The Pascagoula Abduction with Philip Mantle Part 2

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In part one of our series on the Pascagoula abduction, we discuss the night that forever changed the lives of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. At first glance, some investigators will lean on the bridge tender just down the river who said he didn't see anything at all. But they might be leaning a little too hard on that, because it turns out what happened to Hickson and Parker didn't occur in a vacuum, as so many close encounters do. The ripples of it spread far beyond the banks of the Pascagoula River, reaching out thousands of miles in every direction and half a century in time. It turns out there were far more eyewitnesses that night than anyone realized. There was the crane operator working late at the shipyard, and the woman putting her children to bed in her home close by. Even cousins, unknown to one another, saw lights near the area that night, each with their own fragmented piece of the puzzle. But there's another account, one that has remained hidden for decades. A husband and wife, Jerry and Maria Blair, were waiting on a pier across the river for a captain to show up so Jerry could go aboard a vessel for offshore work. It turns out the Blairs also witnessed something that night. What exactly they saw, and the decades-long pact Jerry made with those beings, is a story more bizarre than Hickson and Parker's. Tonight, we delve deeper into the Pascagoula abduction. We'll explore suppressed memories, the caveats that come with those, and the lingering questions. What did these beings really want, and what does it mean for the rest of us? We're joined once again by Philip Mantle, author, investigator, and close friend of Calvin Parker, to navigate the twists and turns of this still-unfolding mystery. He'll share information that's only come to light in the past year or two. Get ready to hear the stories that have gone largely untold about this case, and reach your own conclusions about what really happened. Welcome back to Astonishing Legends. I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is another eyewitness to Pascagoula, Maria Blair, from an interview with Chelsea Norton Prince, requested by Philip Mantle. I'm just wondering if I'm really me. A lot of times I think that. Am I really the girl they took? Or I might be somebody else. I might be a clone or something, and it bothers you. Am I been living a life of lies? Am I really me, or am I somebody else? Join us tonight for part two of our series on the Pascagoula abduction with Philip Mantle. And we're back. That we are, folks, and it's good to be back. Thank you again for supporting our sponsors. A quick reminder that the show is free on all major platforms, and that sponsorship and Patreon support is what allows us to keep producing it. Yep, and in the ever-changing world of podcast streaming, hosting, and tech, we wanted to point out that some platforms, like Spotify, for example, do not have an option for us to upload ad-free versions of our show for Spotify premium customers. No, they do not. But if ads aren't your thing, you can access ad-free and early versions of both Astonishing Legends and the Astonishing Dead Letter office, as well as other bonus content at patreon.com slash astonishinglegends. Yes, you can. And we'd love to see you over there. All right. Well, we've got a great part two on Pascagoula, so let's dig into it. Indeed. There's so much more to this case than just the initial event. Let's welcome investigator, author, and expert Philip Mantle back to the show. My pleasure, Scott Forrest. Nice to speak to you again, gentlemen. It's great to have you back. You know, there's so much more about this case. I was very excited about part two because, you know, in part one, we're talking about the event and what happened, which a lot of people know. But I think a lot of the things that we're going to talk about tonight, people aren't as aware of. So the overview of what we want to get into tonight is the absolute plethora of witnesses that are associated with this case, which I think a lot of people don't think about. You know, when they think about abduction cases, they're like, oh, yeah, those guys. Well, they were. It's like you said about Travis. You know, they were out in the woods. There's not that many people that saw this thing. Then he's at a phone booth or whatever. Not to belittle that case at all, by the way. But this case has way more corroboration than people are used to. And so we definitely want to touch on that. The other thing I wanted to talk a little bit more about that we touched on in part one, but didn't go too deep into was all of the kind of horrific stuff that they thought happened to them on the ship, which they remembered in unconsciously and both subconsciously, if you go along with the hypnosis that they went through and that sort of thing. So talking a little bit about Calvin's, I find the most disturbing what he went through in terms of his experience, because in his conscious memory, he talks about later saying, well, you know, I wasn't passed out. I remember being taken aboard. And I know that you and I had discussed briefly before. It's like, well, why did he say on the secret tape, I passed out? And as I was looking more through your materials, it seemed to me like they wanted to say, and with Charles' help, maybe he passed out for the whole time, then you don't have to answer questions or talk about the really weird crap that happened on board the ship. But what it seems like more is that he is saying, no, I did pass out a little bit here and there. It just wasn't the minute he went in the door. And I don't know, what's your impression of that? Again, I think it's just language, because when you listen to Calvin speaking, I'm not from that area. And I sometimes wonder, what's he talking about? You know, little things. Right. They'll use things like, I seen, rather than I saw. Right. I sat down. And it means I sit down. So I think it was just, you know, his use of language about passing out. That could mean I was scared, you know, witless. Semantics. Yeah. It's like we were talking some of the language in where I come from. And there is a thing. I come from Yorkshire. I have an accent. But there's a place not far from here. It's called Broad Yorkshire. And it's an accent there that's very different. I'll give you an example. A few years back, they employed some doctors from overseas to come work here. You know, your GP, your local doctor. And they had to give them a phrase book so they could get used to some of the colloquialisms. So I think it was a similar type of thing with Calvin. But on, you know, a more scary side of things. You know, I passed out. I blacked out. I went mad. I went nuts. Because he also said at one point, it felt like he'd stepped on a rattlesnake. Yes. I remember that. So again, it's just another way of expressing what was happening and how he felt. And I think that is just part of it. When you listen to the secret tape and when he says I passed out, he doesn't stop to think and put that in there deliberately. It just comes out, you know? Right. Also, just could be sort of an expression for going into shock or like, I don't want to remember what happened in these few moments or at this time. There was a point at which that he suggested, too, that he felt like one of them, he says one of them should have been a doctor. And that one seemed to make him more nervous than the other ones. It's kind of interesting because it's only a small little thing. Right. When we talk about Jerry and Maria Blair. Yes. Jerry said, I've got my eye on that one. Yeah. He's the guy in charge. They all look the same. And he said to his wife, I've got my eye on that one. He's the one in charge. It's very similar to what Calvin was saying in that respect. There's a type of trauma that you can't get away from there. The one that's the scariest to them, like no matter how cloudy the events were or how frightening they were, they both, both of those people are remembering a particularly frightening, the one that's experimenting on them. Absolutely. I mean, we know from everybody's testimony who met Calvin and Charlie immediately afterwards and in the next few days, exactly how frightened they were. Calvin, more than Charlie, as we've discussed, perhaps we've seen reasons for that because of Charlie's experience in the Korean War, being able to deal with that kind of thing. It's been in action. Whereas Calvin was just a country boy, hardworking young fella, never had any experience like that. But it hadn't been all a bed of roses, but he certainly hadn't fought in the war. So, you know, everybody could say, even the Deputy Glenn Ryder, who was there that night, he said, if these guys are acting, you know, they ought to be in Hollywood if they're lying. They were that good, that convincing. You know, I've seen little TV interviews with Deputy Glenn Ryder down the years, and he emphasized that point. Sadly, he's no longer with us, but he went on the record nonetheless. We always look for patterns, and not that it verifies anything, but it could be just something very curious about these collective experiences that people say, like, well, this is just part of pop culture at the time, and people are thinking about it, so it's on their minds, and, you know, the prevalence of science fiction. But things that match up, in a way, one thing that reminded me of is the fact that they describe the experiencer, or the abductee is describing, their whole body being paralyzed, except for the eyes. That reminds me of Terry Lovelace's experience at Devil's Den, where he said he was totally paralyzed, but he could still move his eyes. And he also was able to track who he thought was the leader. Now, that was a different type of being, much taller, a praying mantis type, as he said, but there were other various beings that were more like helpers. That also tracks with his experience. Also, machinery seeming to come out of a wall that had no doors or was apparently seamless, and just that kind of technology. Well, of course, you know, that tracks probably with sci-fi that you wouldn't just have a bunch of clunky machinery around, but things seemingly coming out of a solid wall, and then going back in. And just what was described about the technology they used seems to match up. And, of course, the light coming out of the paint, as Calvin said, not that he could see any paint, but it came out of the walls. There's no light fittings. And what is curious, I have a colleague who runs, he's got his PhD in folklore, and he recounted a story to me, I don't know how, a couple of hundred years ago, but there's the master returning home on his horse with his slave walking behind him, you know, his servant. He gets fed up waiting for him and says, look, I'm going to go ahead. You'll catch up. The servant was much later than he should have been. And when he turned up, the rich fellow gave him a road stint. You know, where have you been? It shouldn't have taken you this long. And he was frightened. He said, I've been taken into a fairy mound. And the walls were illuminated, and there was no lanterns there. And, of course, there was a period of missing time. And when they went back to where the fairy mound supposedly was, it wasn't there. So, again, if we take out the details of these experiences and just look at the building blocks, the parameters that make them, it doesn't matter what date and time it is or what country you're in, they all have some of these building blocks in them. And Dr. Eddie Bullard has written about this extensively. He made a list of these symptoms, if you like. And it's amazing how they do correspond around the world. What he's saying is that these experiences, they're made up of these building blocks. Not every experience has all of them, but they all have some of them. And that doesn't matter where you are, where you live, what country you're in, what the popular culture is, because it's different around the world, of course. Right. But he said it can then be coloured because of where you live. For example, some of the encounters in the Soviet Union were big, tall fellas, which is what the Russians like to think of. You know, the Russian bear, big, strong. Here in the UK, we are a multicultural country, so we have a bit of everything in the United States. It's looked upon as one of the high-tech places of the world, so you have the little bald-headed fellas with the big eyes. But if you take all that out, you know, the building blocks are there. The parameters are there, no matter what the visuals are like. And that's fascinating. And it's the one thing, when I read about Calvin and Charlie's encounter in a magazine in the 1980s, the one thing that stuck in my mind was the description of these creatures. Calvin called them the big, ugly ones, for good reason. And with such popular culture, and in fact, in between me speaking to you, a colleague of mine sent me a comic book from, I think it was 1971. And he said, do you think these creatures on the front look like the Pascagoula things? And I said, if they did, I would say so, but they didn't. But a nice try, but no cigar. And we just can't find them. So it's another example of how unique cases like this are. And there was nothing that we can find in popular culture that reflects the visuals in the Pascagoula case. You know, it's like you said, there's like a Venn diagram. You know, I have a good friend of the show and a friend of ours, a colleague who you may have heard of. His name's Micah Hanks. He has several podcasts and stuff. And he researches archaeology and other things. And he is the editor-in-chief of the Debrief here, which covers all kinds of space news and stuff like that. But Micah came on our show once and did an episode we called The Search for Man-Like Monsters in History, which was the first time that, for me personally, Forrest is smarter than I am. But it was like when he said, well, you know, here, let's take that and apply it to Bigfoot and look at all these cultures and all these different sightings and what this Native American tribe called the hairy man and take it from all over the world. And it goes back thousands of years. And it's interesting to apply that to UFOs, too, because then you get this Venn diagram of, as like you said, they don't all align. But in the middle there, there seems to be some kind of common experience happening that goes back throughout culture and time. That's really fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. When you come back to like the other things that Calvin went through on the ship, and we did touch on this a little bit in part one, but I find it so terrifying. I want to, you know, I want to revisit it a little bit because I think it's important when you think about, you know, later we get to talking about, did this happen or not? And some of this stuff was recounted when he was under hypnosis with Bud Hopkins, but the bloodletting and the bleeding and all the blood rushing out of his body or maybe being replaced. And again, we'll talk about Maria Blair here in a little bit. But like when you look at the puncture wounds, which you mentioned in part one, like on his foot and on his wrist, it's almost this idea like they're, you know, changing a fluid in a radiator or something. Yeah. I mean, Calvin said that first off, he could hear this dripping because he couldn't move at the time, but, you know, he could still see and hear and he could hear this dripping noise. And he later found out that it was the blood from his hand. And that then they removed his lower clothing and his shoes and socks and they stuck this thing in his foot and he said it hurts. It wasn't excruciating, but it did hurt. Right. And he felt as if they were pumping something into him that was replacing his blood. It's almost like embalming fluid. That's what it reminded me of. