Charles Hickson

Charles E. Hickson was born on 16 April 1931 in Jones County, Mississippi. He grew up fishing on Tallahala Lake with his father. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War, completing twenty months of service and earning five major battle stars. After the Army he worked as a constable in Jones County, then at a door-building company in Laurel, Mississippi. He moved to Pascagoula and became a foreman at F. B. Walker's shipyard.

The encounter on 11 October 1973 brought Hickson immediate national attention. Within weeks he appeared on The Dick Cavett Show (2 November 1973), The Mike Douglas Show (taped 29 November), To Tell the Truth (taped 20 November), and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He published UFO Contact at Pascagoula with William Mendez (Wendelle C. Stevens Publishing, Tucson, 1983), a book-length account of the encounter and its aftermath.

Hickson continued to speak publicly about the case for the rest of his life. He died of a heart attack on 9 September 2011 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, aged 80.

At approximately 9 p.m. on 11 October 1973, Hickson and Calvin Parker, an eighteen-year-old co-worker, were fishing from the old Shaupeter Shipyard pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River. They heard a buzzing noise and observed an oval craft with blue flashing lights descend over the river. Three figures emerged. Hickson described them to the Mississippi Press as "about 5-feet tall, had bullet-shaped heads without necks, slits for mouths, and where their noses or ears would be, they had thin, conical objects sticking out, like carrots from a snowman's head. They had no eyes, grey, wrinkled skin, round feet, and claw-like hands." Two of the figures seized Hickson; a third seized Parker, who fainted. Hickson described being floated into a brightly lit room and scanned by a large, football-shaped mechanical eye. The encounter lasted approximately twenty minutes. Both men were returned to the pier.

Hickson and Parker first called Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, which directed them to the local sheriff. They drove to the offices of the Mississippi Press on Delmas Avenue, found them closed, and continued to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office. They reported to Captain Glenn Ryder. Ryder and Sheriff Fred Diamond, seeking to test the account, placed Hickson and Parker in a room that had been wired for sound. The secretly recorded conversation that followed is the case's most closely examined piece of evidence. With no audience and no reason to perform, both men continued to describe their distress. Parker said he was "about to go half crazy."

Scott Glasgow of the Pendleton Detective Agency in New Orleans administered a polygraph examination at the Pascagoula office of attorney Joe R. Colingo. Glasgow certified that Hickson believed he had seen the craft and its occupants. Parker did not take the test, citing illness. Captain Ryder, speaking to The Washington Post in 1975, offered his own assessment: "We did everything we knew to try to break their stories. If they were lying to me, they should be in Hollywood."

Hickson maintained throughout his life that the encounter was real. In the years following 1973 he reported further contacts and stated that the beings communicated with him. He was still occasionally selling copies of his book outside businesses in Gautier, Mississippi, at the time of his death.

• 1931, Born 16 April, Jones County, Mississippi.
• Korean War, United States Army. Twenty months of service. Five major battle stars.
• Post-Army, Constable, Jones County, Mississippi.
• Moved to Pascagoula, Mississippi. Foreman, F. B. Walker's shipyard.
• 11 October 1973, Encounter on the Pascagoula River with Calvin Parker. Reported to Jackson County Sheriff's Office. Secretly recorded conversation with Parker.
• Late October 1973, Polygraph examination by Scott Glasgow, Pendleton Detective Agency, New Orleans.
• 2 November 1973, Appeared on The Dick Cavett Show.
• 20 November 1973, Taped appearance on To Tell the Truth.
• 29 November 1973, Taped appearance on The Mike Douglas Show.
• 1983, Published UFO Contact at Pascagoula with William Mendez (Wendelle C. Stevens Publishing).
• 9 September 2011, Died, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

The secretly recorded conversation between Hickson and Parker at the Jackson County Sheriff's Office on 11 October 1973 is archived as audio files at the Internet Archive. A second, previously unknown recording of the interview with Sheriff Diamond and Captain Ryder surfaced in approximately 2020, provided by a former Pascagoula Police Department officer.

Charles Hickson and William Mendez, UFO Contact at Pascagoula (Tucson: Wendelle C. Stevens Publishing, 1983). ISBN 0960855866. Limited first edition of 2,000 copies. Republished by Flying Disk Press, 2017.

Calvin Parker, Pascagoula: The Closest Encounter: My Story (2018), provides the co-experiencer's account after forty-five years. Parker's second book, Pascagoula: The Story Continues: New Evidence and New Witnesses (Philip Mantle, 2019), includes the account of an independent eyewitness on the opposite bank of the river.

The Mississippi Press published the front-page story on 12 October 1973, the day after the encounter. The polygraph examination results, certified by Scott Glasgow, are documented in contemporary Mississippi Press reports and in Hickson's book.

• Calvin Parker, co-experiencer.
• United States country profile.
• APRO Bulletin, contemporary civilian-research coverage of the case.