WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.799 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.320 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.879 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.239 --> 00:00:28.280 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.359 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:38.960 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.479 --> 00:00:48.439 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:06.519 On the night of October eleventh, nineteen seventy three, a 14 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:09.959 forty two year old shipyard worker named Charles Hickson sat 15 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.120 down in front of a tape recorder in the Jackson 16 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:16.640 County Sheriff's office in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spelled his last 17 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:19.519 name out loud, letter by letter so there'd be no 18 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:23.079 confusion about who was saying what came next. He'd already 19 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.040 told the story twice that night, he told the deputies 20 00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:28.760 he knew nobody was going to believe him, that even 21 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:30.799 if they laughed him out of Jackson County, he was 22 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.439 going to say it anyway. And then he told them 23 00:01:33.439 --> 00:01:35.519 that a blue light had come down over the bayou 24 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.319 and three things had floated out of it and carried 25 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:41.480 him and a young man named Calvin Parker into a machine. 26 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:45.239 When the sheriff and his captain finished the interview, they 27 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.159 got up, walked out, and left the two men alone 28 00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:51.519 in that room. What they didn't tell Hickson and Parker 29 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:55.079 was that the recorder was still running. We've been working 30 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:58.079 our way around this country, one strange county at a time, 31 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:00.799 and I want to tell you where we are before 32 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:03.959 I tell you what happened here, because the geography matters 33 00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:07.719 on this one. The Pascagoula River drains about eight thousand 34 00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:11.840 square miles of southeastern Mississippi. It's formed where the Leaf 35 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:14.919 and the Chickasaw Hay come together up around George County, 36 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.439 and it runs south through pine flats and hardwood bottoms 37 00:02:18.599 --> 00:02:21.800 and black water swamp until it dumps into the Mississippi 38 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:25.680 Sound at the town that shares its name. It's frequently 39 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.680 described as the largest river system in the lower forty 40 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:32.120 eight States with no dams on its main stem, which 41 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.280 means it still floods where it wants to and moves 42 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:38.439 where it wants to. There are stretches of that river 43 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:41.080 bottom where the tree canopy closes over the top of 44 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.919 you and the water goes the color of strong tea, 45 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:46.599 And there are stretches down at the mouth where the 46 00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:52.800 whole thing opens up into industrial waterfront, shipyards, grain elevators, cranes, 47 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:56.080 and the smell of cut steel. Both of those things 48 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.520 are true about Pascagoula at the same time, deep swamp 49 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.520 on one end, heavy industry on the other, and about 50 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:05.840 fifteen minutes of driving between them. The rivers had a 51 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:09.639 reputation for a long time. There's an old story on 52 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:12.360 the Gulf Coast about the Singing River, and the version 53 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.879 that got printed and reprinted in local histories and tourism 54 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:18.560 copy for most of the twentieth century says that a 55 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:22.159 band of Pascagoula people walked into the water, holding hands 56 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:25.360 and singing, drowning themselves rather than be taken by a 57 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:26.240 rival band. 58 00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:27.800 It's a folk. 59 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:30.520 Narrative that got polished by a lot of hands, and 60 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:32.879 I've never seen a version of it that traces cleanly 61 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.639 back to a native source. What I can tell you 62 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.280 is that people down there have reported hearing a low 63 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.479 humming sound coming off the water on still late summer 64 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:44.439 evenings for well over a century, that it got written 65 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:47.439 up in newspapers and in state histories, and that the 66 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:50.240 town leaned into it hard enough to name a high 67 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:53.159 school and a mall after it. Whether that sound is 68 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:56.800 insects or fish, or gas moving through the bottom or 69 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:59.680 something in the sand, nobody's ever been able to nail 70 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:00.000 it down. 71 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:02.639 Pascagoula also had a. 72 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:05.400 Run of something genuinely ugly in the summer of nineteen 73 00:04:05.479 --> 00:04:08.319 forty two, back when the ingles yard was pulling in 74 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:12.439 war workers by the thousand and the town's population was exploding. 