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying it wasn't. I just, that's the only thing that I, you know, I remembered. Well, he said he smelled ammonia too. Yes, he did. As well, right? I mean, again, that's another thing that surprisingly crops up in certain encounters. There's a famous one in Scotland with a gentleman called Robert Taylor. I interviewed him many, many years ago. He was in a place called Deckmont Woods early one morning. He was a, you know, forest worker. I won't go into it in great detail, but he saw this thing, these spheres came out from underneath it and came towards him, and he had a strong smell of ammonia before he blacked out. It's not in every case, but it does crop up now and again, this strange odor, ammonia, you know, whatever you want to call it. And Calvin was convinced that they were trying to replace, you know, his blood with something else. But that's only his opinion. We can't prove it, of course. It's another thing that's helped scare the living daylights out of him. Well, sure. Again, in part one, when you talked about the female character, too, that was perpetrating this part of it, who's different. And I want that to be clear to a lot of people. Once they get on board from the things that came out with the carrot-like protrusions that levitated them into the ship and maybe even gave them some kind of sedative or something or whatever, those were not what were conducting the work once they were inside. Everyone needs to be clear on that, right? Yeah, I mean, Calvin said the big, ugly guy stood to, he said in the corner, but there wasn't actually a corner, but he stood out of the way and he could hear something from behind him and he assumed there was somebody else there. And then this female being arrived next to him and she was pretty much human looking. But Calvin did say she had a mask on. Okay, right. That was scary as well. And what said, what did she look like, Calvin? And he could just say, if you're sold in a bar, you buy her a drink. She was an attractive looking female, apart from the fingers, the middle fingers of her hand, which were longer. And of course, she used those to probe up into his navel cavity and it hurt. And he said, she didn't speak. It just came into my head. What about the sequence of events where he actually talks about physically attacking her and causing damage to her? He got loose at one point and he managed to get her in a, sounds like a headlock almost. Like I said, Calvin was a, was well known for settling a few fights if need be. He was a tough guy, not a trouble causer or anything like that, but he wasn't the type of local guy you want to pick a fight with. So he used his natural resources, which was his muscle and he got this thing in a headlock and banged it against the side of the wall. But then the big ugly guy, as he said, stepped forward and he said, give him the, he calls it the, I think he called it the money shot. Give him the money shot. Felt a little, and that was him frozen solid again. He couldn't do anything. Right. And away you go. Well, it's another reason why Calvin was so scared and embarrassed. Yeah. If us three had squared up to Calvin for a fist fight, he wouldn't have flinched. Yeah. Here he is. He's not able to do that. He's not able to do the things that, so he's frightened. That's the huge part of it. But he's also embarrassed because he helped them take his lower clothing off. Right. And he could not forgive himself for that. And it took him a long time to tell me what happened. He told me a little bits and pieces and eventually he told me, you could see just by the look on his face, just saying, well, you know, I just felt useless. He was under the impression that they collected a sperm sample from him. I think so. Yes. He said that without not using so many words. And he also thought there might've been something in his nose. Right. Like implanted. Yeah. That was many years later when he talked about this. You know, what were they doing in my nose? He may have seen other cases on the TV or whatever by this time and thought, well, they were playing around with my nose. Maybe. I don't know. He'd no direct knowledge of that. It was just thinking out loud, so to speak. Charles's experience on the ship was a little different. He didn't have a recollection of all this kind of experimentation and stuff, right? No, not at all. I mean, Charlie said he was suspended. Right. So he was literally hanging in nothing. He was hanging in midair. He wasn't like Calvin was put on a transparent table. Right. Or he believes he was. And he even knew the angle of it. You know, Calvin worked in the construction industry as well. He could tell you the angle that this thing was. Whereas Charlie said, I was just suspended. And where the two creatures went, he said, I have no idea. And the only thing he recounted was this thing came out of the wall in front of him about the size of a basketball. Right. And he said it looked to him like a big eye. Right. And it didn't go around him that way like with Calvin. It actually went the other way around and scanned all the, well, saying scan. He thought it was scanning, some kind of scan. It went back into the wall. This is interesting what you're saying, because for people that aren't seeing this and only hearing it, you're indicating that when it went around Calvin, it sort of orbited him in a latitude. Yeah, it went around Calvin's head. With Charlie, it was like a North to South Pole situation. Absolutely, yes. Yeah. Interesting. That's amazing. And they were both different things. The thing that Calvin saw, he said it came, you didn't see where it came from, but it came out of the ceiling. It was about the size of a deck of cars. We might say today about the size of a mobile phone. Okay. And it had a marking underneath it that looked like the letter M. Right. And it just went around his head. And he heard this clicking noise. And he said it was some years later when he was ill and he had an MRI. That's what it reminded him. He's sat in this big, you know, he's laying in this big machine and he could hear these noises going around it. I mean, I've had an MRI a couple of times. I know exactly what it means. Yeah, me too. And it reminded him that. The noise, not the size of the signal. Then it went back up. He said, I never saw any wires or anything like that. It was just gone. And away it went. Charlie's also the one that he thought, at least, and this again, this was recalled under hypnosis, but he felt that there were people on the ship in another room. You mentioned this in part one, but I just want to remind folks. Yeah. He said that under hypnosis, I believe with Bud. Yeah. And that's the only recollection I have of him saying that. You know, I've seen interviews with Charlie. I've read interviews with Charlie and I can't find it anywhere else. I'm not saying it isn't there. I've just not seen it anywhere else. Right. Right. But certainly Calvin never said that. But they both seem to have been concerned about death or dying or had thoughts that they might die during this experience. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Charlie said, you know, they're going to kill me. I just want them to get on with it. If they're going to do it, you know, don't mess around. And then he thought back to his time in Korea when his life had been under threat from incoming enemy fire and how he managed to escape that. So he used that to kind of calm himself and deal with the situation. And Calvin said on the secret tape, I think he mentioned it even on there, he thought he was going to die. He was literally scared to death. I mean, it's a phrase we often use. But I think certainly in Calvin's instance, it fits perfectly how he felt. And of course, when he got back to Charlie's, he took all his clothes off. They still thought they might be poisoned in some way. And he found a gallon of bleach and literally washed himself in the shower with bleach and threw the clothes in the dumpster. Which includes his shirt that was covered with either blood or dark food. Yeah, everything. The whole lot, all his clothes, all gone. You know, I remember talking to him about that and he said, I wish I'd have saved them. You know, he didn't realize at the time, but he said, I wish I'd have saved them. I wish I'd have put them somewhere. But it's a very natural thing, though, after a trauma to like want to rid yourself and cleanse yourself. And that's a completely understandable experience. It reminded me somewhat, not that I'm a great, I have a great knowledge about this, but some years back, a TV show about young ladies who've been abused. One of them, God bless her, afterwards, she just felt so dirty. And she was in the shower scrubbing herself. It reminded, you know, when Calvin told me about that, it reminded me of what this young lady had said after she'd been abused. I mean, they both felt dirty, diseased. Whatever you want to call it. And Calvin used bleach. She used bleach to remind me of his mom when he got dirty. Or she said, if I said a bad word when I was a youngster, my mother would wash my mouth out with soap. So for him, it was the right thing to do. As strange as it may be to us, I'm dirty. And it also, you know, he said, I just did it. And he said, I wanted to be sure we were safe. Hey, has your wife ever gotten excited about one of our new sponsors? Well, not too often over the years. But I'll tell you that she did perk up when I told her I was going to order some clothes from Quince. Well, I think that's because she knows Quince is known for the latest fashions and quality manufacturing at affordable prices. She actually brought up. She was like, wow, you know, I've been meaning to get some stuff from them. 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Buy or sell your next car today with car gurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus dot com. This is Mike from Montreal. And while I'm unraveling the intricacies of the human brain, I'm listening to Scott Forrest on Astonishing Legends. Now, let's get back to the show. All these things also follow, as you were bringing up earlier, folklore and the same recurring tales, no matter what time or culture. There are a lot of things that rhyme with these. And this story ticks off so many of those boxes, as they say, just with the experience. But some really stand out. And I think that's what makes this case unique. Sometimes you hear people fighting back, like Travis Walton was able to, I think, try to smash the control board until they came in. And what I loved about that story, where they were like, okay, we're just going to come back. You have your tantrum. And here, he was immediately kind of sedated it, I guess. But just the curiosity and the things that happened. And unless they've all somehow colluded on these stories, so many of the same things keep coming up. In that, we're not going to hurt you, but this is going to hurt. And you're not going to remember this, but you do remember some of this. And so many things line up with this story. And is there anything, though, that you think that sounds so much different than other abduction stories or encounters that you come across? We started off with this encounter with just what happened to Charlie and Calvin. And that's where the story stood for a long time. Even though back in 1973, there were a couple of people who went on the record, say, I saw something that night. But quite by chance, this encounter grew with other witnesses and other happenings. And we mentioned folklore there. This happened on the Pascagoula River, which is also known, officially known, the signs pointing to it as the Singing River. The whole area around here gets its names from the indigenous populations that used to live there. And the thing about the Singing River is there were two tribes of Indians that lived side by side. And they'd lived, you know, peacefully. But then trouble started and there was going to be