PASCAGOULA THE CLOSEST ENCOUNTER MY STORY CALVIN PARKER
Published by Flying Disk Press in 2018
Flying Disk Press 4 Saint Michaels Avenue Pontefract West Yorkshire England WF8 4QX
Copyright © 2018 by Calvin Parker. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means (electronics, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Cover design is copyright © Mark Randall.
DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this book to my old friend Charles E Hickson. On the night of 11thOctober, 1973, Charlie and I unknowingly stepped into a storm wrapped up in a hurricane. The events that unfolded that night would change our lives forever. From the first second of our close encounter Charlie’s thoughts were for me. He tried to protect me from that moment on. Charles Hickson, a veteran of the Korean War, was a hero in every sense of the word and one day I’ll join him and go fishing with him in heaven.
Charles Hickson was born on April 16, 1931 in Jones County, Mississippi, USA as Charles E. Hickson. He died on September 9, 2011 in Gautier, Mississippi.
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank everyone who has helped me put this book together. I apologise now if I have missed someone out. I’d like to thank Clas Svahn and Leif Astrand from the Archives for UFO Research (AFU) in Sweden for a whole batch of newspaper cuttings. Thanks also to Mark Rodeghier of the J.Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies for a copy of our transcripted interview at Keesler AFB. A big thank you to Peter Robbins for letting us know where the tape of my regression with Budd Hopkins was and an even bigger thank you to Dr. David Jacobs for supplying us with a copy of it. My publisher Philip Mantle deserves a special mention as without him and his patience we would never have got this book done. Thank you also to Mark Randall for the terrific cover artwork. Thank also to Jan Harzan, Executive Director of the Mutual UFO Network for supply me with the MUFON file on the Pascagoula case. Thanks also to Barry Greenwood and Paul Dean for supplying yet more official documents and newspaper cuttings. I must not forget Robert Snow and George Bishop for their marvellous proof reading. And last but not least a big thank you to my wife Waynett and my family and friends for not giving up on me and for encouraging me to go through with this. If it was not for them I could never have done this on my own
****** FOREWORD As a young man I’d always had an interest in all things ‘paranormal’. In the mid1970’s I had a little bit of an interest in UFOs but not much. Then, in 1978 here in the UK, the blockbuster movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind hit the big screen and my interest in UFOs went through the roof. In 1980 I joined a local UFO group in the UK called the Yorkshire UFO Society (YUFOS) and I never looked back. I have now been actively involved in UFO research and investigation for forty years.
During those forty years I’ve probably investigated just about every type of UFO case you can think of. I’ve also read hundreds of books and magazines and watched countless UFO documentaries and even taken part in a few as well. I’m often asked if there is one UFO case that sticks out for me as the ‘best’ or my ‘favourite’. I usually refer to one that I have personally investigated but there is one that I was not involved in that stands out for me for a whole variety of reasons. That one case is the incident at Pascagoula, Mississippi, that took place on October 11th, 1973 and involved Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker.
I first read about this close encounter case, or should I say alien abduction case, in a magazine before I read about it in book form in the 1980’s. It intrigued me then and intrigues me even more now. Why did it intrigue me so much? Well, to begin with there were two people involved. Most close encounter cases like this only involve one witness. It is rare, even today, that such cases have multiple participants/witnesses. Added to this are the beings reported by Hickson and Parker. As far as I’m aware they are totally unique. Along with that they reported their encounter within almost no time, first to Keesler Air Force Base then to their local Sheriff’s Department. They were interviewed at the local Sheriff’s Department just a couple of hours after the event and were even recorded on a ‘secret tape’. The day after they were also interview on site at Keesler Air Force Base. And if that was not enough, the world’s leading UFO researcher at the time, Dr J. Allan Hynek, was in Pascagoula within thirty six hours of the event taking place and confirmed at a press conference that the two witnesses, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker were telling the truth. There simply was no other case like it before or after. It is unique.
If we move away from what these two men recounted as seeing and look how this experience affected them, then this too is quite remarkable. The elder of the two was Charles Hickson who was forty two at the time. The other witness, Calvin Parker was just nineteen at the time. Hickson was a veteran of the Korean War where he had seen combat as part of the US Army. Parker was just a young country boy who had just begun to plan out his life and was looking forward to marrying his fiancé. Both men were scared at the time but Charles Hickson seemed to handle things better than his young friend Calvin Parker. I think it is fair to say that this experience had a profound effect on both witnesses.
Charles Hickson was very open about what had happened to him and he went on to speak on TV talk shows, UFO conventions and radio and TV interviews, while Calvin Parker was happy to stay out of it as much as he could and remain in the background. Now all that has changed.
Sadly Charles Hickson is now deceased but he told his side of the story in a variety of different ways including a book. But Calvin Parker, the younger of the two witnesses has rarely gone on the record to detail his side of the story. Well that has all changed and what is to follow in this book is exactly that, Calvin Parker’s side of the story. It is a story that at times is quite moving but also in other parts quite disturbing. It is, no matter what, quite an extraordinary and unique account of a first-hand close encounter experience. Calvin Parker not only details what he encountered that night in October, 1973, but how it has affected him and his loved ones down the years. And last but by no means least; Calvin Parker tells us why, after all these years, he has decided to tell us his side of the story now.
