Pascagoula Abduction - Publicity

Publicity

Hickson and Parker returned to work the day after the encounter (Friday, October 12). They did not initially discuss their purported UFO encounter, but coworkers noted that Parker seemed very anxious and preoccupied. Within hours, Sheriff Diamond telephoned the men at work, stating that news reporters were swarming in his office, seeking more information about the UFO story. An angry Hickson accused Diamond of breaking his confidentiality pledge, but Diamond insisted he had not done so, and that the case was too sensational to keep quiet.

Hickson's foreman overheard Hickson's side of the conversation, and asked what had occurred. Hickson related his story to the foreman and to shipyard owner Johnny Walker. After hearing the tale, Walker suggested that Hickson and Parker contact Joe Colingo, a locally prominent attorney (who was Walker's brother-in-law and also represented the shipyard).

Colingo met the men, and, during their conversation, Hickson expressed fears about having been exposed to radiation. Colingo and detective Tom Huntley then took Parker and Hickson to a local hospital, which lacked the facilities for a radiation test. (Clark's book does not make clear if Huntley is a police detective or a private detective.)

From the hospital, the men went to Keesler Air Force Base, where they were examined extensively by several doctors. Afterward, reported Huntley, Parker and Hickson were interviewed by the military intelligence chief of the base, with the "whole base command" observing the proceedings. (Clark, 448)

Colingo drew up a contract to represent Hickson and Parker. However, nothing came of this, and Hickson would later have nothing to do with Colingo, charging the lawyer with base financial motivations: Colingo, said Hickson, "just wanted to make a buck." (Clark, 449)

Within days, Pascagoula was the center of an international news story, with reporters swarming the town. Professor James A. Harder (a U.C. Berkeley engineering professor and APRO member) and Dr. J. Allen Hynek (an astronomer formerly with Project Blue Book) both arrived and interviewed Parker and Hickson. Harder tried to hypnotize the men, but they were too anxious and distracted for the procedure to work—Parker especially so. Hynek withheld ultimate judgment on the case, but did announce that, in his judgment, Hickson and Parker were honest men who seemed genuinely distressed about what had occurred.

Tiring of the publicity, Hickson and Parker went to Jones County, Mississippi (about 150 miles north of Pascagoula), where both men hoped to find relief with family members. Parker was eventually hospitalized for what Clark describes as "an emotional breakdown." (Clark, 449)

In an interview several years after the claimed UFO event, Hickson speculated that Parker fared worse after the encounter because he had never previously experienced a profoundly frightening ordeal. While Hickson described the UFO encounter as the most terrifying event in his life, he also noted that he had seen combat in the Korean War, and that he thus had some familiarity with a terrifying experience. The younger Parker, on the other hand, had never suffered through a terrifying encounter, let alone a bizarre confrontation with something that was not even supposed to exist.

On September 9, 2011, Charles Hickson died at age 80, but never backed off the alien abduction story despite ridicule.