a big fight. And the one tribe thought, well, this lot's going to wipe us out. So to say face, in inverted commas, they all committed mass suicide by walking into the river and singing as they did. Hence it gets the name of the Singing River. The river is supposed to make noises. The folklore is that's the ghosts of the Indians and what they were singing. And what is interesting about Charlie and Calvin's encounter is when they stood facing the river, before they've looked behind them, they say, we hear this zipping noise. Right. We hear this zip, zip, zip. You know, I have Calvin on video saying we heard this zipping noise coming from the river. So is that the Singing River playing its tricks that night, you know, coming to life? Who knows? But they did. Both said we heard this zipping noise before anything began. And then they've got the blue light goes out across the water and then they turn around expecting to see the police. And it's not the police. And, you know, the rest is history. And so there is folklore in that area. It's just curious that they were part of it. And there's also, I think, the story about a mermaid in the river. What is nice is that there were a gentleman, a TV producer that Calvin worked with for a long while. And he wrote a four-part drama series about Calvin's experiences, not just in 1973, but the way it was affected afterwards. And he puts a scene in it that's not real. It didn't happen. Calvin and his fiancée, Wayne, are swimming in the river. And he pays homage to the folklore because he said she looked like a mermaid. That never happened in real life, but it was a way of him subtly putting that piece of folklore into the screenplay. Sadly, it's never got made, but it gives you an idea of what we've been talking about. So there is folklore in the area, yes. That reminds me of the one witness because that's, for me, one of the things that's so fascinating about this case. Because of the other cases we've looked at, there's not a lot of witnesses. But this one, they're coming out of the woodwork, it seems. One of them was, I think, Pamela Eves, who lived on Ronnie Drive. What's interesting about Pamela, I'll tell you the other story first. One of the criticisms at the time was that there was a bridge tender, worked on the toll bridge. There was somebody who manned that toll 24-7. And that night, he didn't report anything. And there was cars going over, you know, maybe not a lot. And one of the criticisms was that nobody driving across it there that night saw anything. Well, they should have said nobody reported anything. Didn't mean that no one had... Anyway, a gentleman stepped forward by the name of Mr. Charles Rusty Anderson. He said, I was driving over the bridge that night with my wife. And she was on the other side. She couldn't see as much as I could. And he said, we saw these lights. And it was this blue thing. And he said, but it was down below us as well. It went down below. He said, I thought it was going to crash. It was that low. And, of course, from the bridge, I have Calvin take me some photographs from the bridge. And it's pretty much roughly where they were fishing, down below. And he said the next day, he went to his aunts, who lived down by the river. She says, you'll never believe what I saw last night. Now, Rusty was interviewed for a TV documentary in 2022, which just was broadcast a couple of months ago here in the UK. So we put on Facebook, just being interviewed. And there's, you know, there's comments underneath it. And there's a lady by the name of Pamela Raley Eves. She makes a comment and said, I saw that thing that night. Words to that effect. So I sent Pamela a private message. Can we speak to you? Yeah. And she said she was putting her children to bed that night. And she went to close the curtains. And where they lived, they got a good view of the river. She said, I saw this blue light. Now, Pamela is the cousin of Rusty Anderson. And neither of them had ever talked about what each other saw. So we interviewed Pamela and she's in our book. And again, you know, it was just a little comment that Rusty made. And then you got a few comments underneath saying, where can we see it? When's the documentary? But the documentary has just gone out recently. So, you know, you have two family members were not aware of what the other one had seen. And it just gives you an idea how some of these witnesses come forward. What is interesting, you put Charlie and Calvin on the bank of the river, river, so we know exactly where they were. And then you've got to your left, you've got the toll bridge where Rusty is driving over. Well, Pamela lived to the other side, to the right, because behind Charlie and Calvin were both commercial and residential properties. And she lived in one of them. So you can roughly figure out they were all pointing in the same direction. And that's where Charlie and Calvin were fishing. Similarly, we mentioned him, I think, in part one, Mr. Lee. Mr. Lewis Lee, he was on the other side of the river in the shipyard. He's the one in the crane. He's the one in the crane. Right. And he got in the crane and he said, my cab was about 10 or 12 feet off the ground. And you could see this thing out over the river, not up in the sky, out over the river. And he said, I've never seen anything like it in my life. The thing I love about this, too, that's interesting, and it's just the matter of factness of it, and it's from your book when you talk about him, is that there was a problem. And they were working on the problem. He had two guys down below him trying to fix the crane who were too low maybe to see it or didn't notice because they were concerned with the issue. And so he was watching it, but he got to the point where he needed to pay attention so he didn't accidentally kill his friends and co-workers with the crane. And so he looked down to deal with that, and when he looked back, it was over. That's the only reason he took his eyes off it, because his colleagues down below shouted him. And he had to, obviously, as a crane operator, you've got to watch what you're doing. And what is also interesting is that Lewis was what we, I don't know if you use the same phrase in the US, it was moonlighting. So he had a regular day job somewhere else, but was doing a couple of hours extra on a night in the shipyard to earn a bit of extra money. We call it moonlighting. That tracks here, too. And that was another reason why he didn't blab about it, because I think technically you're not supposed to do that. Right. Maybe he's, yeah, working to his other employer might not want him doing a night job or whatever. Yeah, so if you just put those few, Rusty, Pamela, and Mr. Lee all together, and you can approximately triangulate where the object was that they were looking at. And it is roughly where Charlie and Calvin were fishing that night. I mean, the pier's long since gone, but the coastline is still there. Weren't they on the pier fishing when it happened? Yes, they were sat on the pier fishing. Were they brought back to the pier or to the ground? No, it's back to the pier. All the way out to the pier. And Charlie says when he was put down, Calvin, he stood like the old Frankenstein. He's facing the water with his arms out in front of him. Right, right. And Charlie's legs buckled. His legs were a bit weak. And he managed to get up, and he shook Calvin. Are you all right, son? Are you all right? Are you all right, son? Calvin didn't say this, but he thought, no, I'm not all right. You know, he thought that was a damn stupid question to ask. You know, no, it wasn't all right. And they spent some time there discussing what on earth had happened and what they were going to do. Charlie seemed to recall under hypnosis, I think it was that his feet were dragging when he was brought back out. Yeah. Like Barney Hill. Yeah, his legs had gone. Wasn't that with Barney that happened, I think? So Joanne, though, she is the one who was with the pastor. She was with Pastor Sigalas and Don Broadus. Because she was only in the area for a couple of years. She volunteered at the church. I think she taught at the school there. So she's not from the area. And when we interviewed her, she was living in Maryland. Right. You know, we tracked her down, as I explained previously. She, you know, said, yeah, this happened. And then Irina interviewed her on the telephone. We have that recorded. So we have that as well. And it was just by chance that we found her name. We were reading old newspaper cuttings. And I've got a lot. And it just, one newspaper cutting mentioned her name. Right. And that's how we were able to find her after a long search. But because we were criticised for the amount of witnesses that we'd tracked. All these people are looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Well, not at all. I mean, Mrs. Ormer, we found her. She didn't contact us. And she would probably never have told the story had we not got in touch. So that's not the case. But some did come forward. Yes, absolutely. And some of them had got to the stage in life now where they'd reached a certain age that they couldn't care less anymore. Whereas back in 1973, they saw what happened to Charlie and Calvin in the local media. I remember speaking to one gentleman. He saw something a few nights later. And he said, I saw Charlie and Calvin on two different, I saw the story on two different channels. One was pretty serious. The other just made fun of them. And he said, after what I saw a couple of nights later, there was no way I was going to get involved with the media. It's just not going to happen. Speaking of getting to that point in life and something that we wanted to come back to because it was one of the most poignant witness sections in your book and your research is Jerry and Maria Blair. So let's talk about where they were. And the thing that's fascinating to me about this is the experience that she thought she had with her husband and that he led her to believe nothing happened. And then sometime later, he does an about-face on that. Well, let's just reiterate how we found Jerry and Maria Blair. Okay. Calvin was interviewed by a local journalist called Karen Nelson. And she was quite sceptical. But when she interviewed with him, she also filmed it. And she made like a little mini documentary. So when you read her piece online, there was the little, you know, a little documentary. Somebody grabbed that and put it on YouTube. And I was reading one of the comments underneath it. And there were a lot. Thankfully, this wasn't that far down, you know. And there was a comment that said, oh, my mother and father were on the opposite side of the river that night. And they too saw the UFO. And I thought, well, that's interesting. So I managed to find this person. It was a young lady. And I said, could we speak to you, mother and father? She said, I'll ask them. And she said, yeah, it's Jerry and Maria Blair. Gave me the telephone number. And I spoke to Maria. And then I passed it on to my colleague, Dr. Irene Scott. And Irene did the main interviews with Jerry and Maria. And also kept in touch with them. Now, what Maria told us was that they were on the opposite side of the river that night because Jerry worked offshore. They used to work with the oil rigs, supply them, service them. And his boss, the captain, hadn't arrived. So they were waiting for him. And, of course, Jerry was not in the best of moves. So he thought, I'll try and get some sleep. And then Maria said, we saw this blue thing come down the river. She later went on to say it was almost as if it was using the river as a map. Yeah. And it stopped opposite them, moved around as if it was either looking for something or didn't know where it was. Now, Maria knew the area. She knew there was no airfield there. There's no helicopters in that area. And then she said, we decided to put Jerry's clothing onto the boat. The bus still hadn't turned up. So Jerry went in front. She's walking behind. And she says, there's a huge splash in the water next to them. This is her words that she used. This gray man came up out of the water and literally was nose to nose with her. And then it went back down into the water, under the water, and never came back up. So she'd run up to the boat and threw the stuff on it. And then she had to go back down the pier to get back to the car. Now, she estimated this was approximately nine o'clock. Oh, she can't give you an exact time. And she said, once you got back to the car, it was midnight. So she talked to Jerry about this when he returned home a few days later. And he just said, we're not telling anybody. Nothing. We're nuts. Three hours are missing for her. Yeah. And he said, well, I'm just not going to tell anybody. We'll think we're nuts. What is interesting on that posting on YouTube, that was actually their daughter. And she signed off on it saying, yes, my mom and dad saw the UFO that night. But they were not abducted. So even the daughters didn't know. They were aware that they'd seen something that night. And when you talk to Maria about this, she was very emotional. She kept going on. She said to me, I've often wondered, Philip, if something like what happened to Charlie and Calvin might have happened to her. And I said, well, why would you say that? She said, well, I can see these things out of my peripheral vision. And she couldn't quite make it out. There was something bothering her. So Irina kept in touch with her when the city of Pascagoula put the monument there, the historical marker. She came forward with Jerry, spoke to the local media, but again, just talked about seeing this blue light. And that's when she met Calvin for the first time. And Jerry wasn't a very talkative man. He kind of smoked on his cigarette and just kind of stayed in the background. And then he took ill, seriously ill. He was in the hospital. He was going to have an operation. He wasn't sure if he was going to make it. And he