75 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.879 Somebody was getting into houses at night and cutting hair 76 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:19.360 off of sleeping people, women, and in at least a 77 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:23.199 couple of reported cases children, He'd come in through a window, 78 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:27.480 take a handful of hair, and go. The papers called 79 00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:31.279 him the Phantom barber. A chemist named William Dolan was 80 00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:34.560 eventually convicted in connection with an assault on an older couple, 81 00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.680 and there's a long running argument about whether Dolan had 82 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:40.759 anything to do with the hair at all. The town 83 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:43.120 was so wound up that summer that people slept with 84 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:46.439 the lights on and ingles. Workers were reportedly patrolling their 85 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.439 own neighborhoods. I bring that up for one reason. When 86 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:54.360 something impossible gets reported out of Pascagoula, it isn't landing 87 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:57.480 in a place with no history of strange. This town 88 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:00.720 has had strange in the water for a long time. Now, 89 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.839 let's talk about the fall of nineteen seventy three, because 90 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:07.199 the calendar is part of the evidence here. That autumn 91 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:10.879 produced one of the heaviest waves of unidentified flying object 92 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:14.519 reports in American history. It ran across the South and 93 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:17.720 up through the Ohio Valley, and researchers who studied it 94 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:21.319 later started calling it the Year of the Humanoids because 95 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:24.240 so many of the reports involved people claiming they'd seen 96 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:28.160 something get out of the thing. Newspapers all over Mississippi 97 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:32.000 and Tennessee and Louisiana were running siding stories through September 98 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:35.680 and into October. The Greenwood Commonwealth ran a piece in 99 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:39.680 early October about a possible object near Fort Pemberton. A 100 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:42.519 Tennessee sheriff told a reporter he'd seen them himself, and 101 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:46.240 that his office had turned into an unofficial clearinghouse for calls. 102 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:50.560 The Mississippi Press, which is the Pascagoula paper, ran a 103 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:53.439 story on October seventh with the headline about a deputy 104 00:05:53.480 --> 00:05:55.639 trying to figure out whether he should write a ticket 105 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.120 to a UFO, So four days before anything happened on 106 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:02.279 that riverbank, the local paper was already joking about it 107 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:05.920 on the front page. And on the evening of October eleventh, 108 00:06:06.040 --> 00:06:09.079 before Hickson and Parker ever walked into the sheriff's office, 109 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:12.759 a service station operator in the area named Larry Booth 110 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:16.199 called the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to report that something 111 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.639 with a blinking colored light had gone over. That call 112 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:23.000 came in around eight o'clock. It's in the Mississippi Press 113 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.560 coverage from the next morning. Booth isn't a famous name. 114 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:29.600 He never wrote a book, he never went on television, 115 00:06:29.839 --> 00:06:31.759 and as far as I can tell, he never had 116 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:34.920 anything to gain from making that call. He just called 117 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:37.399 it in a couple of hours before the thing that 118 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:41.160 made the town famous. Charles Hickson was a shipyard worker 119 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:45.360 at Walker's Shipyard in Pascagoula, He was raised in Jones County, 120 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:47.800 up in the Piney Woods, about one hundred miles north, 121 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:50.680 where he still had a farm and a home. He 122 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:54.360 was married. His wife's name was Blanche. By the accounts 123 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:56.079 of the people who worked with him, he was a 124 00:06:56.120 --> 00:06:59.600 foreman type, an older hand, and he'd been in the service. 125 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:02.879 Calvin Parker was young, and he was also from Jones 126 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:07.480 County and worked with Hickson. The Mississippi Press on October twelfth, 127 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.079 nineteen seventy three, reporting within hours of the event, gave 128 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:14.959 Hickson's age as forty five and Parker's age as seventeen. 129 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.800 They went fishing after work. The first spot was down 130 00:07:18.839 --> 00:07:21.560 below the grain elevator on the river. They caught a 131 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.439 few hardheads and a couple of croakers, so he told 132 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:26.759 Calvin they ought to move up by the old shop 133 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:30.000 at her shipyard, because he'd taken redfish and speckled trout 134 00:07:30.040 --> 00:07:33.199 in there before. That's an abandoned pier on the west 135 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.839 bank of the Pascagoula River, inside the town, with the 136 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:39.879 working waterfront on one side and buy you on the other. 