Along with ghosts and serial killers, aliens might be our favourite things to fear. Sightings of a UFO or “torch” by Greek historian Diodorus Siculus indicate that we might have had visitors as early as 343 BC, long before the age of aviation.
Today, podcasters and YouTubers sustain extraterrestrials in pop culture — and not always in the most believable way. Stories from before the internet turned everybody into a sceptic still cause shivers, though.
Let’s uncover the 1973 Pascagoula Abduction, the tale of a fishing trip gone wrong.
Lights in the Sky
Fishing is one of the few activities that connects us to our ancient selves. Thanks to apps and games, it’s gained a reputation as a genuine hobby, the pressure to find something to eat for our cave-dwelling family lost to time – although it’s presented in as many ways as there are fish in the sea.
The Big Bass franchise from Pragmatic Play has 24 installments, including the Big Bass Day at the Races slot game and the spooky Big Bass Halloween. The former is one of the series’ titles that takes the fisherman around the world, with the customary fish (representing prize amounts) replaced by racers. Big Bass Halloween touches on the menace that can lurk around fishing spots, in dark and lonely places.
On our fishing trip, we’re heading to the Pascagoula River in Mississippi, between Mobile and Hattiesburg. It’s October, and two men named Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker Jr. settle on the west bank.
Their paranormal encounter begins much like any other UFO story, with lights in the sky. Hickson and Parker Jr. claim to have witnessed an oval-shaped ship with flashing blue lights. They then found themselves paralysed, facing a trio of strange beings.
“Mitten-shaped Claws”
It’s worth noting that the Pascagoula Abduction occurred in the middle of what would later be recognised as a UFO “flap” in the United States. For instance, the Barney and Betty Hill case in New Hampshire, arguably the most famous alien abduction story in history, had been reported a decade earlier, in 1961.
Travis Walton’s five-day-long vacation from Earth, a story that inspired the movie Fire in the Sky (1993), acted as a bookend to this particular period of American history. Walton’s abduction occurred in 1975, two years after the events of Pascagoula.
One of the scariest aspects of Parker and Hickson Jr’s encounter is the former’s description of their assailants, as “legless” with “mitten-shaped claws”, who approached from a landed craft. During their abduction, they would meet one-legged creatures who looked “inhuman”.
The Pascagoula Abduction and, indeed, Walton’s and Hills’ stories, all endured the same scrutiny from the press and the court of public opinion. Hickson declined a polygraph test, a standard practice in such encounters at the time, hurting his account of the fishing trip.
Nighttime Hallucination
The two men were eventually dropped back on the river bank after an examination by their captors. Calvin Parker told the full story in his book Pascagoula – The Closest Encounter in 2018, by which time Hickson had passed away.
Whether a fishing trip gone wrong or a nighttime hallucination, the Pascagoula Abduction remains one of the most haunting tales to come out of Mississippi last century.