said, you've got to ring Mr. Mal and ring him now. And they did. And he said, I'm sorry, I lied. I saw what my wife saw that night. And she actually filmed him on the mobile phone, did Maria. He survived the operation, thankfully, but it was only a respite. You know, there was no saving him. It was just a matter of time when he died. And he said to Maria, I've got something to tell you. You know, we were abducted that night. And even though he was seriously ill, Maria gave him a tongue lashing. She said, you better start talking. And he said, yeah. The thing she saw was one of these creatures. What she could see out of her peripheral vision wasn't a peripheral vision. She actually had her eyes screwed up. So she was peeping out of her eyes. And she could see the other end of the pier where Jerry was. And there was, she said, there were two or three of them with him. And he said, he told her, he said, that one's the leader. And he pointed to his eye. I've kept my eye on that one. That one's as if in charge. And then they went in the water to go back across the river. And of course, that's where Charlie and Calvin were. But Maria made it out as if these things had happened before. And that Jerry was aware of it. And he made some kind of agreement with them not to hurt his wife. And that's where we got to. Curious. Very curious indeed. They're across the river. Yeah. And again, I know we touched on the Singing River earlier, just for listeners who don't understand that the Singing River and the Pascagoula River are one in the same, identical in this area, especially. So they're across the river waiting for him to go to work. He's asleep in the car. And this stuff is happening. She sees this thing come out of the water, which presumably is similar to whatever Calvin and Charlie saw come and take them on board the ship. Which again, too, there's this idea, and we might as well touch on it here a little bit. I do want to come back and talk about the Blairs more, because there's a lot more fascinating stuff there. But there's an idea that these beings that brought them on board, you mentioned this very briefly in part one, but I want to reiterate it because it seems to make sense, are some kind of robots or drones or something that's automated and mechanical that wasn't breathing and that almost appeared like a construct. Almost from the very beginning, Charlie and Calvin, when talking about these ugly creatures, talked about being robotic. I think it was more their movements. The fact that they didn't make any noise, you know, they couldn't see any form of breathing or anything like that. And it gave them the impression that they were not flesh and blood. There's some kind of mechanical creature. Robots, for want of a better word. And they even talk about that in some of the recordings that we've listened to. And that didn't come in years later when somebody suggested it to them. That was their feelings. That was their impression right from the get-go. Because we asked Maria, were these the same creatures? She said, I think so. But I didn't get a good close-up look at them at that time because it was literally nose to nose, but I could make out it was grey and wrinkly. Jerry called them the grey humanoids. That was the word he used. Maria called them the grey man. To all intents and purposes, she's convinced it was the same things. Can't prove that, of course. It's just her impression. But again, had I not read that post on YouTube, we probably would never have heard this story. Because her youngest daughter put that post on there, but said at the end of it, they were not abducted. So even they hadn't told their daughters the story. They told no one. Just that they saw the blue lights, and that was it. Jerry waited almost 50 years because he was in bad health to tell Maria this. But there is an implication from your book that he kind of had, it wasn't just a recent agreement. It was maybe an ongoing, lifelong, recurring series of events for him. Yeah. Yeah. I think he pretty much told Maria that these things had happened again previously. He was willing to go along with it. Not that he had any choice, but he was willing to participate, if you like, so long as they didn't hurt his wife. I mean, they were a devoted couple. They really were. And she was devastated when he died. You know, Jerry's testimony, if that's what you want to call it, is almost like a deathbed confession, although it spread out over several months. And we have him on a little piece of film as well from Maria's mobile. He's actually, when he makes that little film, he's sat on his hospital bed. He still has the electrodes stuck on his chest. You know, I thought, God bless him for doing that. It can't have been easy. And right up to his last breath, when he was getting to his last days, he couldn't talk properly. But he was still trying to tell Maria more about what had happened. And she could hear his whisper and see his lips move. She could make out what he was saying. I mean, make of it what you will, gentlemen. Again, we say that in the book. Look, this is the testimony we have. This is how it came about. This is how we found Maria and Jerry Blair. Make of it what you will. It's fascinating nonetheless. By the way, we have in our show notes, an article from reporter Karen Nelson from the Sun-Herald, if anyone wants to check that out, titled, I Launched a New Investigation Into the 1973 Coast UFO Objection Story. And that came out June 24th, 2019. So fairly recently. Same thing with Maria undergoing hypnosis and regression hypnosis in 2022. So fairly recent developments, you could say, of an ongoing case. Well, when Jerry had passed away, Maria obviously knew that Calvin had previously had hypnosis. And I said, look, you know, your husband's not long since passed away. You know, forget it. And she said, OK. And then she came back at some point later. I said, well, look, you know, I'm several thousand miles across the other side of the Atlantic, but I'll see what I can do. And, you know, the pandemic was now over. It was freedom of movement, all that kind of thing. So I just went online. I found a number of practitioners in that area and I just emailed them. Didn't tell them what I was looking for, just if they could do this type of hypnosis. And one young lady came back. She's called Crystal, Crystal Slaughter, said, yes, I can. I'll even go to the client's house if necessary. They don't have to come here. Obviously, she wanted to pay him for her services. So we arranged it. The hypnosis took place at Calvin's house because Maria knew that Calvin had been through hypnosis before. So he knew the score spot, so to speak. And what we told the hypnotherapist was nothing, just the date, time and a location. And that's all she knew. She didn't know who the hell Calvin was. To the best of my knowledge, she didn't anyway. So she put her under hypnosis. I hired a professional cameraman who lived in the area to film it. So we had it on record. None of us knew what was going to happen. We knew Maria's story up to a point. You know, she came out with her own story. She's scared under this at times. She's quite emotional. She can't find her husband. She's concerned about that. But she talks about seeing these creatures. They're interested in her eggs. And the reason they want these is to make creatures, hybrids, you might, she didn't use that word, but I will, that can walk amongst us without being recognized. And that was the gist of it. There are big gaps between question and answer. And she was very emotional afterwards. And I'm thankful that Calvin and his wife were there to look after her. And we hung on to that. You know, I transcribed the whole hypnosis session as well. So we have it in written form. And it is what it is. Some people will criticize hypnosis, probably for the right reasons. Some people say, no, it's a useful tool. The way I personally look at it is not from a research point of view, but whether or not it helped the individual. If they felt that this had helped them, that's fine. And Maria certainly did. What she went on to say afterwards was quite intriguing. She said that, in her opinion, her and Jerry were the intended targets that night, because they were supposed to be there at that time and at that location. And possibly things that happened with Jerry in the past. Charlie and Calvin were collateral damage. They only decided to go fishing on the way home from work that night. They weren't supposed to be there. So that was her opinion, was that they were the intended targets, not Charlie and Calvin. So it certainly makes you think it really does. Or it did me anyway, because that was not what I was expecting. I didn't know what I expected, to be honest. I didn't really think she'd say much more than she'd already told us. What is interesting, she didn't replicate a lot of what Jerry had told her either. She didn't just tell Jerry's story. So that would have been perhaps an easy thing to do. Let's just say, well, you know, as if she was seeing what Jerry had told her. But that certainly didn't happen. But it's fascinating, whichever way you want to look at it, even from a skeptical point of view, it's still fascinating. It really is. Aren't you about to be spending some time at your family's beach place for the summer? Yeah, with any luck, just waiting for my son to finish his school year. It frees up the calendar a lot. So is your summer bod ready for prime time? Hey, man, summer bods are out and getting your savings bod is in. And my savings bod is on point right now. Well, the savings bod is where it's at, folks. Especially right now. Yeah, we've been on it for a while now because Mint Mobile rescued us from overpriced wireless bills years ago. They have premium wireless plans for just $15 a month. If you're still with some big wireless outfit and want to say goodbye to jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. That's right. Even at $15 a month, you still get high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and you can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan. No need to buy a new one or deal with the hassle. And you get to keep your phone number along with all of your existing contacts. It's a win-win. So this summer, get your savings bod ready for prime time. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month. You can't beat that deal. Nope. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at mintmobile.com slash AL. That's mintmobile.com slash AL. Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month five-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only. Then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embetta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing. Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with quantum? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit ibm.com slash quantum. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. Hi, I'm Niamh and Roses from Colonia Agrippina. When I am not dancing around the bonfire or flying around on my broom, I listen to astonishing legends. Thank you. Everyone in this case, or at least Jerry, Maria, Calvin, and Charlie, claim to have continued interaction with these beings. So whether it was an accident or not, wrong place, wrong time with Calvin and Charlie, I think they both continued to claim that they knew where they were at all times. At least Charlie said that, that he felt he was being followed. Yes. Maria felt that she had possibly been impregnated, had given birth to a hybrid, that her daughter may still be some sort of hybrid. Do we know much about what Charlie and Calvin had claimed were the types of continued interactions? Yeah. With Charlie, it was more of what we call a contactee. So Charlie would be about his everyday business, and he would get a message from them. What's interesting, the message wasn't from the uglies, the ugly gray guys. It was from whoever controlled them, and Charlie was of the opinion that they were going to do something on Earth that would benefit all mankind. It would help us as a species. Peace, harmony, whatever, fuel for cancer, I mean, you name it, it could have been any of that. And they would, you know, it would be literally, and they would get these messages. There was then an instance that is called, in his own book, it's called the Mother's Day sighting, and they were going to visit, I believe it's his mum, for Mother's Day, and it was the whole family. And on the way back, they had a UFO sighting in daylight. According to Charlie, this thing was coming down. He was convinced it was going to land, and he thought, this is it. Whatever they planned was going to happen, this is it. Of course, his family wouldn't let him get out of the car. So that's how they transpired. With Maria, we had a young lady by the name of Chelsea Norton Prince interview her for us. She did it on an iPhone, and I sent her a few questions. And Maria said that these things contact her psychologically. From time to time, they control her. They send her to a location, and she will go to that location. She has no idea what for. But she's come around, sat in the car outside the hospital. No idea why they've sent her there. And she said one day she was in, I believe it was in Mobile, Alabama, with her granddaughter, who was about 10. And her granddaughter says, you know, I'd love to see the spaceship, Grandma. She said, okay. And they said, we saw one. She says, interestingly, other people in the area, there was people coming out of a church, I believe. They didn't see anything. And what is interesting about that particular interview is little bits, again, that you might miss. Because Chelsea says to Maria, when did you first meet Calvin Parker? I'll repeat that. When did you first meet Calvin Parker? And she said, I first saw Calvin when he got abducted. She said, I could see what was happening over the other side of the river. She said, I just thought it was men. Some guys, whatever. She