137 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.519 It's not wilderness. It's the kind of place two men 138 00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:45.560 who've just come off shift go to stand in the 139 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.560 dark and throw a line in. They set up, and 140 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.800 they fished. And Hickson's account is that at some point, 141 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:54.199 and he thought both of them saw it at roughly 142 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:57.600 the same moment, there was a blue light. He told 143 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.279 the sheriff. It circled a little. He couldn't just the 144 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:04.040 altitude with any confidence. It wasn't two or three miles off, 145 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:06.120 and it wasn't right on top of them. And when 146 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:09.480 the sheriff pushed him, he estimated twenty five or thirty yards, 147 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:13.199 maybe thirty five or forty. Then it came down over 148 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:15.279 the bayou and hovered a couple of feet off the 149 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:18.920 ground without touching it. The sound he described was a 150 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:22.680 light buzzing. He made the noise into the recorder. He 151 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:26.120 was very specific that there was no blast, no exhaust, 152 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:29.399 no rush of air, nothing that would suggest thrust in 153 00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:32.879 the way an engine makes thrust. The object he described 154 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:36.039 was oblong rather than round. He said it was about 155 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:39.919 eight feet tall, with an opening at one end. The 156 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:42.480 only light he saw on the outside was that blue one. 157 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:45.559 When he described the inside later, he said there were 158 00:08:45.559 --> 00:08:49.480 no bulbs anywhere he could see. The whole interior just glowed, 159 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:53.879 and it was bright then, according to Hickson, an opening 160 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:56.360 appeared at the end of it, and three figures came out, 161 00:08:56.679 --> 00:08:59.919 and they weren't walking. He said it twice in different words. 162 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:03.600 They weren't on the ground. His description of them was rough, 163 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.000 and I think the roughness is worth something. He put 164 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:10.120 them at about five feet tall. He said they were pale. 165 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.000 He said their skin might have been wrinkled, or it 166 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:15.639 might have been something fitted over them, and he couldn't 167 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:19.399 tell which. He said they had no visible neck, that 168 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:22.279 the head appeared to sit directly on the body. He 169 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:24.960 said there was something protruding from the middle of the face, 170 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:28.200 roughly where a nose would go on a person. He 171 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:30.320 said there was a slit below it that he never 172 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:33.320 saw open. He said there were structures on the sides 173 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:36.279 of the head that resembled ears, but weren't ears the 174 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:39.440 way we understand ears. And when the sheriff asked him 175 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:42.399 how many eyes they had, Hixon didn't give him an answer. 176 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.000 He said there could have been eyes, but he didn't 177 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:48.279 see any. He was asked whether they had hair. He 178 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.919 said he didn't know. He said that part was blank 179 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:54.279 in his mind. He was asked whether they breathed. He 180 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:57.559 said he didn't know that either. The feet, he said, 181 00:09:57.799 --> 00:10:01.360 weren't feet, no toes, something round on the end of 182 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:04.399 a leg, if you'd even call it a leg. The 183 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:07.200 hands were the detail that stuck to this case forever. 184 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:12.399 Hickson described pincers claws or pincers mitten shaped, and that's 185 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.320 the image that ended up in every artist rendering that 186 00:10:15.399 --> 00:10:18.639 got printed in the papers over the following weeks. Two 187 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:20.840 of them came around behind him and lifted him off 188 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.000 the ground by the arms. He was insistent on the 189 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.519 tape that they didn't hurt him, no force, no pain, 190 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.679 no sensation of being gripped. He simply came off the ground, 191 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:35.240 he said. Calvin passed out. Then he was moved into 192 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:38.759 the object. He described it as gliding, all of them 193 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:42.840 moving as though they were floating inside. There were no seats, 194 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:45.399 there was nothing to sit on and nothing to be 195 00:10:45.440 --> 00:10:49.759 strapped into. He was simply held in position, moved around, 196 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:53.159 tilted back, and raised up again. And he couldn't resist 197 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:55.840 any of it, he said. His eyes were the only 198 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:58.399 part of him that would move. And then there was 199 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.799 the instrument. The sheriff asked him if it was like 200 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:05.360 an X ray machine. Hixon said no, he said, it 201 00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:08.360 looked like an eye, a big eye with some kind 202 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:11.120 of attachment to it, and it moved and it went 203 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:11.559 over his. 204 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:13.080 Body, up and down. 205 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:15.840 Then the three of them left him alone in there. 