The Pascagoula Abduction with Philip Mantle Part 1

Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. For delicious meals, you could go out to eat or spend hours in the kitchen. Or you could just make a Marie Callender's meal. Yeah, you heard me. Marie Callender's Classic Chicken Parmigiana Bowl is delicious with scratch-made marinara sauce, creamy mozzarella cheese, and no preservatives. It's high in protein with 30 grams per serving. Marie Callender's. What having it all tastes like. Astonishing Legends Network. Astonishing Legends. We'd like to thank Squarespace, our contributors at Patreon.com, and you, our listeners, for making tonight's show possible. In October of 1973, the Vietnam War was winding down. The Watergate scandal dominated the headlines, and the world was grappling with a major energy crisis. But in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a simpler life for two friends was about to get a lot more complicated. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker worked together at F.B. Walker and Son's shipyard and decided to go fishing on a local pier after work. After hearing a strange zipping sound, they saw strange blue lights behind them. Then, a craft of some kind appeared, the men said they were paralyzed, levitated, and taken aboard the object by bizarre beings with elephant-like skin and pincers for hands. What occurred inside the craft is a matter of intense debate. Hickson and Parker reported being examined by beings with unusual physical characteristics, details that would become infamous and highly contested. Skepticism arose quickly. Some dismissed their account as a hoax, a publicity stunt, or a shared delusion. But here we are, decades later, still talking about it. Tonight, we begin a two-part exploration of the Pascagoula abduction. We'll examine the initial reports, the men involved, and the evidence presented. Photos, sketches, and audio recordings. We'll be joined by author Philip Mantle. It's his second time on Astonishing Legends, and he's the perfect guest for this series because he was close personal friends with Calvin Parker, who passed away in 2023. Mantle has written several books on this case and co-wrote the recent four-part Amazon Prime documentary series, Pascagoula 73. Mantle has called this the best documented case of its type on record. And once you hear how many previously unknown eyewitnesses there were, you may be inclined to agree. Welcome back to Astonishing Legends. I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess. They won't believe it. They gonna believe it one of these days. Might be too late. I knew all along there was people from other worlds up there. I knew all along. I never thought it would happen to me. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker on a hidden tape recorder running when they thought they were alone in a room at the Sheriff's Station in Pascagoula. Join us tonight for part one of our two-part series on the infamous legend of the Pascagoula abduction. And we're back. That we are, folks. And it's great to be back. Thank you so much for joining us again. We're working on some fun stuff for Patreon over the summer, so if you're not a supporter there yet, visit patreon.com slash astonishinglegends and sign up. Yes, and we're finally gonna do an AMA. And ask me anything, right? Is that what that lingo is? That's ask me anything, that's right. Very good. We can change it to an AMAA if you're nervous about it. That's ask me almost anything. Well, we'll see what the questions are like, all right? Okay. But we're pretty open. And patrons may also be invited to join us on camera to ask their questions live. Oh, I don't think I fully agreed to that yet. That's the almost part, yes. Well, I'm not sure you have to anyway, but yes, we'll see how it goes. All right. Well, folks, visit us again at patreon.com slash astonishinglegends if you haven't already. And thank you so much for listening, supporting the show, and our sponsors when you can. And it is very much appreciated. Yes. And we have a really great show for you tonight. We think it came out really well, and we're gonna get right into it. And we've been wanting to cover this one for a long time. You know, Scott and I always say, a lot of people we respect have done it so well that we're kind of a little trepidatious about covering the same thing and not being able to bring anything new to the table. So we're always trying to look for maybe a special angle or something new we can present that makes it a little bit different. Because, you know, in case in point here, a couple of our really good friends, Rob Christofferson and Bradley Netherton, had covered this on an episode of one of Rob's shows. Now, Rob's website is down. It seems, you know, the show's on a bit of a hiatus. But you can still find the episode, I believe, like I did on Apple Podcasts, and it's titled The Year of the Humanoids, Part 3. Part 1 and 2 are also excellent. The Pascagoula Abduction with Bradley Netherton. Yes. On Our Strange Skies, UFOs Throughout History. One of the special angles here is not only because they're both great friends of ours and Bradley is also a great podcaster in his own right, but he's from the region, you could say. And he sent us a picture of the site marker, the official site marker. There's a historical marker there, yes. Yes, and he visited that site and sent us pictures, proof that he was actually there. I don't think he saw anything oblong in the skies. Thank goodness. But yeah, it gave us a lot of great background on it. So check that out. Once again, that's Our Strange Skies with Rob Christofferson. And the title of the ep is The Year of the Humanoids, Part 3, The Pascagoula Abduction with Bradley Netherton. Well, the timing really did work out perfect for this because we were thinking about what we wanted to do next, and we wound up hearing from a guest who'd been on the show before, Philip Mantle. He came on for the Zygmunt Adamski case. We had a great time talking to him then. He's super knowledgeable, super experienced, with over 40 years in UFO research and investigation. He really knows his stuff. He started out with the Yorkshire UFO Society. He expanded his involvement to national and international organizations like Bufora and MUFON. And in 2015, he founded Flying Disc Press, driven by a passion to publish a variety of UFO books, including republications of out-of-print works. Yeah, he's one of the big names in the biz, as they say. And his journey led him to reinvestigate tonight's astonishing legend, the infamous 1973 Pascagoula alien abduction case, which involved Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. And after acquiring the rights to republish the book UFO Contact at Pascagoula, he sought out Calvin Parker to bring a fresh perspective to this extraordinary event. And we're very happy to have Philip Mantle back on Astonishing Legends. But before we have Philip join us, we're going to share the full version of what happened to Calvin and Charles, for folks who aren't familiar with it. It has been scored by our amazing composer, Alan Caressia. And once you hear it, you'll understand why it's such a fascinating case. On the night of October 11th, 1973, the coastal town of Pascagoula, Mississippi, became the epicenter of one of the most intriguing and well-documented UFO encounters in American history. For a little background, Pascagoula is well-known throughout the world for shipbuilding. Ingalls Shipbuilding was founded there in 1938 and is today part of Huntington Ingalls Industries, a publicly traded conglomerate formed in 2011 when the most recent owner, Northrop Grumman, spun it off into its own company. For the context of tonight's story, and for those of our listeners who like to make connections, when this event took place in 1973, multiple nuclear submarines were under construction at Ingalls, literally just across the Pascagoula River from where this happened. 42-year-old Charles Hickson and his 19-year-old co-worker Calvin Parker worked at F.B. Walker & Sons Shipyard, founded in 1899. They built towboats, tugs, barges, and fishing vessels there. They had just finished a long day's work and decided to go fishing that evening before going home. Calvin and Charles were from the same county, about 100 miles north of Pascagoula, so it made sense they were friends. Charles was a foreman at the shipyard and also a combat veteran of the Korean War. Given all of this, it made sense that he would look out for Calvin. That Thursday evening after work, Hickson and Parker had decided to do some fishing along the river at the old and abandoned Schopeter Shipyard. As they cast their lines into the river water from an old pier, it wasn't quite dark yet, and they hoped to maybe catch some croakers to eat. While they couldn't be sure about the time because neither of them wore a watch, somewhere between 8 and 9 p.m., the men heard a strange buzzing sound. Charles noticed it first. It was coming from behind them, over land. They turned around to see what it was and saw a flashing blue light. There was a large, oval-shaped object that descended. It is frequently misreported that the craft was over the water or the river, but it was not. It came down as though to land, but stopped, levitating a couple of feet off the ground. There was no landing gear or contact with the earth beneath it. In a state of shock and disbelief, Hickson and Parker watched as a door seemed to appear in the side of the craft. They described the opening as spontaneously appearing, without any associated mechanical movement. Then things escalated significantly when three strange beings emerged from the craft and floated toward them. These entities were unlike anything the men had ever seen. Later described as about 5 feet tall, the creatures had grayish, wrinkled skin, similar to an elephant. No necks, no eyes, and slits for mouths. Where one would expect to find ears, there were carrot-like protrusions. Their hands, devoid of thumbs, were described as mittens or crab claws, but about the size of a human hand. To make things stranger, their legs appeared to be connected or fused together. That didn't matter, however, because they didn't seem to need to walk, as, like the craft itself, they were able to levitate and move without touching the ground at all. Were they even organic? Or could they be robots of some kind? One of them appeared to be in charge of the other two. Paralyzed with fear, neither Hickson nor Parker could move or speak. They felt themselves being levitated and taken aboard the craft, held by two of the beings' pinchers under their arms. Inside, they were subjected to an examination by some sort of mechanical eye, roughly the shape of a football. Could it be a scanner of some kind? Parker said he passed out as soon as he was taken aboard and couldn't remember what happened inside. Hickson later recalled feeling like he was studied rather than physically probed or harmed. After what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only about 20 or 30 minutes, the men found themselves back on the pier. The craft had vanished, leaving them in a state of confusion and terror. Shaken to their core, they sat in Hickson's car for nearly 45 minutes, trying to process what had just happened and what, if anything, to do about it. Hickson took what would later become a famous sip of whiskey that he'd kept in the car to calm his nerves. He had seen combat before and had been exposed to extremely frightening situations in his life, but Calvin was one month shy of being 19 years old. He was in considerably more shock and having a hard time processing what had just happened. They felt they should report the incident, but feared ridicule. First, they went to the local paper, the Mississippi Press, where Charles banged on the door asking to speak to a reporter, but was told no one would be there until the morning. Then they called the local Air Force base from a payphone. It was just 20 miles west in Biloxi. The woman who answered the phone at the base said they had nothing to do with UFO reports and they should contact the police. So now on their third attempt to report this, they called the local sheriff's office. Upon arriving at the station, Sheriff Fred Diamond and Deputy Glenn Ryder listened to their fantastic tale with skepticism, but could tell the men seemed petrified. In one of the shrewdest UFO-UAP investigation methods future researchers could hope for, Sheriff Diamond left Hickson and Parker alone in a room with a hidden tape recorder. If the incident was a hoax, they thought the men might reveal it when they thought no one was listening. Instead, the recording, now known as the secret tape, captured two men in a state of shock. Here's a brief excerpt from that. Charlie said, I've never seen nothing like that before in my life. You can't make people believe. Calvin replied, I don't want to keep sitting here. I want to see a doctor. Charlie answered, they better wake up and start believing. They better start believing. Hickson and Parker returned to work the day after the encounter on Friday, October 12th, 1973. They did not initially discuss what happened to them, but co-workers noted that Parker seemed very anxious and preoccupied. Within hours, Sheriff Diamond telephoned the men at work, stating that news reporters were swarming his office, seeking more information. An angry Hickson accused Diamond of breaking his promise not to talk to the press, but Diamond insisted he had not and that the case was too sensational to keep quiet. Hickson's foreman overheard the conversation, and Hickson related his story to the foreman and the current shipyard owner, John Walker. The Pascagoula encounter spurred