said, I had my own things to deal with. So it wasn't the first time she met him, which was what Chelsea was asking. She was expecting her to say, oh, in 2018, when they unveiled the historic marker, that's when I first met him. Because it is, that's when they first met. But she didn't. She turned the answer around and said, no. When I first seen Calvin, not so mean, seen, again, using their accent. When I first seen Calvin when he got abducted. None of us were expecting that at all to come out of that conversation. And it certainly wasn't something we asked her either. And again, make of it what you will. From this interview, one of the things that jumped out at me, and again, sort of gave me chills. And it's classic science fiction, which I admit, I'm a fan of science fiction. And more so since we started the show. I was when I started, but even more now. Maria says, I'm just glad that I'm still here. Yeah. And your interviewer, Chelsea, says, well, I'm so glad, you know, that you're still here too. And she says, some people, they take them and they don't come back. Yeah. And then she says, I'm wondering if I'm really myself, if I'm me. You know, a lot of times I think that, am I really the girl they took? Or I might be somebody else. I might be a clone or something. Yeah, she does. Yeah. Like she's been duplicated like a file on a computer. Yeah. And dropped off and wouldn't know the difference. Which to me, in terms of whatever these things might be up to, it's terrifying and fascinating and just sobering all at once. Absolutely. No disrespect to Maria. I mean, I don't suspect she's a sci-fi fan or anything like that. She's a, you know, normal Southern lady. Yeah. Dedicated to her family. And she was devastated when Jerry passed away. And to come out with these things, none of us expected anything like this whatsoever. If I'm honest, when we put her under hypnosis, I thought she would just pretty much retell the same story that we already knew. Maybe a little few additions to it, you know, remembering what she saw out of the side of her eyes or whatever. None of that happened at all. She came out with a completely different story and then added to it when we conducted the interview with Chelsea. I tried to get the cameraman that I'd used before to come and he was just too busy. And I realised that we hadn't got Maria down on film with a proper interview. So that's why I asked Chelsea. Because we've done two documentaries in the area. When we were filming in the area, I personally wasn't there. But Maria had moved out of the area, you know, and we couldn't get hold of her to get her on camera. She didn't evade us. She just wasn't available. So we asked her to do that. And she said, yeah, fine. Yeah, no problem. She's since hinted about further hypnosis, but I don't know whether that will happen or not. But she's hinted. And she has a copy of the book, by the way. I sent her a copy. So she's not come back and complained about anything. It's all there. What we now have is a much bigger story than just Charlie and Calvin. Here we have Maria and Cherry, plus all these other witnesses in and around the area. There were some sightings on the lead up to this, and there were some after. And the whole of 1973 was nicknamed by Walter Webb as the Year of the Humanoid, because of the things that were seen across the United States. But it seemed like October in Pascagoula was the epicenter. Even Sheriff Fred Diamond, two days later, had his own sighting. We found that in a newspaper account. So even the sheriff, who had initially been sceptical, but once he saw the state of the two guys and listened to the secret tape, he was convinced. He had no doubts whatsoever. You know, gentlemen, make of it what you will. For people listening tonight, I don't have the answers. Just make of it what you will. What about what Maria thought was happening? Like what, in terms of why are they doing this? What are they doing? There's some kind of need for them to assimilate themselves into human society. They want to walk amongst us unnoticed. And she said, I think, in that interview, that there are some of these driving cars. And as if to say, they just look like everyday folks. So to wear an everyday thing, the same in American culture, is you drive a car. Most people have them. And these things, whatever you want to call them, they drive cars. And of course, that means they're blended in. Nobody knows they're any different. For what the eventual purpose is, that's, you know, another story. Why they would want to do that, I don't know. I think it's to live amongst us. And as Calvin, in another encounter, thinks something similar as well. Although here to help us in some way, you know, Charlie thinks that they were here to help us. You know, mankind's going down a rocky road. What, 1973, we're only, what, 10, 12 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis? You know, the Cold War, we've got Vietnam. We're in a bad place as a society, mankind. But these guys are here, are going to come and help us and maybe rectify all this. But perhaps it's a better way for them to do that is if they look like you and I. You know, rather than the big, ugly things or the female with the mask on, with the long fingers. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just surmising. I honestly, I have no idea. Benevolent but bumbling, it seems. And I wish they would get on with it. Yeah. If they were going to institute some kind of help. But did Maria feel the same way? Because, again, a very common theme, we've heard this quite a bit, the message is we're here to save you from yourselves and to help guide you on the right path so you don't all destroy yourselves. And there might be some mutual benefit to that in that these people have some problem with their own society that they need a fresh infusion of DNA or whatever animalistic traits we have. But there are also some trade-off in that there is some pain that comes with that. Did Maria have the same feeling that they were benevolent? I mean, my point being is that if they're trying to help us, it's also very invasive and it's an intrusion and a violation in many ways. Yeah. I don't think she had any ideas one way or another. She was just reporting it as a fact almost. This is what's happening. I don't know. I know Bud Hopkins, for example. I knew Bud fairly well. He'd come and stayed with me because he was speaking at one of my conferences. He believed that these creatures had gone down a genetic cul-de-sac. They were doomed, basically. They needed their genetics revitalizing and they'd found a specimen which was us to help them do that. Dr. David Jacobs, on the other hand, was completely the opposite. These were bad guys who were not to be trusted. So both gentlemen worked with the same kind of data but came to different conclusions. I don't think Maria came to any specific conclusions other than that's what they do and that's what their intentions are and they can control me or her. Psychologically, they'll tell her to go somewhere. But he said they make sure she's all right. If she's driving, she's not going to carry her off the road and she's not in some kind of trance and she can't control the car, they'll say, go to so-and-so. And she says, I don't remember getting to so-and-so but I remember waking up there. So something else has happened, perhaps, that she's hinting at. But she just calls it matter-of-factly. Not maybe her down-to-earth upbringing, the way she views things. She just says, this is what happens. That's it. She's not going to speculate. I don't think she thinks she's clever enough to speculate. So you mentioned a second encounter that Calvin had a few minutes ago, which is not something most people know about. I mean, it's the first time that was publicized in your book, Pascagola Uncovered? Yeah. So this is something most of the world does not know about that supposedly took place in 1992, right? Calvin had an encounter in 1993, which we had previously published. He talked about it. It's featured in his second book. Okay. But Calvin and I became very good friends, very close friends. And after he died, one of the things I'd always done, even when he was alive, every now and again, I'd have a look online because new things popped up. And I was going through a list of things online, and there was a website done by a local journalist. I can't remember his name without looking in the book. And in this little web page that he'd set up, that hadn't been altered for years, there's a couple of interviews embedded into it. And there was Calvin. And you listen to it, and he starts, he's really revved up for this, he's Calvin, and his blood's pumping. And he starts off, and he says, in no uncertain terms, I was violated. I was violated. And then he tells the story of what happened in 1973. Adds a little bit more info. And then he tells, so he tells that story. And then he says, and now I'm going to tell you about something else. And again, what is this? And it was an incident that happened in a place called Baldwin, Louisiana. I'm about to write it down, because I couldn't remember it. In 1992. I think this is a time when Calvin was working in the oil fields. And I'm not 100% sure. And he said he was with a colleague. And they were driving along, going to look for the next place they were going to go to work. And he felt something. So he pulled the car over, says to his friend, I won't be long. And off he goes into the woods. And lo and behold, there is this thing on the ground. It's like the thing he saw before. There's these big ugly creatures that are outside it. But the female is there. And he goes inside with her. They have a conversation. He wants to know what is going on. And she tells him that their species have already been through what we're going through. Nuclear war, famine, disease, et cetera, et cetera. And it looks like they want to live, or coexist with us, on this planet. And she said, you know, we could rule your planet without firing a shot. We introduced AIDS. We know that's not true. But this is part of the story that Calvin tells. And that the creatures outside are collecting samples. What is also interesting is that Calvin, by this time, had forgotten all about his friend. So he decides to go. But his friend turns up. I think armed with a tire iron. You think something's happened to Calvin. Right, right. So Calvin said, no, we're all right, let's go. Worst to that effect. But if this is accurate, there's potentially another witness to these events out there. That's the man who was working with Calvin that day. You know, and I have no idea why Calvin never, ever mentioned this to me in the five years that I knew him. Yeah. I mean, never. Not a hint. You know, I've racked my brains. Did I miss something somewhere? Did he hint at it? I didn't follow up on it. You don't know. I don't know. And I think, I can't explain it. Now, I believe where the video comes from is that around this time, Calvin said he was earning a good salary. So him and Charlie thought of this great idea. Calvin had had a second thought on things. They wanted to get the story out and not just theirs, but others. So they were going to do it on a cable channel and they set up a little company with another fellow to do it. And I think this is one of the interviews that they did for this cable channel, but they never, it never worked. It never got off the ground. So I think that's where that's come from. It's not being filmed by the, by the journalist Calvin's. Give him a copy somehow. Cause Calvin did tell me about this. And he said, they had tapes somewhere because the following year, Calvin had another encounter. And by this time he changed. He tried to kill this, you know, I've had enough of you. If there's a door here, we're both going out. He bashed her, he got over again and given another thumping against the wall. But he got the same result. But this time he's had enough. And we have a TV interview done with him and Charlie at this point. It's on a local TV. And again, a chap's, I think it was his father's filmed it. And there's Charlie and Calvin sat in in this studio talking away. And Calvin's had a change of heart. We're going to, I'm going to tell everything. And it sounds like the whole story is going to come out. He was also builders speaking at a convention that year. And the convention's proceedings even have a piece in it from Calvin saying, I didn't pass out. You know, I'm going to tell you everything. I forget where that conference was, but it just so happens that a friend of mine, Kevin Randall was at that conference. He was speaking at it. So I asked Kevin, and I said, did Calvin appear? He said, no, there's no sign of him. I would have remembered. And then of course, Calvin went back into hiding because of course, 1993 was an anniversary. It would have been 20 years. So there would have been a reason for doing it, not just, oh, we'll do it now. I think the next time he popped up in the media in any serious way was another 20 years from that in 2013 for the 40th anniversary. But when he never told me about it, or has never spoken about it before, I don't know. I can't figure it out. But it adds another fascinating element to the whole story. It really does. That website is unexplainedcases.com. And it's Darren Dito, who apparently worked for WAPT there. But then that's where that clip is still there. I mean, Darren just updated the website like about 20 days ago. So he's still producing stuff. Yeah. And it's a fascinating piece of film, but well, two pieces. It's all one film. I know, but it's two different accounts and there's much to be gleaned from both of them. But I was amazed. The most shocking thing to you is that, you know, he can't, he didn't tell you about this. He told me the worst thing that had ever happened in his life was when his son died and he blamed himself. And I thought, well, he could tell me about his son dying, but so why not this? Yeah. I don't know. I