206 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:19.320 Hixon didn't know how long. He told the sheriff flat 207 00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:22.519 out that he didn't wear a watch. Pressed for an estimate, 208 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:25.720 he said twenty to thirty minutes. He wasn't certain he 209 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:29.559 stayed conscious, but he thought he did. When they came back, 210 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:32.039 they laid him over again, and then it was over. 211 00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:35.440 He asked them questions while he was in there. He 212 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:37.720 said so on the tape, and he said the only 213 00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:40.039 thing he ever got back was a buzzing sound out 214 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.559 of one of them. Whatever put him down, put him 215 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:45.519 down on the riverbank, and the object made that buzzing 216 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:49.480 noise again, and it was gone. Here's what he did next, 217 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:52.080 and this is where the case starts becoming a police 218 00:11:52.120 --> 00:11:56.639 story instead of a monster story. Calvin Parker was standing there. 219 00:11:57.120 --> 00:11:58.840 Hixon said it took him a while to get the 220 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:01.480 young man back to his sin And the first thing 221 00:12:01.559 --> 00:12:04.080 Hickson said he told him was that nobody was ever 222 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:06.440 going to believe this, so they ought to keep it 223 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:09.519 to themselves. Then he got in the vehicle and thought 224 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.720 about it and changed his mind. He drove to the 225 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:15.360 offices of the Mississippi Press and beat on the door. 226 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:17.679 A man at the desk told him there wouldn't be 227 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:21.360 a reporter in until morning. Sheriff Fred Diamond asked him 228 00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:23.840 later why he'd gone to the newspaper before he'd gone 229 00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:27.120 to law enforcement, and Hickson's answer was that he figured 230 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:30.240 the sheriff's department wouldn't believe him and the police department 231 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:34.039 wouldn't believe him either. Diamond, who I suspect had been 232 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.159 doing this long enough to be irritated by that, asked 233 00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.159 him how he knew unless he tried. Hickson apologized and 234 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:44.399 said that was just his thinking. He also tried Keesler 235 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.720 Air Force Base, which is over in Biloxi, about forty 236 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:51.279 minutes west along the coast. Keesler told him to call 237 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:54.440 the sheriff. The Air Force had shut down Project Blue 238 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:56.639 Book in nineteen sixty nine and was out of the 239 00:12:56.679 --> 00:13:00.159 business of taking these calls. And somewhere along the way 240 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:04.000 before they made it to the Sheriff's office, Hickson drank 241 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:08.879 some whiskey. He volunteered that himself under questioning before anybody 242 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:12.519 accused him of anything. He said he hadn't been drinking beforehand, 243 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:14.759 and that in the forty five minutes to an hour 244 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.120 before he called the Sheriff's office, he'd had a drink 245 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:20.879 to settle his nerves. Captain Glenn Ryder later told the 246 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:24.840 press that he'd smelled alcohol on Hickson. Writer also told 247 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:28.320 the press that neither man was drunk. They arrived at 248 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:31.519 the Jackson County Sheriff's Office somewhere between half past ten 249 00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:34.919 and eleven o'clock that night. I've sat on the other 250 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:37.279 side of a lot of interview tables and I wanted 251 00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:40.080 to walk you through what the officers there were actually doing, 252 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:42.960 because it gets described in a lot of retellings as 253 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:46.080 though the sheriff was being clever. He wasn't being clever. 254 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:50.480 He was running a completely standard technique. You take the statement, 255 00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:53.559 you take it again. You separate people if you can, 256 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:56.360 and if you've got two subjects and you think one 257 00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:58.759 of them is going to crack, you find a reason 258 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:01.559 to leave them alone in a room together, because people 259 00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:04.279 who are lying use that time to sync up their story, 260 00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:07.159 and people who are telling the truth use that time 261 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:11.639 to be terrified. Sheriff Fred Diamond and Captain Glenn Ryder 262 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:16.000 conducted the interview at approximately eleven o'clock. By Hickson's own 263 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.639 count on the recording, it was the third time he'd 264 00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:22.240 told it that night. Listen to the questions because the 265 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.679 questions tell you what the officers were thinking. How high 266 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:28.759 was it? How close was it? Was there a noise 267 00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:31.440 to it? Did they walk up to you? Did they 268 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:35.159 have feet? How many eyes did they have? Did they 269 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:39.559 have hair? Did they breathe? What color were they? Was 270 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:42.279 it like an X ray machine? How long did they 271 00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:45.240 leave you? How much did you have to drink? Why 272 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.720 did you wait until this time of night to call us. 273 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:50.919 That's not a couple of country deputies humoring a drunk, 274 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:52.840 that's a probe. 