For me personally Calvin Parker’s account that follows confirms why I singled it out as something unique and why this case has stuck in my mind all these years. If I needed any confirmation of how unique this case is, which I don’t, it is how it has also become embedded in popular culture. Very few UFO cases have done that but this one has and even today you can buy a small model depicting the event.
It is as well a brave thing for Calvin Parker to do especially when you discover how the close encounter affected him. As a long standing UFO researcher it is a great pleasure and an honour to have assisted Calvin Parker with this book and to write the foreword for it. All I ask is that you keep an open mind and read what could be one of the closest encounters of all time.
Philip Mantle 2018.
****** CONTENTS Dedication
Acknowledgements Foreword
Introduction
Chapter one : Chapter two : Chapter three : Chapter four : Chapter five : Chapter six : Chapter seven : Chapter eight : Chapter nine : Chapter ten : Meeting Charles Hickson
The Closest Encounter – Pascagoula River, Thursday Oct.11, 1973 Charles Hickson’s story
Howard Blum’s Book
The secret tape
The Press, Dr Harder and Dr Hynek
Hypnosis
Interview at Keesler Air Force base
Afterma
th
Breakdown
Chapter eleven : Other witnesses ?
Chapter twelve : More encounters in 1993 and Budd Hopkins Chapter thirteen : Aftermath part two
Chapter fourteen : Where have I been
Chapter fifteen : My story
INTRODUCTION
Who is Calvin Parker ? When I first saw the world it was November 2, 1954 at 11:00am. My mother went into labor while visiting my grandparents in Hobbes, New Mexico and she was just 16 years of age. So they drove her to Seminole, Texas where I was born. It must have been a rough child birth. I’ve seen pictures of me as a baby, my face was swollen and my eyes were black. I looked like hell. Later on my mother told me they had to use forceps during the delivery. An interesting fact is that in those days it only cost $100.00 per child birth. My mother's name is Betty Lou Parker and her father was Ed. Lou Garrard her mother was Ruby Lee Garrard, (nee Ritchie). She was the youngest and an only girl and had three brothers. They lived in the Texas Pandhandle and I really never got to know my grandparents on her side of the family, we always lived way off from them.
Being as I was the first born they named me after my father so my name was Calvin Ray Parker Jr. I came in at 8lb 16oz. I thought that I was average size but my nick name was peewee which still stays with me to this very day. I didn’t know why until later when I found out that my dad didn’t weigh but 2lb and was born while my grandmother was picking cotton. After he was delivered she went back to work the same day which by all accounts was not unusual in those days. They were share croppers which meant they worked someone else’s land for part of the crops. My grandmother’s name on my father's side was Mary Ann Parker. My grandfather’s name was Thomas Copel Parker. I was really close to them and I probably stayed with them almost as much as I did at home.
My grandfather used to break horses in for a living. So when I was young we went to a lot of horse shows and won many first place trophy’s.They didn’t have a lot of money but I remember them taking me to Sears in Laurel Mississippi. Where we were living at the time and buying me a saddle and paying for it in cash. Just about every Sunday all the Parker family went to their house after church for lunch. It pretty much became a family tradition.
In 1956 my brother came along and I remember the day he was born. My parents named him Ricky Joe Parker I was very young so my uncle was looking after me. He was hungry so he took me across the road and bought me my first hamburger. What a day that was. My brother was born and I ate my first hamburger. Back to my brother. I thought he was the greatest thing in the world and I was so proud of him. We were really close and had a lot of fun together. He just recently passed away in 2017 and that took a lot out of me and I miss him so much. We use to go rabbit hunting and fishing together. He was always straight laced and by the book. I, on the other hand, was just the opposite of him. I remember me making him skip school at times and he didn’t like it but we would go swimming at the old rock quarry. He really never liked to do his chores around the house so I would do them for him. He was always really quiet so there were a few people who would try to bully him at school. I used to stick up for him and got in many fights over him as a result I was regularly in trouble at school. He had the brains I had the brawn. Speaking of school I always thought it was a waste of my time to be perfectly honest. I went to elementary school in Sandersville, Mississippi. That was the year JFK was assassinated and that’s all I remember about my time at that school. I do, however, remember high school. That was at West Jones in Laurel, Mississippi. The one thing that I remember was the first year it was open I never went to school with any black students. It was still segregated. They tried integration but Laurel was a heavy klan (Klu Klux Klan) town. Once the high school introduced integration there were a few problems to start with but it all worked out fine in the end. Like me, most people didn’t really care and were not racist at all. They just didn’t liked the government telling them what to do. When I was in the 11thgrade I took my last spanking at school so I quit and went to work in the oil fields. Enough was enough. I think it’s fair to say that my education wasn’t great but I have very few regrets.
As a child I would work in the garden and my brother and I would ride bicycles a lot all over the neighborhood but we never got into trouble of any kind expect I would skip school. School just wasn’t for me.