don't have the answer. He told me about what the encounter he had in 1993. We found that on tape as well. So we had Calvin under hypnosis with Crystal Slaughter, with Kathy and with Bud. And certainly with the one with Bud, he went through the one with Kathy, both. He went through everything, 93, 73, but there was no mention in any of these hypnosis sessions at this event in 1992. None. Not a thing, not a word, not a suggestion. What's the brief overview of the 93 encounter? He went fishing on his own in a little boat this time. And he said, I would only go in for a few hours. So I took a sandwich and a bottle of water. That's all he would need for a couple of hours. And he's fishing and there's a cloud comes over, but the cloud opens up and away he goes. It's this female again. With the big ugly guy. He's lying down. He's been examined again. He said, I've had enough of this. And he wants to kill her. I'm going to kill her. And he said, I'm going to get hold of it. If there's a door, we're both going out of it. I don't care how high we are, we're going out of the door. So he did get hold of them. Bash is here, there and everywhere. He said in this, whatever you want to call it, these little balls of electricity fly around. They're like little marbles, the size of little marbles. And they bounce around the compartment and he's dodging them. But this is where he says she gave him the curse. We'll call it a mirror. It wasn't what we'd call a conventional mirror. And she sold him scenes of past, present and future here on earth. And the future was not looking rosy. People were at war everywhere in the world. You could see the skin melting off people. It was obviously a nuclear war. He called it the curse. And it took him a long time to tell me about that bit. He told me the bare bones of it, but to go into more details, it took him a while because it upset him. And that's why he called it the curse. But he said he'd had enough of this because he didn't want to be controlled by anybody. They have no right to do this to me. I'm my own man. I decide what I do. You buggers don't come and do this to me when you feel like it. So I'm going to kill you. And that was his intention that day. Didn't work out that way. He got back to the boat. It was now dark. His wife, Wayne, had been out looking for him. She'd found his car. She put a note under the windscreen. He didn't have a mobile phone. He turned up at home. He told her the black stuff on his T-shirt was oil. Said, I had a bad engine trouble. It was a friend of his who knew a little bit about the subject who said, there's a guy called Bud Hopkins. He specializes in this kind of stuff. He's at a convention this weekend in Florida. I think you should go see him. So him and his pal get in a car, drive to Florida unannounced. The convention's at a hotel. Calvin will not go in there. He didn't want to be recognized. His friend goes in, finds Bud, explains the situation. Bud says, here's my room key. Check that and I'll meet you both there. He does. There's a couple of other people there. I don't know who they are. And after the chat, persuades him to go under hypnosis. It was done then and then. And we have the tape of that, of course. Right. You know, I've read the tape available. I've transcribed it. So Calvin tells him that, the 93 event, 73 event, and two little things happened to him as a young fella. Does not mention anything about Baldwin, Louisiana in 1992. Kathy Martin came to Pascagoula. I think it was 2020, maybe in 2021. She put Calvin under hypnosis. And I mean, Kathy's good at what she does. And again, talked about 93, talked about 73, talked about these two things in his childhood. Nothing about Baldwin, Louisiana in 1992. Do you think 92 was a fabrication, maybe? I don't know. I don't see why. I don't see why he would have to fabricate anything. Yeah. Because he's made a video that nobody's going to see. Right. If you're going to fabricate it, usually it's for a reason. Right. It's usually to fool people or gain their interest or whatever. You know, Calvin had lived a life not wanting to get people's interest. Around this area at this time, he was having a little change of heart for a short while. And they were going to do this thing on a cable channel, but it never came to pass. You'll have to reach your own conclusions, gentlemen, because I certainly don't have one. Because I thought he's just going to tell me a bit more about what happened before, you know, 73 or whatever. Totally different story. I could not believe it. Luckily, a friend of mine knows how to lift these things off of webpages, so I've got the film. If that webpage disappears, I've still got the film. Yeah. It's just another layer to the whole story. It's another chapter almost, isn't it? Yeah. And you have to reach your own conclusions, what you think about it. I just don't know. Does he mention how the female alien reacted to his being violent and having enough of it? Did he get any resolution from that, or did he just suddenly was back in the boat? It was the big guy's got hold of him, and you're going back to where you come from, you know. But he said he'd had enough. There's a door. And if there's a door, and I get hold of him, we're both going out of it. That's it. So he was willing to risk his own life at the same time. But that's the kind of fellow he was. I can understand him doing exactly that. Did he mention any other encounters after that, or was that really the end of it? That's it, as far as I'm aware. Nothing more. Unless we find something, of course. Right. I mean, this whole case, from when we first published it, from when we first wrote Calvin's book and published that, none of us ever expected it to expound the way it is. I am surprised when I found this. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, because of all the other stuff that we found. The bit that surprises me is that he never told me about it. But again, the case expands even more. I mean, we haven't mentioned about the things seen underwater in the river a couple of weeks later. Oh, that's right. And that is equally fascinating in its own right. In formation, right? Multiple craft in formation? Well, to begin with, it was November the 6th, I believe. So we're talking about three weeks after their encounter. In the same piece of water, just a little bit further out, three little skiffs went out. I think there were eight people on them. And they saw this thing under the water, circular. It was segmented. They said it looked like one of the old Second World War parachutes on the top. They got so close to it, they could hit it with an oar, and it went clunk. The lights went out. They would then appear somewhere else. They chased it around the harbour, and then they went in person to the Coast Guard station and reported it. The Coast Guard sent a boat out. They saw it, and they too hit it, and it went clunk. And we managed to get all the Coast Guard documents about this, all on a bridge, all run redacted. They're all in the book. Now, this is the way UFO research should work. And somebody says to me, contact so-and-so. He's got a photograph of all the witnesses. They were all lined up on the quayside the next day, and he got a photograph of them. Yeah, I did that. He sent me it. There's all the names on the back. So I put this on social media. It's only one of them left alive out of those eight witnesses. And he was the youngest at the time, I believe. He was 16. He's called Earl Ryan. And he was on the boat with his father. And it was his father who hit this thing with the oar. So we interviewed Mr. Ryan. And he says, yep, it's exactly what we saw that night. The Navy came the next day. They thought the Navy were a bit stupid because the Navy said, show me where it happened. They said, well, it's just there in the water. There's nothing to see. It's just the river. And we did read reports that there was supposedly to be a Navy report about the incident, but we never found it. But the Coast Guard wrote it all up. And in one of the files, we even have a letter from the coxswain to the late Leonard Stringfield describing what he saw. He wrote a handwritten letter to him. I have a copy of that. So some people will say, well, that's nothing to do with the Pascagoula case because that was three weeks earlier. And they may well be right. But it's in the same piece of water. It's just a few feet further out because it's a bit deeper there. That's all it is. And make of it what you will, gents. Yeah. And the thing I was thinking about the formation, that was Leroy Sloan in November 73. Yeah, look, Mr. Sloan was working in the shipyard. I remember him speaking to him. He said, when you work on the ship, Philip, it's amazing how far above the ground you really are. What a great view you get. Because these ships are enormous. And he saw a formation of these things come in. Then a few hours later, they came back out. The funny thing he mentioned, the one thing that struck me, was there was no water displacement. I mean, you run anything through water and it displaces the water in front, doesn't it? These several things, there was no water displacement. Well, that's one theory on how they move so fast under the water with other USO type of counters or tracking. Yeah. Somehow there's some technology where they're not pushing the water ahead of them to propel. So whether that's connected or not, I don't know. But again, we publish it. It allows people to reach their own conclusions. And we're not published it. We'll not be able to do that, would we? I personally think there has to be some kind of connection, but I don't know what. I really don't. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Smart Talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna. And I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them, pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example? If anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today, with the goal of being 70% more productive. Yeah. Wow. So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say, you can leverage what we did. We're happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process, because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit ibm.com slash smarttalks. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. I had implied, I think in part one a little bit, I thought, well, I wonder if there's a connection to the nuclear submarines that are being built at the Ingalls yard, but the nuclear power plants aren't put in there. They leave that yard under diesel power, which they go out for sea trials. And then once all that is passed, they go up to Newport News to get those systems put in. There's military shipbuilding there. We knew that. That's no secret. I mean, everybody knew that. You can't hide them. You could fly over there and see them. Then I think there's a place up the river called Horn Island. I think it's about six or seven miles from the site. Apparently, they used to do chemical tests there years ago. Okay. But it's shut down in the 60s. So what we also did as part of this whole thing, we'll look at Charlie and Calvin in isolation for now. We'll look at the solutions that are being put forward. Nobody in their serious mind called it a hoax. So you ignore that idiot Philip class. Well, he's also had very spurious practices for the Travis Walton case as well, trying to bribe. Yeah. I read the whole case file he has on it, class. And there's no attempt to do any research at all. So then the Skeptical Inquirer wrote an article basically saying Charlie and Calvin had had some kind of psychological experience. And they called it, excuse me if I can't pronounce it correctly because it's French, but it's called a filiadeur, where two people can have a shared illusion. And the way this normally works is you've got a guy who's got this very strong will for something to happen, and he believes in it. And slowly but surely, he has a weak-willed companion or friend, and he imposes that on him until he believes it. And they both then believe it's real. But this takes months, even years to do. Charlie and Calvin were only together for a couple of hours one evening. So that's out of the question. Somebody said that they've been experimenting again, the U.S. military, and they've been spraying hallucinogenic items into the air. So it was a hallucination. I said, well, I don't think that's a pretty dangerous thing to do when there's boats going up and down. There's people in the shipyard. Cranes. Yeah, there's traffic going over the bridge. And then I read another piece whereby the submarine, the mini-sub under the water, was actually the Russians spying on the shipyards. Well, if they were spying, they weren't doing a very good job. Not if you can knock on them. And then there is this picture of submariners covered in, you know, the diving belts, stuff and all. But they're coming from inland. Well, the UFO wasn't in the sea. But whatever Charlie and Calvin saw was inland. But what I said to Calvin, the sceptics have moved the goalposts because you have class saying it's a hoax. Then you had Joe Nickel write that article 20 years, 30 years later, saying, no, it's now some kind of psychological phenomena. So they're actually saying something did happen to you. Right. You're not lying anymore. But then how do you expand that to all the other stuff that went on? Calvin, God bless him. I must have known him a year, a year and a bit. And I think at that point, Calvin knew there was something not right about his illness. Although he'd not had any awful diagnosis at that point. But I think Calvin knew. And he sent me a piece and he said, you do not publish this until I die. So I think he got vague that whatever I've got is not going to turn out good. And he was, unfortunately, he was right. So we published Calvin's account for the first time. He now believes they were aliens. These things were not of this earth. Because he changed his mind up and