significant media attention, becoming national news. Hickson ultimately appeared on several TV talk shows, like Dick Cavett's, and both Hickson and Parker appeared on the Mike Douglas show. Parker generally avoided public attention, experiencing severe trauma that reportedly led to a nervous breakdown and hospitalization within weeks of the encounter. He later said it wasn't a nervous breakdown at all. He just needed to be somewhere where people would leave him alone. So he went to Laurel, Mississippi, back in Jones County where he was from. He checked himself into the community hospital there, but the press found out, and the nurses wouldn't stop asking him questions either. He became angered, and the doctor took pity on him, allowing him to be admitted for five days to rest and not be bothered. While Calvin had initially shunned the publicity and tried to put the event behind him, Charles Hickson embraced his role as a UFO contactee until his death in September 2011. He gave numerous interviews and even wrote a book about his experience. Parker, after years of silence, and with the help of tonight's guest, Philip Mantle, published two books on what happened, sharing details that had been kept secret for decades. The Pascagoula encounter remains one of the most credible and well-documented UFO cases in history. While skeptics have proposed various explanations from misidentified aircraft to shared hallucinations, no definitive conventional explanation has ever fully explained what happened to Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. All right, folks, now that you've heard what's happened to Calvin and Charles, we would like to welcome back to the show, Philip Mantle. He has been with us before. He is a very prolific author. He was on our episodes about Zygmunt Adamski, you might remember. If you haven't heard those, go back to our back catalog and look for him. That's another really fascinating case. But Philip has done a ton of work on the Pascagoula abduction. And even, as we said in our cold open, had a close personal relationship with Calvin. So, Philip, welcome back to Astonishing Legends. Please say hello to our audience. Yeah, good evening, gentlemen. Nice to meet you again, Scott Forrest. I'm pleased to be here. Well, we're glad to have you. And for folks that didn't hear you when you were on before, why don't you just give a little bit of background on yourself for our listeners so they know about your experience and how you came to be working on this particular case? Yeah, I mean, as a young man, I was interested in all things paranormal. I used to literally go to the spiritualist church with my best friend's grandmother. She lived up just literally over the road from us. And I was interested in astronomy and other things. And I read one astronomy book that had one chapter about UFOs in it, pretty much dismissing them. But it nonetheless sort of got me interested. As I got into my teens and left high school, there was a period I went to work in what was West Germany over the winter of 1978 into 79. And I couldn't speak a word of the language. So I phoned my mum and said, could you send me some books to read, mum? And God bless her, she sent me a box full of books all about UFOs. So I would sit there on a night after work and read them. And when I came home in 1979, I got a bit more information about them. I live in the north of England in a county called West Yorkshire. And one of the main cities is called Leeds. And I used to live just a few miles from Leeds. And it used to publish an evening newspaper. It still does. It's called the Yorkshire Evening Post. My aunt one day lived around the corner from us. She came around with the newspaper. And she pointed this little advertisement out. And it was for the formation of the Yorkshire UFO Society, coming that Sunday in Leeds. Now, in those days in the UK on a Sunday, everything used to close, you know, pretty much. But I got a bus. I didn't drive. I got a bus into Leeds. I found the building, one of the rooms in it. There's a bit of noise coming from it. And that was the formation of the Yorkshire UFO Society. My two brothers, Graham and Mark Bertsel. And I jumped in with both feet. And I've never looked back. And I've done all kinds of things since then. Was the area known for a lot of UAP activity and strange phenomena? Not at the time, no. I mean, I was very fortunate that as we rolled over into the 1980s, Yorkshire was originally one big county. But then they split it up into four. So it's north, south, east and west. In North Yorkshire, we have the Yorkshire Dales National Park, very beautiful part of the county. Some of the areas in and around the Yorkshire Dales, particularly around the market town of Skipton, for whatever reason, we started to get a lot of sightings coming our way. And it's semi-rural, you know, out on the moors there. And it's usually game birds or sheep. But the areas where these things were being reported was game birds, you know, pheasant, partridge, that kind of thing. We were fortunate that one of our members was a police sergeant who lived in that area. And that was East Patch as a police officer. So things found their way to him as well. And we were just kept very, very busy. And throughout the 1980s, we were up and running and away we went. You also got involved in MUFON as well, didn't you? Yeah, I mean, I stayed with the Yorkshire UFO Society, I think for about seven or eight years. And then I joined a national organisation, which is the British UFO Research Association. I became their press officer, conference organiser, and eventually the director of investigations. And Bufour had a strong link with MUFON. And at the time, their director was Walter Andrus. And I met him several times. He came to speak at some of our conferences. And he asked me to be the MUFON representative for England, which I did. I was very grateful. And we were talking beforehand, Scott. I made my one and only trip to North Carolina to speak at the MUFON Symposium in Greensboro in 1996. And it was great. Where I'm sitting right now. That's pretty amazing. That's quite a coincidence. Well, how did you get involved in the Pascagoula case? Good question. I mean, I'd written a number of books down the years with sort of conventional publishers. And in 2015, a friend of mine, I've been a magazine editor as well, but I had a friend in Poland called Peter. Peter Cielebius. And he emailed me a manuscript that he'd written. Now, he didn't necessarily want to be publishing. He wanted me to check his English for him. You know, he could speak English very well, but it was his written English, you know, it wasn't that great at times. So I read it for him and I gave him some feedback. And I thought, you know, this will make a hell of a book. So a friend of mine by the name of John Hansen is a retired police detective. John already had his own publishing concern up and running called Haunted Skies. He ran me through how you could publish these things yourself. The technology was now available. You didn't have to go knocking on the high street publisher anymore. So I set up Flying Dispress. And the first book I published was UFOs over Poland. Why Peter? Much to our surprise, it was a success, even though I made a lot of mistakes because I jumped in, as I normally do, with both feet. And away we went. So, you know, a few years later, I thought back to the Pascagoula case. So I first read about it in a magazine in the 1980s, and it always kind of stuck in my mind, you know. And I wanted to try and find a copy of the book that Charles Hickson wrote with William Mendes in 1983. It was called UFO Contact of Pascagoula. And you could get a copy, but there weren't many. And they cost an absolute fortune. But nonetheless, I bought one, and I read it. And I thought, I'd love to republish this. So I found out who owned the copyright. We came to an agreement. I didn't have a file to work from. I literally had to have the book in front of me and re-type it. Oh, my gosh. That's why there's so many typos in it, you know. I've got huge great hands, guys. They're not meant for typing. And I thought at the time, I know Charlie Hickson had passed away in 2011, and the last bit of info I could find about Calvin was 2013. He did an interview for the anniversary. I was like, well, I think he may still be alive. So I started putting the feelers out. And eventually, you know, a few months later, I was given an email that worked. Calvin replied. He gave me his phone number. And I just wanted an interview, guys. I didn't think about anything else. I thought, if I can get an interview, put it in the back of Charlie's book, bring it up to date a little bit. And Calvin was very nice, but clearly wasn't telling me anything and wasn't going to give me an interview. So I asked him why. I said, OK, but why? He said, well, every time I've given an interview to a journalist, they change things. I said, well, I'm not a journalist. I never pretended to be. I said, well, there is a way around that, Calvin. And he said, what? I said, well, you write it yourself. You write a book, and I'll publish it. And I sent him a contract, unbeknown to me, a few weeks before I first spoke to him. He'd been to a friend's funeral. Coming out of, I don't know if it was the funeral home or the church or whatever, but he signed the book of condolence, Calvin Parker. And that was behind him and giving him the old wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And he thought that was, first and foremost, very disrespectful. Sure. So his wife, Waynette, who had been his fiance way back in 1973, said to him, you know, why don't you write your own book? So once she heard about my offer, Calvin was caught in like a pincer movement. But what I did, I said, look, I will not publish anything without you giving it the thumbs up. Right. As simple as that. Yeah. And he agreed. He even wouldn't let me change the spelling mistakes. Nothing. Because he wanted people to get to know who he was. Right. His background. Right. His life. Not just what happened to him in 1973. So we agreed. And we called it Pascagoula, The Closest Encounter. My Story by Calvin Parker. And I published it in 1981. And again, much to our amazement, it's so like hotcakes. And that's how I got to know Calvin. Okay. So that was quite some time back. How long did you maintain a relationship or a friendship with him? I maintained my relationship, my friendship with Calvin right up until he died. I literally spoke to him, I think it was three days before he died. I spoke to him on the phone. And we still laughed. We still joked. He had a terrific sense of humor. We knew his days were numbered. And I said to him, you're not allowed to die. He says, why? I said, because your wife hasn't given you permission yet. You know? And he laughed. And, you know, sadly, three days later, he was gone. But I'm just thankful that I got to know him like I did. We used to speak every week on Skype. And then in between times, there would be emails going backwards and forwards. And Calvin didn't have a great sleep pattern. So he would be up at four o'clock in the morning. And I'd get the time difference here. I'd get a buzz on the Skype. And I knew it was him. I didn't have to look. I knew by the time, that's Calvin. He's just got up, you know. But yeah, a great guy. Whether you're just starting out like we were when we launched Astonishing Legends in 2014 or scaling your business like we've done since then and are continuing to do now, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website or websites, in our case, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. Yeah. Our network has launched four additional shows since we started with Squarespace. and building websites for them has been a piece of cake thanks to the power of Squarespace's tools, like Blueprint AI, which helps you craft a fully custom site in no time. And with Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, building your own website is not only possible but fun. There are loads of professionally designed template options to choose from, so even if you're not a natural-born designer, you can still create something that looks phenomenal. And the drag-and-drop editor makes it so easy to adjust things until they are just so. It's the ultimate way to showcase your portfolio, services, webinars, products, or even build a personal website. That's right. You can manage appointments and even send branded professional invoices. There's really nothing you're going to want to do that you can't do with Squarespace right out of the box. And if you're worried about getting found online, Squarespace has built-in SEO tools to optimize your site. You can be discovered by the people who are looking for exactly what you offer. And if you want to grow your audience, you can integrate email campaigns seamlessly to keep your followers in the loop. It's time to take that leap and build your dream website. Head over to squarespace.com slash legends for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code LEGENDS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash legends for your free trial. And don't forget that offer code LEGENDS to save 10%. Go on. Start creating. Ever noticed that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 247.org. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They go perfectly with music, podcasts, and welcome back to the show. Even nature sounds. Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you. Hello. Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to. I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it. Reese's. Ashley, go back to the nature sounds. Nice. Yeah, it's really nice. I'm Amanda Snyder, and you're listening to Astonishing Legends with Scott Philbrick and Forrest Burgess. Now, back to the show. Forrest and I have talked about this before, but I think one of the great things that we think, in terms of especially this genre and the arena that we're in, is that getting in touch with original witnesses and developing relationships with them and recording their stories is really, really important because they're not going to be around forever, and neither are we, but it's like getting it down is important because there's so many great stories that that was never done or research is lost or whatever, those kinds of things. So that's a really, really cool thing that you did, and our hats are off to you for that. Yeah, well, it's like when we agreed to do the book, one of the things I said to Calvin was, do you have any documents, photographs, newspaper cuttings? He said, no. I lost them all in Hurricane Katrina. Right. His house was about 60 yards from the river. Yeah, you said it took 10 feet of water? 10 or 12 feet of water. Everything was gone. So one of my jobs was to start from the beginning looking for documentation, looking for photographs, looking for newspaper cuttings, anything basically. And in a roundabout way, it probably was the best thing that could happen because I politely pestered the living daylights out of everybody I could think of. And this is something I do today. And of course, most of those people knew me and they said, yeah, Philip, I've got this or I've got that. Or no, I don't have anything, but speak to so-and-so. I think he may have. But had Calvin had some bits and pieces, we might have been satisfied with that. But because he had nothing, the word went out. And as the more we found, it would lead us to other people saying, oh, have you got any of this? And it never stopped. Me and Calvin, especially during the COVID lockdown, the information was still coming in and we kept shaking our heads, thinking what's going to happen next. In a lot of ways, that's how this became one of, as you say, and I would think we would agree, especially reading the book, the latest book, it's become one of the best documented cases out there. Well, I think it is the best document. I'm not being big headed. The other two that were probably the best well-known are Betty and Barney Hill and Travis Walter. Sure. Neither of which had any independent witnesses. No documentation. They weren't knocking on the police office door within a couple of hours. They weren't being interviewed with. Betty and Barney Hill didn't say anything, really, until they were hypnotized some years later. Right, right. And if you think about the Travis Walton story, there's not a lot to it. You know, I don't mean in realms of believability. I mean in content. There's Travis's account and then his few mates who said, we saw this happen. Pretty much that's it afterwards. It's, you know. But with Charlie and Calvin, they were on the phone to Keesler Air Force Base within a couple of hours of this happening, getting turned away. They were then on the telephone to the police department and the sheriff's department and being interviewed there within a couple of hours. It's unheard of. Right. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the, I guess, the event itself and the aftermath of it. When you first got to know Calvin, did he wind up telling it to you, orally to you, when you first met him? The thing with Calvin was, he would tell you in his own sweet time. For example, Calvin lost his son some years back. He had a son that died. And it took him, I don't know, two, three years before he would tell me the story behind it. And you just got to know that, no matter what you said, no matter how you try to persuade him, if he didn't want to tell you, he wouldn't. He'd tell you in his own good time. And it was the same with parts of this. Parts of his age still scared the bejesus out of him. There were parts of which he was embarrassed about. Because Calvin was a tough guy. He wasn't a trouble causer, but he told me, he said, I had my brother Ricky. He was the brains and I was the brawn. If anybody messed with Ricky at high school, he had me to deal with. Right. You know? And I believe it. He told me a few stories that, surrounding that kind of side of him, I mean, because he lives in the South, there's a lot of Native Americans, a lot of black people live there. And he found out in the woods one day, two white guys beating up a black fella. So Calvin says, excuse me, and he beat the living daylights out of these two white guys. Oh, wow. You know? Yeah. Don't you dare, you know, how dare you do that? You know? Yeah. And that was the kind of man he was. And I don't think he started a lot of fights, but I think he finished a few. And there was a period in his life, he was a bounty hunter. Oh, wow. He did that. He did that for two years. He told me this story. He went to get this guy one night and he says, I took my baseball back with me. It's a big mistake, Philippe, he says, because he took it off me and hit me with it. And he said, after that, I always took my gun. They don't argue with the gun, you know? And it was just funny, you know? So I got to know Calvin and he would tell me slowly, but surely when he was ready. Yeah. We talked about other things, not just about what happened and about the information we were collecting. We talked about his family. He has a daughter. We talked about his love of fishing. I mean, I can't stand it. I find it the most boring thing on earth, but it would still tell me stories about fishing, you know? And he had a great sense of humor. I mean, one of the local charities, they used to go down the river every year and clean all the trash out of it. And you volunteered to do it. And he said, I'm giving away a prize this year for anybody who volunteers. Whoever wins gets to come fishing with me on the river one night. That's awesome. So he had a great sense of humor. Like I said, we were smiling and laughing just a few days before he died. Yeah. But he would tell you when he, when he was ready. Why don't we talk about, you know, the event and the immediate aftermath. Like you said, you know, he went to the newspaper or Charles did. They didn't take him seriously. They said, well, the reporters will be here in the morning. If I understand that correctly. There's two stories of that. That's the story of from one of the TV shows at the time where they interviewed two of the cleaners that were in there. Oh, interesting. But Calvin says, I didn't know Charlie had said anything about the reporters. He said what he was trying to find out was what time it was. And he thought there was a big clock on the wall in the newspaper office because neither of them were watchers. And they were literally pulling into where the, the sheriff's department was. And it suddenly dawned on them. They didn't know what time it was. Okay. You know, they had no idea how long had passed or anything like that. So it looked like Charlie may have also thought, oh yeah, if there's a reporter here, I'll tell him as well. Right. But throughout, they always said, we want to tell our story to the correct authorities. Right. And to them, that was the military or the government or the FBI or, whoever the hell looks into these things. Right. They didn't know who it was. And they also from right, the get go said, we'll take a polygraph. So they ended up at the, the sheriff's department with Sheriff Fred Diamond. What is interesting, the sheriff is no longer with us, but we have some vintage footage of him and some audio recordings of him. But his son is still alive. And his son was the police dispatcher on duty that night. And it was him who took the call from Charles Hickson. Was that Mike? Was his name Mike? Yeah, that's Mick, Mick Diamond. So we got in touch with Mick and he gave us a statement. And he said, he had at least 50 calls that night of people reporting UFOs. Right. And they were all entered in the logbook. And he said, when he went back to the station after his shift, there was people there in person reporting it. And of course the logbook's long since gone, because the same thing happened with the police and sheriff's department, happened with Kelvin. Was the hurricane, I think it took half the wall down or whatever, records were lost. But nonetheless, Mr. Diamond is still alive today. And he told us a couple of times, you know, about him taking that call from Charlie and what happened that night. So he was the one that took the call. So then they come over to the station. It's the sheriff and deputy writer. They take them in. Now with the tape recording, tell our audience a little bit about, I mean, we'll share parts of this, of the transcript. What happened with, in terms of the tape, they recorded the actual interview, right? But then how did they do, was the secret recording was a separate tape deck or did they not know they were being recorded from the job? They didn't know. I mean, first of all, they were both interviewed separately. Okay. We have, as I've passed on to you, Charlie Hickson's audio, speaking to the deputy and the sheriff. Yes. Then they put them in a room together. And the deputy said, I'm just going to get some coffee guys, you know, and there was a table there and he went into the drawer and he rummaged around and they had no idea what he was doing. And off he went. And unbeknownst to them, he'd actually set a tape recorder around him. And they left them both to chat thinking, I will have them now. You know, we'll have this tape and they'll be laughing and joking. A couple of rednecks, you know, having a bit of fun on a Thursday night. So they went back in, retrieved the recording. Again, Charlie and Calvin had no idea what they're doing. They played it back. And of course they weren't laughing and joking. They were, I mean, Calvin is literally crawling up the wall. Yeah. And he said, I need to get out of it. I need to get something for my nerves. Yeah. You know, Charlie is saying they'll have to believe us. God damn, they'll have to believe us now. And it was that tape recording that persuaded the sheriff and the deputy that these two guys were on the level. Because they didn't ask for anything. They didn't want anything. They just wanted to tell their story. And they asked the sheriff, please don't tell anybody. We're going to go home. Calvin was actually lodging with Charlie. It was his first day working in the shipyard. And Calvin had sent a human again. He says, I got hired, fired and abducted all in the same day. You know, because he was getting married. He actually lived in Laurel, Mississippi, which I think is about 200 miles away. I may be wrong, but I know it's a long way. it's about a hundred. I did look that up. It's about a hundred more. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea was he would lodge with Charlie Monday to Friday, go home on a weekend. Okay. And then once they got married, because he was getting married the following month. Right. He was already engaged, right? Yeah. So then they would look at if the job was okay. They'd look to settle in that area. And of course that didn't happen. Uh, not for a long, long time. Did he get fired? Well, they were given two weeks leave and they never asked him back. Really? I didn't know that. Okay. I didn't see that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. He never worked in the, he worked one day in the shipyard. Charlie. Fired and abducted. I had fired and abducted in the same day. Cause he was a welder. Sure. And it was used to hard work. He wasn't bothered about it. I mean, he enjoyed the physical side of the work. And of course, on their way home, Calvin was driving a brand new Rambler Hornet. Yeah. Now I have been an Englishman. I had no idea what that looked like to find one. I saw a picture in your book. Yeah. Yeah. But it was, it was bright yellow. So I used to pull Calvin's leg that he must look like Bobby Dazzler driving this bright yellow car, you know, this tough guy in his bright yellow car. He used to laugh. Right. But of course it was brand new. Yeah. Brand spanking new. So after the encounter, when they made their way back to the car, first and foremost, the driver's side window was shattered. So when Charlie opened it, all the glass just fell out. And then Calvin said, when I tried to start it, he says, it must've taken me 20 or more attempts to crank it, to get it going, which had never happened to before. It was brand new. Right. Right. And whether that's related to what happened to them or not, I don't know, but it's just part of the story. There was some suggestion. I can't remember if you made it, or it was an observation somebody else made, but it was from your book that because Charles was a combat veteran of the Korean war, that he was more used to particularly traumatic and stressful life-changing events. And poor Calvin was one month shy of 19, never could have possibly even imagined anything. Absolutely. But when you read Charlie's book, UFO Counter to Pascal Gould, he tells you that part of the story. And he remembered being under fire in Korea. And he thought, well, you know, we've had it. But his captain said to him, stay calm. An opportunity will arise and we will get out of here. And of course it did. And they're out of the way. So we use that same mentality, if you like, when he was on board this object, this UFO. Sure. He thought they're going to kill me. It was, I mean, he was scared witless. So it came to him, if you're going to kill me, get on with it now. Don't, you know, don't talk to me. Then he thought back to his time in Korea and he thought, hang on, I'll get out of this. I'll find a way. So he used that in that situation. Whereas