275 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:53.840 Every one of those. 276 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:56.159 Is designed to give a liar enough rope to contradict 277 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:59.240 himself on a physical detail. And every one of them 278 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.200 is the kind of question that a person recounting a genuine, 279 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:06.639 perceptual event tends to answer badly, because real memory is 280 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:10.799 full of holes. An invented memory usually isn't. Stay tuned 281 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:14.840 for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. 282 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:19.080 Hixon answered a lot of them with some version of 283 00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:22.360 I don't know. When it was over, Diamond asked him 284 00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:24.200 to come back in the morning and give a complete 285 00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:27.879 formal statement. Hickson said he didn't want publicity and he 286 00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:31.480 didn't want his family upset. Then Diamond and Ryder walked 287 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:33.120 out and left the two of them in the room 288 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:36.840 and the recorder kept running. What's on that portion of 289 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:39.679 the tape is not two men laughing. It's not two 290 00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:43.039 men rehearsing. It's a forty something year old man and 291 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:47.039 a teenager coming apart in different directions. Here's about three 292 00:15:47.080 --> 00:16:01.840 minutes of that recording from nineteen seventy three. But Reverdy, 293 00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:07.080 something in the United States, have it there? Non me 294 00:16:07.799 --> 00:16:10.279 now that I wouldn't done about what we see or 295 00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:11.679 about what. 296 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:17.720 We see it. It's something in the air force gone 297 00:16:17.759 --> 00:16:20.240 on us up there to see. And this ain't gonna 298 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:22.080 be the only time that's gonna happen. 299 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:26.960 In the sus I that alrd to. 300 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.080 Take that sup one one and one day and a 301 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:32.759 scared any dear to something I. 302 00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:35.799 Just learned, crying, I don't I can't tell so that. 303 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:40.840 To so you can't you do it? Enough time to 304 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:47.879 see Jesus crimes the bad back it by bad leaves. 305 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:50.279 It's round of gold. I had been through enough a 306 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:52.360 hell on this birth and now I have to go 307 00:16:52.519 --> 00:16:53.360 do something like that. 308 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:57.720 But they would have you know that. I guess see. 309 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:01.200 When they could have armed us on anything, they could. 310 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.440 Have done anything to us and then hurt me ybody. 311 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.400 They just do that and I don't know. I don't know. 312 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:15.759 I don't like that. Poota which morning. I know you. 313 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:16.400 I'm going to. 314 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:19.240 Bury this norse because or some seven doctor or something. 315 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:19.960 I can stay there. 316 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:22.880 I'm after and bust. I'll tell you better when you 317 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.319 get through us through the wather, or give you something 318 00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:28.839 to say that you get some man asleep. I can 319 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:29.400 slaver that. 320 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:30.160 I can do that. 321 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:32.319 I'm unders band, you're crazy. 322 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:35.880 I can when it brought you out of that and anything, 323 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:39.880 and when it brought me up, I left. 324 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.799 And they want to tell you that can I never 325 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.119 he'll got you straightened up? Man, I don't I didn't know. 326 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:48.559 I don't know my art. I just traveled that just 327 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:50.559 like it. I couldn't do it, just like this sat 328 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:52.200 now else they didn't. 329 00:17:52.279 --> 00:17:58.680 Uh, they didn't do me ple movie. I passed out. 330 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:00.319 I passed out of ast. 331 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:02.119 That's how never tasted that my life. 332 00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:06.240 Do shutting them there he is. 333 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:10.240 I never see that I get before in my life. 334 00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:15.480 Here you shure you you can't make people bleing that though. 335 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:19.160 I show you that because that they had a wake up, 336 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:21.559 was struck bleeding them right, I wake up, was struck. 