Just weeks before the 38th anniversary of his alleged alien abduction, Charles Hickson suffers a fatal heart attack. Taking with him his memories of the Pascagoula Abduction. A night in which he and fellow coworker, Calvin Parker, claimed to have been abducted by alien beings that descended from a cigar-shaped aircraft when they were fishing off the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi one cold October evening in 1973.

Charles Hickson was 80 years old when he suffered a fatal heart attack last week. Mr. Hickson led a low-profile life after being a media sensation almost overnight. Their story was met with heavy criticism, a criticism that they both have endured for the last three decades. Their tale starts off with both men enjoying a late night fishing trip.

On the evening of October 11, 1973, 42-year-old Charles Hickson and 19-year-old Calvin Parker — co-workers at a shipyard — were fishing off a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. They heard a whirring/whizzing sound, saw two flashing blue lights, and reported that a domed, cigar-shaped aircraft, some 30 to 40 feet across and 8 to 10 feet high, suddenly appeared near them. The ship seemed to levitate about 2 feet above the ground.

A door opened on the ship, they said, and three creatures emerged and seized the men, floating or levitating them into the craft. Both men reported being paralyzed and numb. Parker claimed that he had fainted due to fright. They described the creatures as being roughly humanoid in shape, and standing about five feet tall. The creatures’ skin was pale in color and wrinkled, and they had no eyes that the men could discern, and slits for mouths. Their heads also appeared connected directly to their shoulders, with no discernible neck. There were three “carrot-like” growths instead – one where the nose would be on a human, the other two where ears would normally be. The beings had lobster-like claws at the ends of their arms, and they seemed to have only one leg (Hickson later described the creatures’ lower bodies looking as if their legs were fused together) ending in elephant-like feet. Hickson also reported that the creatures moved in mechanical, robotic ways.

On the ship, Hickson claimed that he was somehow levitated or hovered a few feet above the floor of the craft, and was examined by what looked like a large football-shaped mechanical eye, about 6 to 8 inches in diameter, that seemed to scan his body. Parker claimed that he could not recall what had happened to him inside the craft, although later, during sessions of hypnotic regression he offered some hazy details. The men were released after about 20 minutes and the creatures levitated them, with Hickson’s feet dragging along the ground, back to their original positions on the river bank.

In a later interview over 20 years after the initial incident, Parker’s story became much more elaborate. Here Parker confessed to lying about fainting in sight of the creatures. He claimed that he was in fact conscious when the creatures took him on board the craft and led him into a room at the other end of a hallway to the left of the craft’s entrance. He claims he was laid down on a sloped table and examined by a ‘petite,’ evidently female, being. Though he was paralyzed, he was able to observe the being inject a needle into the base of the underside of his penis. The being later communicated with him telepathically, suggesting that he had been taken for a reason. While he was not able to define it, Parker felt a sense of imminent harm. Nevertheless, he was led back outside the craft and deposited back into his original position unharmed. He then claimed that 19 years later, he came in contact with the same craft again. This time he voluntarily walked aboard the craft and met with the same female being that had examined his body in 1973. He claimed he had a conversation with the being, in English, in which she communicated to him a religious message. She informed him that they shared the same God, that the bible was an authentic text, and that her species wanted to live on earth but could not due to humanity’s tendency towards war and destruction.
–source: Wikipedia

So what happened after the alleged abduction? Well it turns out that both men went to the Air Force first, by contacting Keesler Air Force Base. Only to be told that the USAF does not deal with UFO phenomena. That they would need to report this to their local police. That night, the men arrived at the Jackson County Police department and explained everything to Sheriff Fred Diamond.

Diamond was no fool. After taking down the statements and interviewing both of the men, he secretly placed a microphone in the room, close enough to record any conversations between the men. He made it a point to leave the room for some time in order to catch any slip-ups on the audio that would give the men away as hoaxers. The tape known as the “Secret Tape” does not exist online. Only a transcription by the NICAP is available. And it tells a chilling story:

CALVIN: I got to get home and get to bed or get some nerve pills or see the doctor or something. I can’t stand it. I’m about to go half crazy.

CHARLIE: I tell you, when we’re through, I’ll get you something to settle you down so you can get some damn sleep.

CALVIN: I can’t sleep yet like it is. I’m just damn near crazy.

CHARLIE: Well, Calvin, when they brought you out-when they brought me out of that thing, goddamn it I like to never in hell got you straightened out.

His voice rising, Calvin said, “My damn arms, my arms, I remember they just froze up and I couldn’t move. Just like I stepped on a damn rattlesnake.”

“They didn’t do me that way”, sighed Charlie.

Now both men were talking as if to themselves.

CALVIN: I passed out. I expect I never passed out in my whole life.

CHARLIE: I’ve never seen nothin’ like that before in my life. You can’t make people believe-

CALVIN: I don’t want to keep sittin’ here. I want to see a doctor-

CHARLIE: They better wake up and start believin’… they better start believin’.

CALVIN: You see how that damn door come right up?

CHARLIE: I don’t know how it opened, son. I don’t know.

CALVIN: It just laid up and just like that those son’ bitches-just like that they come out.

CHARLIE: I know. You can’t believe it. You can’t make people believe it-

CALVIN: I paralyzed right then. I couldn’t move-

CHARLIE: They won’t believe it. They gonna believe it one of these days. Might be too late. I knew all along they was people from other worlds up there. I knew all along. I never thought it would happen to me.

CALVIN: You know yourself I don’t drink

CHARLIE: I know that, son. When I get to the house I’m gonna get me another drink, make me sleep. Look, what we sittin’ around for. I gotta go tell Blanche… what we waitin’ for?

CALVIN (panicky): I gotta go to the house. I’m gettin’ sick. I gotta get out of here.

Then Charlie got up and left the room, and Calvin was alone.

CALVIN: It’s hard to believe . . . Oh God, it’s awful… I know there’s a God up there…

Not much is known about Calvin Parker, who was only 19 year of age at the time of the alleged encounter. Mr. Parker has remained under the radar, keeping the terrifying events that occurred that night between him and his late friend.

An update to the case came as a surprise when in 2001, retired navy chief petty officer Mike Cataldo revealed in an interview that he had witnessed a strange craft that fit Hickson’s and Parker’s description on that very same day in 1973, near the area of the alleged abduction. UFOCasebook has the interview.