Calvin was 18, almost 19, had no experience like that. You know, just an honest, hardworking guy from, from Mississippi. Had no experience to fall back on. And they were both scared. Let's not ignore that. They were both scared, but out of the two of them. And that's one of the things that convinced the law enforcement was how scared both guys were, but especially Calvin, you know, he was a big guy, a muscly guy, but he was frightened out of his wits. He really was. And there was a quote in one of the newspapers from, I think it was from Glenn Ryder. And he said, if these guys are acting, they ought to be in Hollywood. Right. Right. Simple as that. And that's very convincing. So the suggestion was that Calvin was, well, you know, I passed out when I went inside. And I think that you were saying or suggesting that this was kind of Charles' idea to protect Calvin from the press and having to recount things. I mean, immediately after the event happened and this thing was gone. Right. They're both still on the pier and they had quite a lengthy conversation between each other, even though they were scared. Right. And they came to the conclusion, we're not going to tell anybody. The whole thing were bonkers. Right. You have to remember Calvin was getting married in November and his wife was only 16. He was only 18. And he thought, if my father-in-law finds out about this, there's no way he's going to let me marry his daughter. That was one of the things that was on his mind amongst a whole host of things. Right. So when they got in the car and got it started to set off, their intent was to drive back to Charlie's and not tell us so. But Charlie, he was the one that said, no, we've got to tell somebody. What if these things come back and do this to somebody else? With his military, he thought, what about if this is an invasion? So Calvin agreed, but on the note that I'm not going to tell anybody what happened to me. And they, they work this out between. I'll just say, I passed out. I'll leave you to tell the story. Because Charlie's story was a little bit different to Calvin's, but not hugely different. So they agreed on that. So Calvin would admit to seeing this thing, seeing the creatures come out and they get hold of him. And then he passes out. And then the next thing he remembers is back, he's back on the pier and they've gone. And that was the agreement they came to. And he stuck to that for a long time. So my question then is in the transcript of the secret tape, Calvin mentions that he did pass out and he said he's never passed out before. So if that was a fabrication, the passing out, why is he saying that in the secret tape? That's a good question. It's, it's, it's a one of the questions I don't have an answer for, but I know there was a part where Calvin thought he was going to die. Yeah. And whether he's used a different phrase, phraseology for it, I don't know, but it's, it's not something I can, I can say, but what I will say is that just two days later, when James Harder, Dr. James Harder and Dr. Hynek arrived, he told them the full story or certainly Hynek, the full story, I beg your pardon. So right from day one, Dr. Hynek knew the full story and that this passing out thing was, was a ruse. That's, this is pre-hypnosis. Well, they tried to hypnotize him on October the 13th. And I've got a recording of that. It's pretty poor, but I've got a transcript of it. And I think in total, it lasts about 11 minutes. I'm pretty much all Calvin can say is I'm scared. Right. He's freaking out. Yeah. So they, they said, forget it. They tried to hypnotize Charlie Hickson, but I had no success. But Charlie had remembered a lot of it without hypnosis, right? Yeah. He remembered, he remembered it all. Yeah. Absolutely. Every word of it. So that's, that's unusual in an abduction. Like it seems like a lot of times people's memories are wiped or there, there's a screen memory or something else. As they say, it's pretty interesting that Charles remembered so much, isn't it? It is. And one of the things I asked Calvin about hypnosis, I said, Calvin, did hypnosis help you remember things? He said, no, I could remember it all anyway. This is what it did. It's just sharpened a few things up. And there's one example of that. And it's a story Calvin told me, and I cannot verify it, but I will tell you anyway. Now, when they were driving up to the fishing spot that night, they'd passed another car. It was already parked. There was a young couple in it doing what young couples do. Now, Calvin could remember the make, the model of the car. Also, and this got me because I don't, I didn't know what it was. He said it had a tag on it. I had no idea what a tag is on an American number plate because we don't have them in the UK. And of course it's the state that it comes from. And you all that, but it couldn't remember the license plate. Now we jumped forward to 1993 when he goes to meet Bud Hopkins. It's a long story how we got there, but just bear with me. Bud puts his number under hypnosis and guess what he remembers? It's the license plate number. Oh, wow. So Calvin said to me, what he did is that he hired a private detective to find the people who owned that car, that license plate back in October, 1973. he says, they found them. The gentleman had died, but the lady involved was living in a nursing home. And Calvin went to the nursing home and asked if he could talk to her. And she said, yes, but you mustn't tell anybody who I am or where I am. And she claimed that she saw what happened that night as they were driving away. Wow. But you know, I can't prove that I did. I'm not spoken to that lady. I don't know her name, but that's what he meant by the hypnosis, emphasize and sharpened up a couple of little things. Now the last hypnosis he had was in 2022. It's something I, I had him do when we filmed it. And I asked the hypnotherapist to ask him a question. I said, have Calvin standing there on the pier, looking out across the water. Nothing's happened. He's got his fishing bow. What does he see in front of him? So he just describes the river. There's a boat, which he told me before. It's a NOAA boat. N O A A. That's the name of the company. The toll bridge, this side, there's the railway bridge over here. There's some ships building over here. And right at the end, if you don't listen carefully, you'll miss it. He says, there's two figures on the other bank. Is that Mr. And Mrs. Blair? All right. They claim to be on the other side of the river that night and have their own it. Or is it somebody else? I don't know, but I didn't ask him that specifically. I just said, just tell me what you see in front of you. Well, just quickly, the NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. They're responsible for weather information here in the U S and they have a base, which I don't know if it was there then, but I can tell you on Google earth, it's right up the river. So that would make sense that there would be. There you go. So that's just one of those little things. Have you not been listening to that, either the video or the audio that we have of it? Right. You would have missed that. And again, what we've done with all the books we've written about this, we just allow the reader to draw their own conclusion. This is what we found. This is what was said. You'll decide for yourself. I'm not going to tell you what's happened, but they're just interesting. I'm nonetheless. Ever noticed that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places like sudden nausea at 9 PM. When you're out of town, really now fortunately with Hartford health care is HHC 24 seven app. You can get answers, diagnosis prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 24 seven, dot org Reese's peanut butter cups. They go perfectly with music podcasts. And welcome back to the show. Even nature sounds. Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you. Hello. Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to. I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it. Reese's actually go back to the nature sounds. Nice. Yeah, it's really nice. This is Brock Randolph. Thank you for listening to astonishing legends. Now let's get back to the show. Something I'd like for you to confirm for us. If you can is talking about going under hypnosis, something I came across in an article from the Clarion ledger newspaper there in Mississippi, an article by Billy Watkins talking to Charles Hickson was something that he claimed to have recalled under hypnosis, that it was pretty consistent overall, all the sessions and the details, which is also something that is, is contested. But one thing that he came up with in the article was first of all, that he became friends with J. Alan Hynek from Northwestern University. And it was Hynek who convinced him to undergo these hypnosis sessions for regression. And one, is that, is that true? Well, he was certainly friendly with him. So at least they, they knew each other. And the other thing was that he said, well, it was, it was all pretty much the same thing, but I'll quote from the article quote, but under deep hypnosis once I discovered something that still gives me chills. Hickson says there were people on that spaceship, living beings in another compartment. They never came in there where we were. And I'm telling you, they looked almost like us. And then the last thing he says in relation to that, the only thing I can figure is that they couldn't live in our atmosphere. So they let the robots come out there and carry us inside. So he's describing something that sounds like that sounds humanoid. And what's interesting is the wording. If you think about what Calvin later went to reveal, when their initial encounter happened, they were both taken through the opening. Charlie went to the right. Calvin went to the left, down a corridor and through a door. And he was placed on a clear table. And the big ugly creature, as he called it, stood to one side. And this thing came out of the ceiling and went around. And then he said, he heard this noise behind him and he knew there was somebody else there. And it was a female. And she looked pretty much human. Although he did say he thought she had a mask on. The only real difference was the long, thin fingers in the middle, but she looked pretty much human. And she cropped up again in later encounters. So she was certainly human. But initially, Charlie never said any of that. I think that could well be an artifact of hypnosis. We'll never know because we never got the chance to interview him. All I can tell you is what Calvin said. I asked him specifically about hypnosis. Was it of any use to you, Calvin? And he said, not really, no. Simply because I remembered it all anyway. But it just did clarify one or two things for him. That was it. So again, you have to make of it what you will. Interesting. But I know for a fact that they were in touch regularly with Dr. Hynek because now we have Dr. Hynek's son, Paul, in the field. And he became friends with Calvin. And they used to swap jokes, calling one a Yankee and one a Redneck and, you know, all the other things, laughing and joking. And Calvin retells a story when he phoned Dr. Hynek. And it was actually Paul, his son, who answered the phone. And what they used to do, they used to have a blackboard next to the phone and they would write messages on the blackboard. And he said, you know, my father's not in. He said, Calvin said, I know he's in. Go tell him it's Calvin calling. So yes, they did have a good relationship with Hynek. And of course, not this book, but one of the previous ones, a gentleman in Canada came across an old recording. I think it was from 1976 of Hynek lecturing at a high school or a college. And when they had the tape of it, and one of the things that was raised in that conversation was the Pascagoula case. And he was giving it the thumbs up, so to speak, because some people had said, oh, Hynek later distanced himself from it. Well, I can't find any evidence of that. So Calvin asked Paul, you know, and he said, no, my father thought it was a really serious case, especially when he heard the secret tape for the first time. And he said he would do now with all the extra witnesses that has come forward. So Hynek never distanced himself from it, never walked away. And one of the things I'd love to know, we know Hynek worked with Spielberg on the movie Close Encounters. Not that long after this happened, gents, you know, I would love to know if he ever mentioned it to Steven Spielberg. Because there is an abduction scene in it. It's nothing like Charlie and Calvin's, but there is a, there's the abduction of the little lad, the little boy. I just wondered if he ever talked to him about it. I don't know. Are you familiar with the Betts Spear case? I've heard of it, but not in any great detail. So we did a multi-part series on that a while back. And, you know, it's about this family in Florida that found a metallic sphere on some property they had after a fire had been reported out there. They brought it home and it appeared to be sentient. It was doing strange things. It would roll to the edge of a coffee table, but then not roll off of it. It would make different sounds. Fascinating series. Before that series, we actually managed to track down one of the children from the family and she came on the show. That was just really a year after this, maybe two. And Hynek and Harder were both involved. And she at the time was 10 years old and continued to know them and to be friends with both of them. And it's interesting having that perspective. It would have been not too long after this. One of the things that she said was that during the time that they were both at her family's house, you know, dealing with investigating this thing and everything, was that she trusted Harder more than Hynek and that he sometimes see incredulous about Hynek and, you know, just about the government and having more. She felt like Harder had more of her family's personal welfare and interests at heart or whatever, which I thought was fascinating. Maybe Hynek looked at it more from a scientific point of view rather than a personal point of view. We'll never know, of course. And of course, people will, and people still do today. I've seen it. They question, you know, Hynek's involvement. Was he still working for the U.S. government and all this kind of, with no evidence to suggest that whatsoever. Right, right. But that's another intriguing part about this whole case, gents, is that, so this was 1973 when this happened. If you communicated in those days, how did you do it? So either on the telephone or in writing, usually, that was pretty much it. But there is a gross lack of any paperwork from Harder or Hynek or anybody else for that matter. I've got bits and pieces. I mean, Charlie Hickson had tons of it, but we can't find, we got some, we found, we did find some, but that was from the later years. But at the time, Charlie had tons of it. So where did all the paperwork go? Surely Hynek, you know, and Harder corresponded or wrote a feature about it or wrote a file or report. I don't know. Maybe it's still out there waiting for me and, and Dr. Scott to find. Wouldn't that be nice? And maybe somebody listening to this tonight will know where it is and give us a call. Who knows? Well, I mean, you've, you've found a lot already. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of it made its way to you. Why don't we talk a little bit about what happened on the ship and what they went through on the ship? So in terms of experimentation and probing, it seemed like for Charles, it was in his memory anyway, it was pretty non-invasive. Yeah. I mean, what Charlie said was he was suspended in this room, not lying on a table. He was suspended. He didn't know where the creatures had gone because two of them got hold of him. And this is this, when these two creatures got hold of Charlie outside, they got him by the forearm and he felt a scratch or something on his forearm. You should remember that. So he's taken on into this thing, he's suspended. And the only thing that he could really recount is this thing came out of the wall, about the size of a baseball. He described it as like an eyeball, but went round his body a couple of times and then went back in again. And then he was taken back. So not a great deal in that respect. Calvin, on the other hand, he was said he laid on this table. And I'm going to mention this as well. What is interesting is that he was laying on this table at an angle, yet he couldn't feel it underneath him. Now, just some, again, something that's probably not related. I, I had trouble sleeping. So I went to see a hypnotherapist. And on the fourth session I had with this hypnotherapist, he put me on the hypnosis and I'm lying in a big leather chair. It's all electronic. So you could move it until you were perfectly comfortable. Gentlemen, I could not feel that chair underneath me. Okay. And when Calvin told me that story, I remembered that immediately. It sounded pretty much the same. Whether there's any significance to it or probably not, but I just thought I would mention it. So Calvin said, this thing came out of the ceiling about the size of a deck of cards. And he said, there were no wires, no attachment. He couldn't see where it came from. Cause he said the light was so bright. He says that the light came out of the paintwork. He didn't mean paint. I mean, he meant the walls. This circled around him and it made a clicking noise. When he took ill, it reminded him, and we talked about this, it reminded him having an MRI. But you put in this thing and there's all these noises going on around you. And he also remembered that it had what looked like a letter M underneath it. And then off it went back. And then he heard this noise behind him and this female came out. And he, you know, Ken Calvin's sense of humor. I said, what did she look like? He said, well, if you saw her in a bar, you'd buy her a drink. So he said, again, her hair was a different color. And he said, the light changed the color on her hair. Her hair didn't change color. The light made it look a different color. And he got this message in his head that we're not going to hurt you. Or worse to that effect. But she had these long, thin fingers. She put fingers on his, on his chin there and pulled his mouth open. Put this thing in his mouth and up into his nasal cavity, which made him choke. So that was stopped. And he wasn't happy. Then they removed his lower clothing. And he said, they took my shoes and socks off. And this took him a long time to tell me, John, because he was, well, he was embarrassed about it. One of the things he said, he said, this stuck something in my foot. And it hurt. And then they took it out again. He was redressed. They got hold of this woman, but she just pointed at the big guy. You know, the big guy got hold of Calvin. He said, they gave him a shot, put him out, and he was taken away. Now I told you when I got in touch with Calvin and I looked for documentation. One of the places I contacted first off was the center for UFO studies. Heineck opened it in 1973. I said, have you got anything? They sent me a PDF file. And right in the middle of this PDF file, most of it's newspaper cuttings, which you'll find, but there is a one page typewritten letter. It's just written on an old typewriter. And the reason I know that, because it's dated October the 13th, 1973. And you can see where they've typed over the number 12. So they put 12. Oh no, we'll just go back one and put, I delete myself many times. And it describes Charlie and Calvin stripping down to their underwear. And being given the once over. And it says that there are puncture marks. In inverted commas. On Charlie's arm. And on Calvin's foot. The very same place as both gentlemen told us that they'd been grabbed or something stung in Calvin's foot. But it mentioned photographs. Well, there were no photographs. It's not signed by anybody. So I said to Calvin, who asked you to do this? He said, it was Dr. Harder. He's not a medical doctor, but he asked us to strip off. He said, I didn't know he'd written anything about it. You know, about a year, year and a half later, the same gentleman at the Center for UFO Studies sent me an email out of the blue. And he said, Philip, I've been going through some files today. I wasn't looking for these. And I'm sure you've got them anyway, but I thought I'd better send them. And hey, presto, it's the photographs to go with that document. So you have Charlie Hickson's forearm, these very minor injuries on his arm, and then Calvin Parker's foot with these things underneath his foot. And we know who's who because there are the old way of photographs. They're not digital. Their names are on the back. And I got scans of front and back. So here we have Charlie and Calvin at the time telling you about these little things that happened. They're not laser induced scars or anything. They're minor, minor injuries. Then we have a document. And then we have the photographs. I was stunned when all this came together. I didn't know what to say. But again, we published them in one of our previous books and the readers can reach their own conclusions. I was going to say, one thing about Calvin's experience that has always stood out to me is talking about the long, thin fingers of the female humanoid, either going into his nasal cavity or into his throat, and that it actually caused his nose to bleed and it bled onto his shirt. He had a white t-shirt. And he still had the white t-shirt on with the blood on it when he went to the sheriff's office. Is that confirmed? And where is that shirt now? No, nobody confirmed that. But what Calvin said he did afterwards when he went home, when I say home, back to Charlie's, he said he remembered when he was a kid, if he got exceptionally dirty or he said he said a bad word. He says, mom would give us a good scrubbing. And there were times when she used bleach. So Calvin said he stripped off, put all his clothes in a bag. And he found a gallon jug of bleach and he got in the shower and washed himself with bleach from head to foot. And they put these things in the trash. His clothes went in the trash. And he said when he went back home, you know, eventually he just left his car, which was brand new. And he left it to rot in a field. So they were never checked. We have no photographs of the car or anything of that nature. I think the photographs of Charlie and Calvin come in the following days. So they're wearing different clothes than they were that night. And one of the things we have in the new book, for example, is a gentleman by the name of Mr. Van Payne. And he was a young journalist at the time. And he said he had a source at the sheriff's office who gave him a call about this. But by the time he got there, they'd gone. So he went the following morning to the sheriff's office. They'd gone from there. They went first to the Singer River Hospital for a checkup. And then they were sent to Keesler Air Force Base. So this Mr. Van Payne headed with his camera to Keesler Air Force Base and waited outside and managed to get them on camera. But they'd only agreed to go on camera if they had their backs to the camera. So you see, I've got the whole piece of film. Yeah. And I saw the still is in your book where you see their backs to the camera. And it's so obvious like who they are. But the guy's still in the middle of an interview. But what was even more interesting, Mr. Van Payne had other interviews on this same reel of film with other people, one of whom is the weather officer for the civil defense. And he's interviewing him. And he said he got something on radar at that time. That's right. And then there's a taxi driver who claimed that a UFO had landed in front of him. And this clawed creature or his hand had come through his window or some such thing. He forgot to mention that his buddy was parked behind him. So when they interviewed his buddy, his buddy said, I didn't see anything like that at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was a hoax. But, you know, that's the kind of stuff that we keep coming across. So that is the very first visual interview with Charlie and Calvin, even though they've got their backs to the camera. It's the following day at Kiesler Air Force Base. It's part of the history of the case. And it's never been seen. So I want to ask you a question about those photos that you just mentioned. They're dated on the back. Like you said, it has the names. It also says October 11th, which was the date of the event. And so those came to you from Kufos. But like, who took those pictures? Do we know? Well, we think it was Dr. Harder. He was there the day it happened? Well, no, because they go with the document. The dates connected to the event, not when they took the pictures. Right, right. Yeah. Gotcha. So that's what we believe. Yeah. And it kind of ties in with it. And I just found them stunning. They're not, if you look at the photographs on their home, you can toss them in the bin. You look at the document, you say, well, but when you put all three together, to me, there's a physical link there that something did happen to these gentlemen. I don't know what. I'm not saying anything in particular. And it's in our previous book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, that I co-authored with Dr. Scott. They were published there for the first time. And again, it was just because I knew Mark Rodiger, Kufos. I knew Mark. And he found them. Oh, I sent Philip some stuff the other year. I'll send it. I'm sure he's got these, but I'll send them anyway. Right. I'm still convinced there's other stuff lying around out there. We just haven't come across it yet. Can you relay to our audience what Calvin said about the blood and what he felt happening to his body? Yeah. I mean, I think he had a cut on his hand, I think it was. And they stuck this thing in his foot. And it was as if they were draining the blood out of him because he could hear something dripping. He thought they were replacing his blood with something else. I don't know this for certain, but he may have sometime later in his life had a scene or had a blood transfusion. So it gave him the idea that, hang on a minute, this is similar to what happened to me. This stuff, pumping something in and the blood's coming out the other end. But yeah, and he was not happy about it. Let's put it that way. And it scared the living daylights out of him as well. And this thing that was stuck in his foot. And when you see the photographs, it's like a little triangle, you know, a little three pinpricks. But nonetheless, it's there. Yeah. And I thought when I read that, I thought that was, that's pretty terrifying. You know, I feel like, again, coming back to other stories that you hear about abductions and people having either screen memories or not remembering what happened to them. And both of these guys seemingly remembering a fair amount of details, which, you know, leads you to wonder why, especially if there was telepathic communication, why there wouldn't have been a manipulation of the memories. It's unpleasant. But the other thing that's interesting is what you said. It was about, you know, the woman who comes in, you know, we're not going to hurt you. And then she immediately hurts him. One thing to that that people always point out who've studied this is that