337 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:24.680 Then listen away, I sing those leave. 338 00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:26.640 I can't fie that to. 339 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:28.880 Day until you say at that door will come in. 340 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:30.240 And let's say, you say, I don't. 341 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:31.440 I hope my so don't. 342 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:35.799 I don't see the doorslay with that open. I don't 343 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:36.920 see though. 344 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:41.960 I just see it so late from the man from 345 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.759 the blue lights up. So bitch, you just just knock 346 00:18:44.839 --> 00:18:45.640 yet to come out. 347 00:18:45.799 --> 00:18:49.359 Yeah, you can't believe it. You can't make people breathing 348 00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:52.240 my paralyzed that there. I couldn't be won't they won't 349 00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:56.079 bleed it? Twenty days they don't leave me. Twenty days 350 00:18:57.200 --> 00:18:58.240 it might be too late. 351 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:10.119 Parker's the one who sounds worse. He wants to go home, 352 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:12.880 he wants to go to bed, he wants nerve pills, 353 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:15.160 he wants a doctor. He says he's about to go 354 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:18.200 half crazy. He says he passed out and that he'd 355 00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:21.480 never passed out in his life before He describes his 356 00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:23.920 arms freezing up so he couldn't move them, and he 357 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:27.279 reaches for the only comparison a Mississippi country boy would 358 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:31.359 reach for, which is stepping on a rattlesnake. Hixon is 359 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.039 trying to manage him. He tells him he'll get him 360 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.799 something to settle him down so he can sleep. He 361 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.319 says he's never seen anything like it in his life. 362 00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:43.000 He keeps coming back to the same complaint, which isn't 363 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:46.440 about the creatures at all. It's about being believed. He 364 00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:48.960 says people won't believe it, and then he says they'd 365 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:51.519 better start believing it. And then he says he'd known 366 00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:54.160 all along that there were people from other worlds up there, 367 00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:56.400 and that he never thought it would happen to him. 368 00:19:57.200 --> 00:19:59.480 Then Hickson gets up and leaves the room, and the 369 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:02.960 recorder is still going, and Calvin Parker is by himself, 370 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:07.440 and Calvin Parker starts to pray. Captain Glenn Ryder gave 371 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:10.279 The Washington Post an interview about the case in nineteen 372 00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:13.200 seventy five, two years down the road with the circus 373 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:16.920 already over, Rider said his people had done everything they 374 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:19.640 knew how to do to break those stories and then 375 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:21.599 he said that if the two of them were lying 376 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:25.240 to him, they belonged in Hollywood. Of course, the tape 377 00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:27.960 doesn't prove that a craft landed that night on the river. 378 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:32.559 What it establishes, to my satisfaction and to the satisfaction 379 00:20:32.680 --> 00:20:36.039 of two career law enforcement officers who had every reason 380 00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:39.000 to want the opposite result, is that Charles Hickson and 381 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:42.160 Calvin Parker were not sitting in that room enjoying a prank. 382 00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:46.039 Whatever the origin of the experience, the distress was not 383 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:49.160 manufactured for an audience they didn't know they had. The 384 00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:52.599 Mississippi Press ran it on the front page on October twelfth. 385 00:20:53.079 --> 00:20:56.359 The Associated Press and United Press International picked it up 386 00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:58.759 the same day, and by that evening it was in 387 00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:02.880 papers from Vicksburg to Los Angeles. A press conference was 388 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:06.119 scheduled for a quarter past eleven that morning and then canceled. 389 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:09.519 The two men were taken to Keesler Air Force Base 390 00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:13.599 and checked for radiation exposure. They were cleared and released. 391 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:19.680 Contemporary coverage doesn't report any abnormal findings. Local officials started 392 00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:23.000 demanding a federal investigation, which was never going to happen 393 00:21:23.319 --> 00:21:26.039 because there was no longer any federal office whose job 394 00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:30.920 that was what came instead were two scientists. Doctor James 395 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:34.119 Harder was a civil engineering professor at Berkeley who worked 396 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:38.680 with the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. Doctor j Allen Hinek 397 00:21:38.759 --> 00:21:41.960 was an astronomer at Northwestern who had spent roughly twenty 398 00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:46.559 years as the Air Force's scientific consultant on Bluebook, in 399 00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:49.960 which capacity he had personally explained away an enormous number 400 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:53.160 of sightings, and who had spent the years since publicly 401 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:55.960