Much later on in my life I had two sisters come along. But because of the age difference I didn’t really grow up with them. We didn’t grow up together like I did with my brother although I love both of them a great deal. My first sister was named Michelle, we both love the outdoors and love to fish and still go fishing together today just to spend some time together. My other sister’s name is Caleene and the one thing that we have in common is our love for family.
Well it was now time to get married. I drove my wife’s school bus her name is Dorothy Waynett Parker everyone calls her Waynett I was just 16 years old when I started driving a bus. But that is where I met her and we dated until I was about to turn eighteen and we got married on November 9, 1973. I had already moved back too Laurel, Mississippi by this time from Pascagoula. In 1976 our daughter was born. Her name is Stacie Michel Parker I will always remember her being so little and we were working out of town and she loved ice, she always wanted to go to the ice machine and get ice. That was okay with us, she was our baby anything she wanted was fine. She was and is very smart she grew up worked in dental hygiene. She worked hard and did very well at her job and unsurprisingly she married a dentist. His name is Thomas Bailey he is the best son-in-law anyone could want for their daughter. We all love him very much and are lucky to have him in our family. My wife and I were married for seven years at which point we divorced. The pressure from the close encounter experience in 1973 was just too much for either one of us to deal with. I really would not talk about it and kept it bottled up inside and there was never no privacy in our marriage, everything I did was in the press. We had no private life and I would go to work and the press would just follow me. People were curious and wanted ask questions which I didn’t have a problem with. The average man in the street would ask me politely and that was fine, but some would say I gave them an interview and they would make up some wild story or something to make it seem worse than it was. I was then and still am now, fed up with those kind of people which is one of the reasons I am trying to write this book to get the real story out there. I trust very few people and I elaborate more on this later in this book. I stayed married to Waynette for 7 years then we got a divorce. Waynett and my daughter moved to Florida and she re-married. The guy she married tried to brain wash my daughter and that’s all I have to say about that. We were apart up until 1996 then my ex-wife and daughter moved back we re-married and are still together today and still fighting the same battle that broke us up to start with. She is the one that wanted me to write a book and get the true story out there. Our hope is that by doing this people will not be able to change the facts and put words into my mouth and say things about what happened that simply are not true. While we were separated I married again and had two more children. My heart broke when my son passed away. I am not going to say his name as I swore never to let it pass through my lips again. I know some reporter will stick his nose where it don’t belong and if they do I will deal with it then.
By this time I felt like I needed to get back to the coast. There was something about the coast I loved. So, in 1996 I moved back to the coast and it wasn’t long before my first wife and my daughter moved back and quite unexpectedly we re-married and remain so today. Finally I took a job with a construction company and the owner and I became good friends and are still friends today. I wanted to live on the Pascagoula River so I moved about two miles from where Charles Hickson and I had the close encounter back in 1973. It’s just something about this river that I love.
At long last I felt like I was getting close to getting my life back together again. Then in 2010 I had a stroke losing my ability to get around. Hell I can’t
even dress myself in the mornings so that stopped me from working. I started trying to rehabilitate myself to get back to work and back to some kind of normal life. Then in 2012 I had a heart attack. I had to have open heart surgery and while trying to get over the operation my chest opened up while taking a shower, so it was back to the hospital. It was here that the medical staff heard a noise coming from my heart, so they re-opened me and worked on my heart so I guess my chest re-opening saved my life. I was on a Wound VAC for a few months. Having to have a nurse come to the house twice a week to change the VAC bandages. That was hard on my family and me being sick. I couldn’t work and we had no income and I felt like my world had come to an end and it pretty much had.
Family and friends were the only things that got me through this. Family petty much has to stay with you but friends don’t have to but I have the best friends in the world and they were there for me and I just want to thank them for all of their support. My wife and daughter were with me some of the way. The best feeling in the world was when I was in recovery. I felt someone on each hand saying “dad” but I couldn’t speak because of the breathing tube but it sounded like two angels were there for me. The first time I was in surgery was for 18 hours and all my family and friends were there for my wife and daughter. The doctor. didn’t know if I would make it or not but I had the best care any one could have at the Singing River Hospital. I was in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) for 21 days. My friend Steve Jordan was there every day to see me even though he had his company to run he didn’t miss a day. I don’t know how my wife stood it, she was there all the time. I would try and convince her go home and take a break. I thought she did go home but she would just go to the waiting room leaving me thinking she was getting some rest but she was still there. After 21 days they let me go home. The same day I went home they had glued me together. I was at home taking a shower when the location in my chest where I had the surgery just burst open so back to the hospital I went. That was when the medical staff heard a noise coming from my heart so they re-broke my ribs and worked on my heart for another 10 hours. After that they couldn’t sew me up so I was on a Wound VAC for 6 weeks had to clean and change the bandage at least twice a week go to see the doctor at least once a week. I was on such strong antibiotic medication that I couldn’t eat or keep food down and lost 50 lbs in weight while trying to get well. But I made it through all of that and thankfully I’m still here today to tell the story. I thank all of the medical staff and my family for all they did for me during one of the darkest periods of my life.
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