in trying to, you know, gain a sense of what's their understanding of us as human beings. Here you have, one, something that's described as female, which is not totally uncommon, but it's kind of rare, I think, in these reportings. But sticking her long, thin fingers into the nose or nasal cavity or up into the throat almost seems like she doesn't understand human beings very well. Or that it's like, oh, I didn't know that that would bleed or that would be uncomfortable. Same thing with the foot. It's kind of like they can assure us like, oh, well, we're not going to hurt you, but we really don't know what we're doing. Yeah. Or is it, or they have the right to do this? Or is it also that their definition of not hurting you is just when it's over, you'll be fine. You'll be healed at the end. But along the way, there's going to be some unpleasantness. It's very subjective, isn't it? You know, I could say something to Scott that would go straight over his head. I might say the same thing to you, Forrest, but it would affect you. But it's the exact same thing. You know, we all experience things differently. And if we look at Charlie and Calvin, that's exactly what happened to these two jets. Yes, Charlie was scared. But Calvin was beyond scared. He was well beyond being petrified. And of course, as we mentioned, I think it was about two weeks later, Calvin was back home in Laurel, Mississippi. And he told me about this. He had a great relationship with his younger brother, Ricky, who sadly died. And he said he was at home with his brother, Rick. And he said, I got to the state when I just couldn't stop shaking. So it started slowly and I could not stop shaking. So his brother took him to the hospital and they were in the waiting room. And Calvin was getting upset because he hadn't seen the doctor and he was getting angry. And he did it. He played a little trick on his brother. He says, Ricky, I've got a, you call him a soda. I've got a soda in the car. Will you go and get that for me, please? And he did this on purpose. So Ricky was out of the way. Calvin stood up and picked the wheelchair up and smashed it against the wall in order to get the attention. But he didn't want his brother, Ricky, to get into trouble. And that's when the doctor came and calmed him down and so on. And it took him a long time to tell me that story. He always denied that he had a breakdown. But something very peculiar happened to him that night. He said, I just could not stop shaking. Yeah, because it seemed like he said himself in that later material that you presented, I never had a nervous breakdown. I just couldn't get away from the press. No one would leave me alone. The nurses even were asking me questions. They found out I was in Laurel, even though I was so far away. So then they admitted him and gave him a chance to get away from people for a few days. Yeah, and one of the things Calvin eventually, again, took him a long time to tell me about, was that about a year later, just short of a year later, trying to escape the attention, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Oh, okay. And I have all his documents in the new book. I remember this now, yeah. And the first thing he showed me was his discharge, because he got a conditional discharge. That's why I said, what the hell did you get discharged for? And he said, well, one guy, you know, he went too far. So I think one guy was trying to make fool of Calvin about what he found out who Calvin was. So I think he messed with the wrong guy in Calvin. I know, you know, Marines are all big, tough guys. And, you know, these things happen. But I think they just messed with the wrong fellow that night when they picked on Calvin. And then he said, but what finally threw it? This is the media found out where I was. So he said, I went to see my commanding officer, explain things. And he said, it's all right, Sam, we'll give you a conditional discharge. We understand. And off he went. But that, for me, is an emphasis on how bad Calvin wanted to get away. He'd only just got married. You know, in November 73, this is about eight or nine months later, and he's off in the Marines, leaving his wife, not because he wanted to get away from her, but he wanted to get away from what had happened and the attention. And it didn't stop there, of course, when he came out of the Marines. One of the things that happened with Calvin, I don't know if you remember the TV show, The Hulk in the 1980s. Of course. Yeah, we do. Our audience may, some of them may be younger, but absolutely. There's a journalist chasing the Hulk. That's right. Basically. But Calvin was the real life Hulk. Yeah. And when the journalist would catch up with him or find out who he was, he'd pack up with his family and off he would go. He even used a false name at one point and he got fired because the name didn't go with his social security number. So he got fired for that. And like I said, he was a bounty hunter for a couple of years. I think it was some kind of debt collector as well. And then he started to sort of things sort of tailed off a little bit and he settled down somewhat. But that shows you the extremes that he went to to try and keep away from this subject. I think that's something that people need to know, like circling back to the beginning when they went to the sheriff. I mean, it seemed like Charles was more, we've got to report this than Calvin was. But then in addition to that, they were like, you've got to promise to keep this quiet. And they didn't go seeking fame or fortune and they weren't interested in that. But then once word got out, Charles started appearing. He went on talk to you, he went on the Dick Cavett show. He went on the Mike Douglas show. Went on the Mike Douglas show talking about things. Now, so when he went on Dick Cavett, he was alone because at that time Calvin was in the hospital, according to your book, right? That's correct. But then when he went on Mike Douglas, this was what, a month later? I can't remember if it was a month or a week, like after Calvin got out of the hospital. It's about a month later, I think. Right. And so he actually was on stage for Mike Douglas. He came out and appeared on. So it seems to me a little bit like Calvin, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. It seems to me a little bit. He was like, he was trying to figure out how to deal. Now it's out there. How do I deal with it? Am I going to be a public figure? Am I not? Where am I going with this? Because, I mean, how was his appearance? You can't find that stuff anywhere. I know that you said you had some of it. No, we've got the transcripts from it, and I've got the audio from the Dick Cavett show. But Calvin would say he did it to help Charlie. They weren't the closest of friends. Calvin was more friendly with Charlie's son, Eddie. Right. And Charlie was friends with Calvin's dad. The family sort of grew up together. Right. But he would do it at Charlie's behest. I'll tell you one story I haven't published in any. I wrote an article about it. I don't know what year it was, but Charlie was doing a TV show somewhere, or was booked to do a TV show. And he said to Calvin, come on over and meet up. You don't have to go on. We'll just meet up. And Calvin said, Charlie's doing this TV show with a scientist. That's all he knew. So he went and met up. When he gets there, this had been organized by a local journalist. And the TV show had got canceled. Calvin says, why? And he says, it's the journalist. He won't go on with Charlie Hickson. So the journalist trying to calm things down. He took Charlie and Calvin and this journalist across the road to a restaurant, buy him some dinner, calm things down. We might be able to work it out. But it all turns out, it's not a scientist. It's actually the arch debunker, Philip Klass. Now, Calvin didn't know him from Adam. So he says to him, well, why won't you go on with Charlie? And he says, he's lying. So Calvin says, well, if he's lying, you must mean that I'm lying as well. And Calvin let him know in no uncertain terms, if you ever call me a liar again, I'll punch your lights out. Worse to that effect. But they were a bit stronger than that. So he said, we went home without any dinner that night. You know, Calvin's reaction to the media was different at different times and how he got along with them. But he often said, he said, I would see Charlie on the TV or in a newspaper and think, God, I wish he'd shut up talking about it. I just I just want to forget. But Charlie was like some people I've met here in the UK. They've had this encounter and they have this passion, if you like, to share it. Right. Right. This is fantastic. What's happened? Surely we shouldn't keep this a secret. We've got to tell somebody, you know, and I've come across a number of people like that. And there are others that don't want that, of course. But Charlie was of, you know, we should know about this. And he he became what we call a contactee. He got messages from these beings. And they were going to do something fantastic for us, for all mankind, not just for Charlie, but for all mankind to help us out of our predicament. And he was going to be part of it. So there was something, you know, it was not just an encounter. There was something else that was going to happen. And of course, it didn't. But if it did, I missed it. Yeah, we all missed it. But so it just wasn't him. He thought this was for the benefit of all mankind. Ever noticed that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 24-7 dot org. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They go perfectly with music, podcasts, and welcome back to the show. Even nature sounds. Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you. Hello. Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to. I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it. Reese's. Ashley, go back to the nature sounds. Nice. Yeah, it's really nice. This is Jennifer from Kentucky, and when I'm not searching for the goat man, I'm listening to Astonishing Legends. Now let's get back to the show. What's interesting to me, too, about the class incident, because, you know, that's written about in your book, was the fact that there was this whole dust-up about a polygraph test that he never agreed to take. And I love how you detailed all the different letters about the engagement for him to appear, and there's nothing about the polygraph test, and then they show up and he refuses to take it, and that's why it's a hoax. Can you explain a little bit about that? Well, look, the first and foremost, Charlie and Calvin agreed to a polygraph right from day one. When the polygraph was up and ready to go, Calvin wasn't available. Now, the polygraph was done by a chap called Scott Glasgow, who came from an agency in New Orleans, which is, I don't know, 60, 70 miles away. Now, Philip Klass said, well, there were local guys who could do the polygraph. Why didn't they use them? There's something fishy here. Well, if he'd have only asked the question, he would have found out, because there were two polygraph companies in the Pascagoula area. One said, we're not getting involved in this UFO rubbish. No way. The other one rightly said, we only conduct polygraphs on people who have been charged with an offence. Right. And Charlie and Calvin hadn't been charged with anything. Therefore, we're not going to do it. Now, the day after the encounter, Charlie and Calvin turned up for work and all hella broke and loose, their boss said, if you need him, we have the company solicitor, lawyer, Mike Kalingo. They didn't need him, but his boss offered it him. Now, Mike Kalingo just happened to know an agency in New Orleans that did polygraphs. Right. And they got the guy to come and do it for nothing. Right. That's their big corporate lawyer at F.D. Walker. Right. Not only did he do it once, I think he conducted it three or four times, and Charlie passed every time. And he was not best pleased, because he was skeptical himself. Now, I have the complete file that Philip Klass had on this case. It's 160-some pages long. And nowhere in it is he trying to do any research. He's just trying to throw some muck and hope it'll stick. And, of course, it didn't. Then, of course, we jumped forward a few years in time, and there was an argument with a chap called Bill Pitts. Now, Pitts is organizing a UFO convention, and he claimed that he'd invited Charlie. Charlie would come to the convention and have a polygraph there, and they would release the results live on stage, whatever it may be. Of course, Charlie gets there and declines. And Bill Pitts gets mad and said, you're a liar, you know, you're trying to hide the truth, whatever. Well, it all turns out, you look at Bill Pitts' original invitation to Charlie, which we have, and put it in the book, and there was no mention of a polygraph. That came up later then. Charlie said no. So it was a hoo-ha about nothing, really. But, as I pointed out, with a polygraph, it's a no-win situation, because if you pass the polygraph, it's not admissible in court. If you fail it, you're a goddamn liar. Right, right. We also found that they'd also done some stress evaluation tests on Charlie and Calvin. So, again, you tell me, Forrest, that today you drove your car down, you went, you know, for lunch at wherever. And the machine that they use to put your voice through, it is claimed. They can tell whether you're telling the truth or not. Nonsense, like the polygraph is nonsense. But, again, Charlie and Calvin passed it. And we have it all in the book and all the different things. I didn't know about that. I just found it. And we just came across it. And I thought, right, I'll do some digging. And we found it. We even have a printout of it. You know, we've got the graph. Not that it makes any sense to me, but it's there nonetheless. It is interesting to talk about that. There was also, you talked about voice and analysis. That's the same thing. Oh, that's what you were talking about. Voice stress analysis. Is that still around? Are they still doing that? I don't think so. Yeah, so that was like a flash in the pan. You can still have a polygraph now, I believe. Again, it's not admissibly in a court of law. But one of the things they do in Charlie's book, William Mendes, who co-authored with it, he put a couple of instances in that book where hypnosis had been used as evidence. Right. In a court of law. Obviously, it's not used a lot, but he was trying to legitimize it, and he's given his reasons why. And I've just found that interesting, because times have changed now, of course. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Bud Hopkins and the research that he did. And I know he's controversial, but also he is well-respected by a lot of folks. Well, you know, I got to know Bud pretty well, and he came and stayed with me, and he spoke at a couple of our conferences, and I collaborated on a couple of small things with him. And again, when we set off down this road, gentlemen, we had no idea about any connection with the late Bud Hopkins, as he is now, sadly. I'll just mention it. Bud's autobiography, Art, Life, and UFOs, is a must-read for anybody. Oh, okay. It's fantastic. Okay, good. But I knew Bud, and I think it was Peter Robbins, who worked hand-in-glove, was like Bud's right-hand man for many years. I think it was Peter that mentioned that Bud had had some involvement. So I asked Calvin, and he said, oh, yeah. And he told me the story when he had this other encounter in 1993, and he had a friend who knew a little bit about UFOs. And he says, why didn't you go see Bud Hopkins? He's actually in Florida this weekend at a convention. So they drove to the convention unannounced. Calvin wouldn't go in. It was in a hotel. So his friend went in, found Bud, explained what had happened. Bud gave him his hotel key, said, I'll meet you in my room. He went back. And lo and behold, he put him under hypnosis. And we have a copy of that tape. Because Bud's archive was given to Dr. David Jacobs upon his passing. So Dr. Jacobs had Bud's archive. And I asked him. And he found it. He made us a copy. So we have that. And we transcribed it. But then we found out, hang on a minute, Charlie Hickson also went on to hypnosis with Bud twice in the 1980s, several years apart. And we have those on tape as well. So again, Dr. Jacobs gave us a copy of those. Then when we set off down that route, we didn't know any of this. Not one word of it. So again, we published it. A mountain of hours. This made Calvin laugh. Because Calvin's got a Mississippi accent. You have Bud from New York. And you have me from the north of England. And I've got the headphones on, trying to figure out what these fellas are saying. And it would take me about 20 minutes to get into the groove, going backwards and forwards. I had to buy a tape player to play them. Because who the hell plays tapes nowadays? Cassette tapes. Nobody. I had to buy one. And I said to Calvin, you said you went to a tiki bar. What is a tiki bar? Calvin said, it's a bar called tiki. But I just thought I'd misheard him somehow. So I spent hours and hours transcribing all of these. And it was something, again, we just allow the reader to read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions. Because hypnosis is controversial. I grant you that. But like Calvin said, it didn't bother me because I remembered it all anyway. Right. So make of it what you will. But it showed you how things started to expand. Not just what happened on that pier, but what happened afterwards and the research and the effort. This is not a research point of view. Even when into popular culture. Now one of the most well-known pop rock bands in the world, I would say it's Fleetwood Mac. Mm-hmm. Volta to Fleetwood Mac. In 1976, they had a song called Hypnotized. That's partly based on Charlie and Calvin's experience. The reason I know that, I read it in a music magazine and there's an art feature about it. Rai Dué, TV company in Italy, again in 1976, made a two-part TV movie about Charlie and Calvin. Calvin had no idea. I have a copy of it on DVD. Cannot understand a word of it, of course, because it's all in Italian. But I have it. And it's called Extra. That's the entitled Extra. You can get it on YouTube. But I managed to buy a hard copy, if you like, on DVD. And more and more little things like that have happened. They appeared, Charlie appeared in Playboy magazine. They were on the front cover of Rolling Stone. Wow. The front cover of Rolling Stone magazine. It's a rather skeptical article about them. But nonetheless, they're on the front cover of Rolling Stone. They're in Playboy. And I have to persuade my wife that I bought the hard copy of Playboy just for that feature. Because there's Betty Hill in it and others. Oh, wow. Not just Charlie Hickson. Yeah. It's a big feature on it. Speaking of Betty Hill, you found correspondence between her and Calvin. Absolutely. Again, Calvin met her at a TV place. He didn't go on the TV. He just met her there. And she says, why don't you come and stay with me for a few days? So he did. Oh, wow. He went and stayed with her. This is Calvin for three days. And she told him everything that happened to her and Barney. And Calvin thanked her. But he said, it would have no use to me because it was nothing like what had happened to us. Isn't that wild? Can you imagine hearing that conversation, sitting around with them, talking to each other? Yeah. And of course, Charlie met her. I've got pictures of them together. I said to Calvin, why didn't you get on her pictures? So we just didn't have a camera. What a dumb question they've asked me. It's obvious, you know? Was it Betty's interest to see if it was the same craft? And I can understand that because, again, with these being the very first few abduction or very close encounter cases, there wasn't a lot of knowledge out there, I think, in the public view about what happens in the description of the craft. And so was it her trying to make some kind of connection? Were these the same aliens? I think she was trying to help Calvin cope more than anything, not to look at similarities or anything like that, because she obviously knew he was traumatized. And I think she was just trying to help him cope, as if to say, you're not alone. Others have had this experience, and we've survived, and we've had a decent life. It hasn't got to us, and you can do the same some. I think that's what she was trying more than anything. I mean, I never met Betty. I corresponded with her a couple of times, but that is it. But then another thing happened when we found some paperwork that belonged to Charlie Hickson online that is an Ocean Springs Historical Society run by a young lady called Chelsea Prince. And she met Calvin and bought his book, and she put a couple of features on Facebook about the encounter, one of their members said, oh, when Charlie died in 2011, my parents bought his house. And we've got boxes of paperwork that were in the house. Do you want them? Oh, my gosh. So she gave them to Chelsea. Chelsea knew of my involvement, contacted me. I'm very grateful she actually scanned every piece. I said, just scan it all, anything. It doesn't matter what it is. So she digitized a whole lot for me in remarkable time. And these are around about 1999 era, around about the late 90s. And one of the things that Charlie has done, I don't think any other abductees have done this. He made a record, a vinyl record, and he just narrated his encounter on the vinyl record. I've got one. Well, I want one. Where do I get it? Well, you find one online every now and again. Oh, really? I'm nice to buy one. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. So he was selling the record. So a lot of these things are people buying his record or buying his book. But there's some interesting correspondence in it. Guess what? Who's written to him? Betty Hill. There is a NASA physicist. I can't remember his name, so excuse me, gents, but it's in the new book. Writes to him and said, when your incident happened, I asked my boss at NASA to look into it, and they refused. So he had a NASA physicist way back in 1973 wanting to look into this, and they refused. Right. And it's just a little time capsule of what was happening in Charlie's life at the time. Not only that, the lady who had these letters, she's called Bethany, she said, we had another load of them, but I gave them away. And she couldn't remember who she'd given them to. So there is, we have two boxes of letters. I think there's something like, I don't know, 170 pieces of paper. There's twice more than that floating around somewhere, or there certainly was a few years ago. Again, if anybody's got it, please get in touch. Because it is a little time capsule. I know it's nothing significant, but Charlie said all kind of people would just turn up on his door. One person that did that, Eric Von Daniken. Wow. And he met Eric Von Daniken, and he took him and showed him where the incident happened. And Eric took two photographs. And I've got copies of them. Because I contacted his secretary. He's wealthy enough to have a secretary. She said, yeah. And she sent me the piece he'd written about it. It's nonsense what he's written. But the point is, this is what happens in, what's happening in Charlie's life. Right. Right. This is what happened afterwards. And people go on about making money. But again, you see little things in these pile of documents. It's a local high school. Want him to speak. And he would just turn up. Wouldn't charge of anything. You know, local church hall. And he would go and spend his own petrol money to get there and back. Yeah, he wrote a book. It didn't. I found a chap just outside Pascagoula who bought 2,000 copies of Charlie's book. And he still has them in a warehouse, unopened and unsold. Why did he do that? Because he thought they were going to do something about it. He could sell the books. Right. But nothing happened. And this is the hardback, of course, as well. Wow. Not a softback. The way I found that out is I hired a local cameraman just outside of Pascagoula to film the hypnosis with Calvin and Maria Blair. And he worked for this chap. And he said, my boss has got 2,000 copies of that book. And he sent me one. He took one out and sent me a brand new spanking copy from 1983. Wow. That's amazing. So it shows you how this, I know it's not research based, but it spreads out in a whole array of different areas. It really does. And things keep turning up. What is it about this case that you think makes it one of the preeminent abduction cases, which are usually these experiences are pretty isolated. You know, it doesn't happen often to a larger group of people. But is it the network of people that you've uncovered because that's something that I think Scott and I have discovered when we dove more into this in that you think, well, it just happened to two guys. And then you realize, like, well, actually, it was an experience that was witnessed by others. It touched so many other lives. And because of Charles Hickson's efforts in wanting to tell people about this because he thought that they should know, it gathered so much momentum and lasts to this day. Is that a reason for you why it stands out? You know, I've been involved in this UFO subject since 1980. So it's a long time. And I've looked at abductions in this country. And if you were to write down what your kind of your perfect case would be, this would probably be it. You know, both witnesses are on the phone to the authorities at the time. They're interviewed by the Sheriff's Department. They're caught on a secret tape. They're at the hospital the next morning. And then they're at the Air Force Base. And away it goes. And then all these years later, because of the marvelous technology that we now have. I mean, there's one gentleman, sadly no longer with us, but he's one of the witnesses. It was called Mr. Lewis Lee. And he was actually on the other side of the river that night, working in the shipyard in a crane. And he said, when I got into my cab, Philip, it's about 10 or 12 feet off the ground. He said, I could see this thing out over the water. Not up in the air, out over the water. And he said, never seen anything like it in your life. And he watched it for some time. I said to Mr. Lee, did you report it to anyone? He says, Philip, in 1973, there's no Ghostbusters to report it to. Who do you tell? He said, I told my family. That was it. And he was right, of course. But he was now of an age, the way we got to, again, Mr. Lee, Calvin had a book signing in the town. This old boy walks up to Calvin, I'll buy a book, thank you very much. Oh, Mrs. Parker, I saw the thing that night. And off he went. Luckily for us, somebody was taking photographs. The photograph of him buying a book. So I put it on social media. Anybody know this gentleman? We were contacted privately. He said, yeah, what do you need him for? So I explained, will he talk to us? Of course I will. And he's now of an age where he couldn't care less what anybody taught. Sadly, he's since passed away because we found out he was terminally ill. God rest him. But he said, there's no Ghostbusters. So again, when you speak to somebody like that, you know there's others around. Because we had Calvin's description that night of what he could see in front of him. The area they were in fishing that night is not in the Pascagoula