down the years. You know, he'd think of a few different things. Somebody said to him, if you were scared, why on earth did you want to come back and live by the Gulf Coast? I think Calvin had also become a bit like Charlie and thinking that these guys, after all, were going to do us some good. And he wanted to be there. Maybe even meet them again, despite trying to kill the last one. It maybe mellowed a little bit. He blames Charlie for releasing the story in the first place. I don't know if he's got any evidence to support that, because I know when I talked to him about it, he wondered if somebody on the police scanners hadn't picked it up that night. But we do know there was a mole in the sheriff's office, because that mole informed Mr. Van Payne, who got the first interview with him the following day. And that came directly from the sheriff's office. That's the one where they had their backs to the camera. That's right. So there was a leak in the sheriff's office, which is more likely, I think, where the story leaked somehow, than Charlie. By the next morning, didn't Sheriff Diamond call Charlie and said, hey, could you please come down and answer all these questions? Because they were already flooded with reporters the next morning. Absolutely. You know, Charlie had had no opportunity to do that. Calvin was with him pretty much all the way home, and they shared the same house. They went to work the next morning, expecting it to be just another day at work. Nobody knowing anything but us two. Of course, the story was already out. I think Calvin was a little bit bitter that Charlie didn't drop the story at some point and let him get on with his life. So look, that is Calvin's last word. You know, he's dead and gone now. God bless him. And whether you agree with him or not, it really doesn't matter. It wouldn't have mattered if he was still alive. He said, I don't care if people agree with me. He said, they just don't dare call me a liar. And that was it. Did either of them still continue to entertain a religious aspect of this experience as they initially did? Calvin was a great believer in God. Not any specific God, just a Christian God. He couldn't quote you the Bible or anything like that. But he hated politicians of all descriptions. He wasn't a Democrat or Republican. He just said, I don't trust any of them. All I can say, gentlemen, he had a powerful, traumatic influence on his life from day one, right through to the day he died. I asked his wife if they were having a church service for him. And they said, no, we're going to have him cremated. And that's it. I wasn't allowed to tell anybody where it was taking place or what time. They didn't want any fuss. I tried to say, well, there's a lot of people who respect Calvin out here. And, you know, they might like to pay their last respects, even if it's just send some flowers. I sent some flowers, but wasn't allowed to mention a word. Calvin just wanted a quiet life, gent. He wanted to marry his childhood sweetheart, have a family, work hard, have grandkids and retire. But that one day, that one day, October the 11th, 1973, changed all that. And there was no going back. What you just said is the thing that a lot of people should take away who might say, oh, well, this is a hoax. This was for attention. This was for fame and fortune. I think that's the thing people need to remember when they say that. When you think about what it does to these folks for their entire lives, it's why would you put yourself through that? Or after all that suffering, later come forward and just be like, you know what? It was a hoax. And, you know, how many people maybe have done that, that had something real happen and then later said it was a hoax because of what happens after you come out about this? Yeah. And both Charlie and Calvin would have the same opinion. I don't care if you believe me or not. But if you call me a liar, I'm going to punch your face out. That's different. You can disbelieve all you want, but we're not. We're not lying. Well, Philip, we want to thank you again for your second appearance on our show. Would you please remind our listeners where they can find your works, Flying Dispress, et cetera, so that everybody knows where to go if they want to learn more about this case or anything else that you've published about? We have a blog online, flyingdispress.com. I'm on Facebook. I'm easy enough to find. All our books are on Amazon. I'd certainly recommend Charlie and Calvin's earlier books, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by myself and my amazing colleague, Dr. Irina Scott, and the latest one, Pascagoula Uncovered. That will be the last I write about this case, unless something bizarre pops up in the meantime. But that is it. There will be one more book, but that will be from Dr. Irina Scott. And she's trying to emphasize the importance of the case, and I hope to publish that before the end of the year. Thank you again for your time and your expertise. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. That's as good as we're going to get, without talking to Calvin himself or Charles, who's not been with us for quite some time. It's really cool to talk to Philip about this case and all of the things that he and his researchers he's working with, Dr. Irina Scott and everybody else, have uncovered about it since it happened. It just kept blossoming, it seems like. Philip is, yeah, he has certainly got his finger on the pulse of this case and has stayed with it. And I think if you're going to look for any kind of insight to this that other researchers may not have, it's going to be Philip. So I'm glad we got him to discuss this with us in a case that's always fascinated us. But to your point, a lot of people will think like, well, it's a one-time thing. It's these two guys, they probably had some kind of shared folie à deux experience or they were just doing it as a hoax to get some attention. None of that tracks, of course, if you really read into it. But so does the singular and solitary misconception about this case. It wasn't. It was seen by many other people, military people off duty and some very credible eyewitnesses and just regular folks like themselves. And it could have been multiple abductions going on at the same time. Yeah, there may be more that we don't even know about. Because if you think about what happened to Jerry and Maria Blair and then what happened to Charles and Calvin, were there other folks that had a similar experience that night but just aren't aware of it or didn't know about it or haven't come forward? I think it's safe to assume that it's a possibility and a very likely one because look at what's happened to the folks that did come forward. You know, certainly Charlie was on TV, but I think you would really have to be in the dark about this if you think that that's going to be your road to fame and fortune. Don't do it, would be my advice. Most all of the attention is not good, certainly back at that time, exactly what they thought would happen, happen to them. And that they got a lot of ridicule. But also nowadays a bit of reference to it that, you know, there's a little bit of a festival. They are not ridiculed that much because it was pretty big news locally at the time. And in one of the articles there, one of the people interviewed in the article, or it could have been the author themselves, was saying, you know, they were a teenager back then and they remembered it. And she just remembers her friend's father putting aluminum foil in the windows so that the aliens couldn't get into our brains or read our thoughts or, you know, and you can laugh at that. But it shows that people took it seriously, even though maybe they had kind of a silly reaction to it, or who knows, maybe it works. It wasn't just scoffed at. I think that goes to the culture too. Small towns like that, you know who these folks are generally, or you know of them and whether they're a standup type person or a goofball and how to approach it. And I get the feeling that these two, as far as they were known, were not considered any kind of, you know, wackos or goofballs. That they're pretty much straight arrows. And if they sing that something happened to them and they're reacting this severely and that traumatized about it, maybe there's something to it. And also now that we see that there's a site marker, historical site marker on the location, it wasn't just totally debunked by everybody. That seems to be maybe more people from out of the area who are looking in on it with their skeptical views and like, well, you guys are, you guys are kind of simple. You didn't really see that. What you saw was this, or this is what happened to you. And that always kind of irks me and rubs me the wrong way. Charlie's attitude was that people should know about this. This really happened. I don't care if you believe me or not, but I'm going to tell you the truth. And Calvin's reaction being, yeah, as we discussed, much younger and him not being to handle it as well, just didn't want to talk about it at all. But eventually he did. And we're thankful for that. I want the record to be set straight. And you do that by writing a book, your own book. The next thing becomes the whole, like, if you believe any of this at all, like, if this case happened in a vacuum and it was just these two guys and nobody else was, well, the bridge tender didn't see anything. Neither did these people that were across the bridge. There were no cars. There were no eyewitnesses to anything. You're more inclined to believe some of the far out things. Well, maybe they got some bad mushrooms, whatever, you know, like something weird happened. But with all these other folks that saw something, you know, it's so strange. And, like, with these robots, it sort of reminded me of the Cisco Grove incident, which we've covered. Just the oddity of it and how the people were manipulated and also, in a way, treated like, you know, it's the whole zoo or thing, which lots of people talked about in ufology. Just this, you know, I'm going to come down. We're going to tag and release, whatever. You can go back about your business. We just need some sperm and some. We're going to replace all your blood so we can track you easier. Eventually, we're going to replace you, but it's going to take, like, 10,000 years. You're not even going to notice. It's just going to happen slowly. There's just, like, all these ideas. And then, of course, the physics associated with this one. You know, the craft comes down from where? From another dimension, from our dimension, from under the ocean. Where did it come from? It has the power to levitate. If it's connected to the other things that are seen in the river, they have a power to move through, you know, the transmedium. And the water doesn't affect them. There's no resistance. They're using some other way to travel. But then they've got these kind of clumsy robots with pinchers that come out. And you think about that, and it's like, wow, that seems strange. On the other hand, what do all of our deep sea rovers have that go down to examine shipwrecks and stuff? They got pincher claws on the end that you can rotate. And I mean, that's what we built. But there's a lot of intersection between, well, what would people do if we had the access to the technology? And then, because if this all happened, and you believe any of this at all, it's like, well, at the very least, these things have figured out gravity. It floated above the Earth with nothing under it. And so did the drone robot ugly guys. They weren't interacting with the Earth. Well, everything that we've kind of collected as far as knowledge is this soft drip, soft serve, disclosure, if you will, information that people have been coming forth with and theories and ideas. The logical thing is that, okay, let's assume then or just accept that there is life on other planets and they have technology. It's not just bacteria that we found with our sensing equipment. There are advanced civilizations, obviously, they're here, much more advanced than we are. I find myself slipping into this as well, at least when I was much younger. You just think, oh, there are aliens. Okay, I'll accept that there's aliens. And then they're big-headed and gray, they've got big black eyes. And those are the aliens. Because we didn't have the capacity, or I didn't, or most folks don't even care about it that much to use their imaginations. Then there are probably more types of aliens than that. And then as we get a little more sophisticated about our thinking, perhaps, okay, the grays, the small beings with the big eyes and the big heads, are those really aliens? Or are those manufactured biological entities that do the dirty work? And then they are controlled by other types of beings. And what do they look like? And so as we've done the show, you start to learn about all the various types of entities. And like I said, it could be endless. I don't know. I mean, there was, we also heard Rob Christofferson, I think we were talking with him about one of the cases where there's a Michelin man type of being. And it's like, okay, is that made by the same company that made the wrinkly elephant skinned, you know, pointy head robots with the lobster claws? Because I don't think we know, and I don't think that there's any one type of thing, but I think it's easier for people to try and make connections and comparisons to try to wrap your head around this saying like, well, that doesn't make sense because so-and-so said this before or contradicted himself. And that doesn't match with this other experience or getting to the point of like, well, nobody else on the bridge saw anything. Well, is that so hard to believe that somehow that that's masked or ignored or some type of paranormal apathy where the man who was cursed with seeing UFOs tries to show people on the beach, like, Hey, you see that translucent thing in the clouds above the sunset? They're