkled skin and no neck, and one with a neck who appeared more feminine, floated off the ship and grabbed the men with crab-like claws. Though terrified at first, Parker said a calming feeling flooded over him, making him speculate that he had been drugged to be more compliant.

The men say that they were then taken aboard the aircraft and examined by the alien beings for about 30 minutes before being dropped back off on the bank of the river.

Twenty-nine years after the encounter, Hickson told the Clarion Ledger that he doesn't mind recounting the story because, "it's something I feel like people deserve to know if they ask."

He detailed how a machine like a giant eyeball examined him and Parker on board the aircraft that night, and that he believed whatever or whoever it was that abducted him never stopped keeping tabs on him. "Too many strange things have happened," he said.

Hickson believes the beings that he encountered were peaceful, and he claims that one encounter in 1974 involved telepathic communications. "They said, 'Tell people we mean you no harm," he said, "You have endured. You have been chosen. There is no need for fear. Your world needs help. We will help before it is too late. You are not prepared to understand. We will return again soon.'"

Several witness accounts corroborate Parker and Hickson's account of what happened that night, including one woman who claims to have seen one of the aliens -- just as Parker and Hickson described -- in the Pascagoula River on Oct. 11, 1973.

Hickson passed away in 2011 at the age of 80 having never stopped telling his story, and now the marker on the Pascagoula River ensures that his legacy will be preserved.