swampland. You know, there's the shipyard opposite. There's boats going up and down. There was a railway bridge one side and a car bridge on the other. There's commercial and housing, public housing behind him. It was a bit of a dump where they were, and I've got to admit, you know. But it wasn't in the middle of nowhere. So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. And off we went looking for more witnesses. We never thought we'd find as many as we did. But hey, presto. You mentioned Travis Walton incident. And you mentioned that a lot of other incidents don't have eyewitnesses. And we haven't really talked about that a lot here. You've mentioned Maria Blair a few times. You know, as you've gone on, like, and what brought you to publish your newest book, Pascagoula uncovered, is the fact that you have found corroboration for what happened to these two that night. Well, I'll tell you why. It started when we published Calvin's book. And I was contacted by a gentleman in Greece called Stephanos. Stephanos Panagiotakis. You have no idea how long it took me to pronounce that name correctly. But in 1981, so eight years after the event, Stephanos was in the Greek Merchant Navy. He was a radio operator. He was also a UFO researcher. He used to write for a little magazine back in Greece. And his favorite case was Pascagoula. And in 1981, the ship he was in docked in Pascagoula. And he got some shore leave. And he was determined to get an interview with Charlie, which he did. But then he went to the police and said, you know, this is who I am. This is what I'm doing. Can you help? And they said, have you interviewed Pastor Sigalas? Who? There's a local clergyman. He saw something that night. No, here's his name and address. And Stephanos literally went and knocked on his door. And he agreed to an interview. Now, Pascagoula and a chap by the name of Don Broaddus from the police probation service used to help run a church meeting for people who had problems with alcohol. And they were assisted by a young lady or church volunteer. On October the 11th, that night, 1973, they were en route to this meeting. And Sigalas and Broaddus were in the front of the car. This young lady sat in the back seat. And she's looking out the window and taps them on the shoulder door, to that respect. And this thing came right across the highway in front of them, heading in the general direction of where Charlie and Calvin were. Stephanos took a photograph of the area. And they drew on it where it was to see what this thing looked like. It's pretty similar to what Charlie and Calvin say they saw. Sadly, now both of those gentlemen have passed away. But Stephanos had a transcript of the interview he did with them. So we got that. Then we found corroboration of it in newspapers, articles. And we also found the name of the young lady in the back of the car. She didn't come from Pascagoula. But she was only there a couple of years. She worked at the local school. But she was a church volunteer. And she was called Joanne Hallmark. I found a couple of social media accounts that hadn't been used in an awful long time. So I left messages, but nothing. I went back some time later. And I'm ringing in one of these social media places. And it mentioned the church. So I literally Googled the church. And hey, presto, it was still there, but not in Pascagoula. It's in Maryland. And it had a website. And when you click on the website, there was even a couple of sermons you could download by two men called Hallmark. And I'm thinking, no. Could this be her husband? He'd be getting on a bit, but possibly all her sons. Now, the church had a very general email address, you know, church, whatever. And I just emailed them and said, I'm looking for this particular lady. She worked with Pastor Sigalas in Pascagoula in 70s. Didn't say anything else. I said, if she's still around, could you pass my email on to her, please? It's about three, four weeks later, she replied, yes, I worked with Pastor Sigalas in 1973. So then I told her what I was really looking for. And it was a few weeks later. We'd also, by this time, found an old black and white photograph of her. I think from 1974. I sent her that. And again, a few weeks later, she replied, told us everything that she saw. And even sent us a photograph of what she looks like now. She kind of laughed at the old black and white one. She gave us her telephone number. My colleague, Dr. Raina Scott, interviewed her on the phone. And that's how these things happened, gentlemen. This lady didn't want, wasn't looking to come out and speak to us. We happened to find her. And it was only through Stephanos telling us about this witness, this pastor. What's interesting, again, it's only an if and maybe. I told you about the police dispatcher who had Charlie's phone call that night, Mr. Diamond. He's still alive. He said, when he went back, back to the police station, there were people there reporting it in person. One of whom was a clergyman. Could that have been Pastor Sigalas? I don't know. That's right. I remember that now in your book. Yeah. Yeah. Could be. I mean, how many clergymen do you get turning up to giving you a UFO sight? There can't have been that many. You know, what are the odds? But what it did, it gave us the idea that there could well be other witnesses out there. Stephanos had interviewed this gentleman back in 1981. He's since deceased, along with his colleague. But we managed to find the young lady in the back of the car. How many more are like this? And that gave us the idea that perhaps there are more out there than we'd ever imagined. Because there was one or two way back in 1973 that had been on, you know, local TV and that kind of thing. Fair enough. No problem. So that gave us the impetus to start and look and see if we could find any more. And we were staggered. You know, absolutely staggered. Well, that's what we're going to talk about in part two. And we're excited to get into that. I'm particularly interested in the Blair's, Jerry and Maria Blair's experiences and sharing those. Before we let you go here for part one, can you tell our audience about the documentary and your latest book, which we read for this episode, so that they know where to find stuff? Yeah, well, I've worked with Canadian producer Darcy Weir. We have put together a four-part documentary series. And it's simply called Pascagoula 73. And if you have Amazon Prime, it's free of charge, all four parts. And you get to hear this strange-sounding Yorkshireman talk quite a lot on it as well. But Charlie and Kelvin's story is told there, along with Maria Blair, there's film of the hypnosis sessions, various archive material. So it'll give you a good grounding of the case, plus what Maria and Jerry had to say. The recent book is called Pascagoula Uncovered, Witnesses, Files and Audiotapes. Again, it's on Amazon, in hardback, softback, Kindle, and an audio book. I just put everything in there, gentlemen, and people can reach their own conclusions. It's not for me to tell anybody what's what. But there's a lot more in the book than we've been able to cover tonight. Maybe we'll get to that in part two. Absolutely. Thank you again for joining us. Oh, my pleasure, gentlemen. Absolutely. That's going to wrap up episode 311 of Astonishing Legends. A very special thanks to returning guest, author and researcher, Philip Mantle. Links to all of his books and the Flying Disc Press are in the show notes, as well as the four-part Amazon Prime documentary series, Pascagoula 73. We're back next week with part two. As always, look for new episodes of The Dead Letter Office weekly on Tuesdays. Astonishing Legends is edited by Sarah Voorhees-Wendel at VW Sound. Our co-producer is Tess Feifel, who also leads our research efforts and manages our social media. And we're grateful for the hard work of our technical producer, Ed Vakola, behind the scenes. Special thanks to our announcer, John Bolin, for lending his voice to our shows. Hi, I'm Amanda Snyder. R-A-N-D-O-L-P-H. Galaxy-wide and perpetuity. I understand this is with no implied promise of present or future compensation. And I give permission to Astonishing Legends. Our theme, which is available as a ringtone, was composed by Judson Crane at FounderMusic.com. All other music and sound design for the show is composed and created by Alan Caressia. Our logo was created by Tommy Beaver Design. And our animated graphics for social media and YouTube are done by Joshua Sloan at DeadStreetProductions.com. Many episodes have transcripts available. For ones that don't, you can request them by emailing transcripts at AstonishingLegends.com. Astonishing Legends would not be possible without you, our listeners. Visit our store at AstonishingLegends.com or interact with us and other listeners on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, Discord, and YouTube. You can also visit us at Patreon.com slash AstonishingLegends, where patrons have access to commercial-free versions of both the main show and the Dead Letter office, as well as additional bonus content, including the Patreon-exclusive show, The Astonishing Junk Drawer. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions. Good night. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse, being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Shake it up with Vital Proteins Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high-quality, ready-to-drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan, it's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day. So you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital Proteins. Stay vital. Learn more at VitalProteins.com. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care's always there. Download the app at your app store or HHC 247.org. Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience. But on eBay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared. There was a guy who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT4 on eBay. It was well-loved. There are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay, but this one needed some work. That's just the start of the story. So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car, he rebuilds the whole thing with all these parts he found on eBay. Performance brakes, suspension, body panels, the works. Guaranteed to fit. Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman was out there on the track as a full-blown race car. You're ready to go, daily driver. You're next, Restomod. Hello, Lotus Alon. Hand the parts to finish it. eBay has thousands of cars and is the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. eBay. Things people love. Here's a quick podcast for all you true crime fans. The case of the missing Reese's. It was me at the store with my mouth. Motive? Um, they're Reese's. What was I going to do? Stop myself? Tune in next time to see if I do it again. Spoiler, I will. Wow, that had everything. Reese's. Suspense. Reese's. Alright, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse, being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or, go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress. Less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. Shake it up with Vital Proteins Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high-quality, ready-to-drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan, it's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day. So you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital Proteins. Stay vital. Learn more at VitalProteins.com. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care's always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience. But on eBay, behind every car in part is a story waiting to be shared. There was a guy who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT4 on eBay. It was well-loved. There are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay, but this one needed some work. That's just the start of the story. So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car, he rebuilds the whole thing with all these parts he found on eBay. Performance brakes, suspension, body panels, the works. Guaranteed to fit. Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman was out there on the track as a full-blown race car. You're ready to go, daily driver. You're next, Restomod. Hello, Lotus Alon. Hand the parts to finish it. eBay has thousands of cars and is the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. eBay. Things people love. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They go perfectly with music. Podcasts. And welcome back to the show. Even nature sounds. Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you. Hello. Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to. I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it. Reese's. Ashley, go back to the nature sounds. Nice. Yeah, it's really nice. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. With the Venmo debit card, a taco in one hand, and ordering a ride in the other, means you're stacking your rewards. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment, and more. Pick a bundle with your go-tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Do more stash. Get more cash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max $100 cash back per month. At CVS, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night. And we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions. And here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At CVS, we're proud to serve your community. Because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So visit us at cvs.com or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location.