like, yeah, whatever. Let's go get some ice cream. Is that part of the phenomenon as well, where you're just not even paying attention or it's like, yeah, there's blue lights down there. Hey, guys float around. Who cares? Yeah. And also everybody doesn't feel compelled to share their stories. Like if you look at the witness, I think it was Hallmark who he had to track down in a nursing home and she was like, yeah, I was there. I've lived an entire life since then. I got 15 grandkids. I'm in a nursing home. It's like, yeah, that happened, but she doesn't have a need to get on the internet. Probably doesn't give two craps about it. So it's just like, there's all these stories out there that people don't know are happening. I just, this one is perplexing to me because, you know, anachronism isn't the right word. It's just the, when the technology doesn't all agree for me, when I'm thinking about, yeah, I just don't know what kind of basket to put it in, you know? Well, the people with the sightings that didn't come forward, it's like, that's kind of the end of it. Like, what do you, there was a big oval craft, there was blue lights on it. That's the end of it. You have nothing more to report. You have no more philosophical musings on it to write a book or research it further. In some cases, many cases, that is enough for somebody to spark a lifelong interest in this and dive deeper into it. Like what's going on? I believe this happened or I saw it myself. I need to get more answers about this. I think that's what turned Philip on to study it as in depth as he did and get so inside as he has and knowledgeable about it about as much as anybody else could, I think, from the outside. Therefore, we're grateful because of the information he's able to pass along. And that's another aspect of this case, why it's so interesting, because of the details. Like you said, trying to make sense. It's perhaps futile to try and put some human rationing on this. It's our tendency to want to put some logic behind us. Like, okay, well, let's try and make sense of this. I think a lot of things about the phenomenon do not make sense to us and may never because we're not them. Perhaps it's like us with our wildlife. We all have the best of intentions, unless you're a poacher. If we tranquilize an animal, it's to take medical measurements, their temperature, their weight, make sure they're being fed, give them antibiotics, put a tracker on them so we can monitor their health because we want to preserve and make sure that they're in the best health ever. But also not to be intrusive. You know, we observe them from afar, but we monitor them. Whereas here, it's a little different because there is, it's not just to further the, you know, like I said, you believe the message. It's like, we could use a little help right now. And that doesn't seem to be coming full flush here. There's some give and take. It's like, we will help you, but really, we need the help with our DNA. We're not going to ask you. We're just going to take it and we're going to hybridize you and we're not going to ask because we don't have to. Ancient alien theorists may say, we were always an experiment or always have been genetically modified and experimented on and furthered for several hundred thousand years. This could be the case. That's a common theme. So in this case, we have a lot of the same themes coming up and similar descriptions. And you could say like, well, again, as we did in the interview, people are just picking this up from popular culture and they're reading sci-fi and they see a lot of TV stuff and it just gets into their brains. And next thing you know, they have some kind of a hypnagogic experience where they're just imagining this. And then one guy does, the older guy who's more respected and then the 19 year old just believes him. It's like the other quote unquote rational explanations sound a lot more irrational rather than that. There's just other beings in the universe and they are messing with us. Well, yeah. Think about if you led the story with the explanations and not the actual case, how inclined would you be to believe the story? Like if Joe Nickel, God rest his soul, amazing dude. But I'm just saying if he came along and said, all right, here's what happened. Here's a story. Let me tell you a story about an older guy and a younger guy who went fishing. And then the older guy convinced the younger guy that a UFO came down and took them both aboard. And the younger guy was believed that he had been experimented on and levitated and all these different things that happened. And that was the only story you knew. And there was no other side of it. Would you believe that one? Is that when you come back and you go, oh, hey, we found those two guys. And they said there was a UFO. It's like, oh, OK, now we're getting somewhere. It depends on where your cutoffs are and the lines you won't cross. And if you don't believe that there are, you know, we're the only beings in the universe and we're the only thing that exists and there are no such things as aliens, then it has to be some kind of biological, psychological event. Then, OK. But if you do believe it, then that sounds kind of silly. You know what I'm saying? There's an irony to it, I suppose, that if you believe like, well, we're not alone. I think we've been visited. And I do think that they interact with us. And some of these stories, at least one of them has to be true for this to be possible. Then why not this one? If that's the case, what do they want? And so that's to my other point is that then logically there's probably several races or societies, cultures of extraterrestrials that have interacted with us. And they probably have different motivations and different things they want out of us. And some don't like us and want us gone. They think we're a pest to be exterminated and squashed. Others are just completely indifferent. They just want some natural resources from us. Others are kind of ambivalent, but they want to use us for something. And they don't want to intrude too much because then that tips over the whole apple cart if they just land on the White House lawn, as they say. So they're just kind of surreptitious about it. But they do want something from us. And they really don't care if we're OK with it or not. And then there's a faction or group that is really benevolent. And they want to help us. And they're kind of pushing back against the other groups. Well, then look at the peoples of the earth. Is there just one mind and we're all getting along in harmony? Or are there varying factions, cultures, races, people with different motivations and different ways they think things should be conducted? Look at people who walk down the street, say, in the South, in a bug-infested environment, and step on bugs everywhere they go and don't think twice about it. And then look at the folks who try to avoid killing a bug or feel bad when a bug hits their windshield. Right. Or scientists who experiment on live animals. Right. All of these folks. And then when you think about those creatures that are subjected to that, if they're going to be experimented on, do they have a preference as to, well, this room is cold. I don't understand what's happening. They said they weren't going to hurt me, but now they are hurting me. All of those things, maybe that's what's happening to us. It's the thing that's coming along to do it to us. If you believe that it's logical that, again, we're just not alone, which, again, the more you learn about, seems to be illogical that we're, that that's it. And the vastness and infinity of space, we're it, doesn't seem likely. And I think many top scientists would agree. They would just say like, it's very likely we're not alone, but it's unlikely that we have any interaction because there's no proof. So if you accept that, then, like I said, the rest, I think, is more logical that, yeah, there's different attitudes. Like you said, a Buddhist thing where it's a totally different belief system where I don't step on bugs because I believe that, you know, all life is sacred. Reincarnation dictates that that being could be something else later. You might be a bug in your next life. I don't step on anything if I can avoid it, where other people just, no, everything should be exterminated. Just step on everything. They're pests. And then there's somewhere in the middle where it's like, yeah, I don't go out of my way, but if there's a spider in the house, I will pick it up with a napkin. So there's a bunch of different attitudes about it. And why wouldn't that translate to whatever's out there as intelligent beings in the universe, that they all have different motivations? Well, when you look at the bigger picture here, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker went down to that pier that night to catch, kill, and eat some fish. It's not too different from whatever these things were that came down to see them might have done. So at least they got caught and released. That's going to wrap up episode 312 of Astonishing Legends. A very special thanks to returning guest, author and researcher, Philip Mantle. Links to all of his books and Flying Disc Press are in the show notes, as well as the four-part Amazon documentary series, Pascagoula 73. The main show is dark next week, but always look for new episodes of The Dead Letter Office weekly on Tuesdays. Astonishing Legends is edited by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell 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 Boland, for lending his voice to our shows. 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. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embatta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing, whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with quantum? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit ibm.com slash quantum. UnitedHealth Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing care gaps, identifying risks earlier, and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at UnitedHealthGroup.com slash commitment. Ever feel like your bedroom's running out of space? Here's the good news. You don't have to sell your favorite things to make space. With IKEA bedroom storage solutions, dressers, wardrobes, full closet systems, even storage boxes, you can hold onto it all. Your vintage band tees? Keep them. Those limited-edition sneakers? They stay. And yes, there's room for your childhood teddy bear, too. Need to organize a walk-in closet? The PAX wardrobe lets you customize shelves, rails, and compartments, so every item has a home. Too many clothes and not enough drawers? The Storklint has six-door dresser, is perfect for denim, sweaters, and everyday essentials. And if the kids are taking over your space, Trofast storage boxes make sorting toys and art supplies easy. And clean up fun. From primary suites to playrooms, IKEA has storage options that adapt to your life and help you keep what matters most. Don't sell anything you love. Store it instead. Shop IKEA bedroom storage today at IKEA.US slash bedroom storage. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. One sweet, melty bite of a Hershey's bar, and suddenly I'm right back sitting on the front porch with my grandmother on a slow summer afternoon. She doesn't say much, just breaks the bar in half and hands me a piece. I open my mouth to say whatever a nine-year-old wants to say, and she replies with a low, shh, listen. So we sat there, listening. That was the first time I learned that quiet can feel full. Hershey's, it's your happy place. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embatta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing, whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with quantum? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit ibm.com slash quantum. United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing care gaps, identifying risks earlier, and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. Ever feel like your bedroom's running out of space? Here's the good news. You don't have to sell your favorite things to make space. With IKEA bedroom storage solutions, dressers, wardrobes, full closet systems, even storage boxes, you can hold onto it all. Your vintage band tees? Keep them. Those limited edition sneakers? They stay. And yes, there's room for your childhood teddy bear too. Need to organize a walk-in closet? The PAX wardrobe lets you customize shelves, rails, and compartments, so every item has a home. Too many clothes and not enough drawers? The Storklint has six-door dresser is perfect for denim, sweaters, and everyday essentials. And if the kids are taking over your space, TroFast storage boxes make sorting toys and art supplies easy and clean up fun. From primary suites to playrooms, IKEA has storage options that adapt to your life and help you keep what matters most. Don't sell anything you love. Store it instead. Shop IKEA Bedroom Storage today at ikea.us slash bedroom storage. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. One sweet, melty bite of a Hershey's bar, and suddenly I'm right back sitting on the front porch with my grandmother on a slow summer afternoon. She doesn't say much, just breaks the bar in half and hands me a piece. I open my mouth to say whatever a nine-year-old wants to say, and she replies with a low, shh, listen. So we sat there, listening. That was the first time I learned that quiet can feel full. Hershey's, it's your happy place. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. By the time I hit my 50s, I'd learned a few things. Like how family is precious. Work can always wait. And 99% of people over 50 already have the virus that causes shingles. Not everyone at risk will develop it, but I did. The painful, blistering rash disrupted my life for weeks. Don't learn about your shingles risk the hard way. 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