In Memory of Calvin Parker

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”

Recently, on August 24, Calvin Parker passed on at the age of 68. In 1973, he, along with Charles Hickson, reported being abducted by strange creatures in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Afterwards, he spent decades hiding from public attention, moving repeatedly, and changing his name. As the 50^th anniversary of the incident was approaching, with the encouragement of his wife, Waynett, Calvin began to publicly acknowledge who he was and what he reportedly experienced. He spent the last decade of his life making friends among the UFO community while speaking about his experience on podcasts, radio shows, and conventions after writing a book, Pascagoula – The Closest Encounter: My Story, that was published in 2018. Martin and Podcast UFO played a large part in Calvin’s re-entry into the public arena and also provided a vehicle for a happy reunion with an estranged family member.

According to Martin, in 2013, six months after posting a blog about the incident by Michael Lauck, he got an email addressed to Lauck with the address fishing288. The writer said he enjoyed the blog and praised it for its accuracy. The email was signed “Calvin Parker,” and Martin responded asking, “Is this the Calvin Parker? From then on, Martin established communication with Calvin and invited him to be a guest on the show.

The story of the incident was long known from Charles Hickson’s account, who told it many times over many years. According to Hickson’s version, on October 11, 1973, he invited Calvin to go fishing with him after work at the L&M Shipyard. They went to a spot just off the road along the Pascagoula river and sat on a pier at Shaupeter Shipyard.

Hickson said they heard a buzzing sound. They then turned around and saw a large oval-shaped craft with flashing blue lights about 50 feet away that came down and hovered about two feet off the ground. An opening appeared that emitted a brilliant light and three creatures floated out. Hickson described them as having wrinkled grey skin like an elephant, bullet-shaped heads with no neck, carrot-like appendages where ears and a nose would be, and claw-like hands. He said two creatures grabbed him, and one grabbed Calvin, who fainted from fright. With the creatures holding them, they floated to the craft and went inside. According to Hickson, he and Calvin were examined and a baseball-sized device like a mechanical eye scanned him from head to toe. They were released back onto the river bank, and while Hickson was conscious and alert, Calvin was in a daze with his arms straight out in front of him.

Calvin told a similar story to Martin except he said he didn’t see any carrot-like appendages on the creatures and he mentioned having an injection mark on his arm. He said they went back to his new 1973 Rambler Hornet and saw that the passenger side window was shattered, though still in its frame. It fell apart as the door was opened.

He and Hickson originally agreed not to tell anyone about the incident, but Hickson changed his mind, and he called nearby Keesler Air Force Base. He was told that the Air Force no longer investigated UFOs and that he should call the local authorities. Hickson called the local sheriff’s office, and they sent a car to meet them. They were given sobriety tests, and then escorted to the station.

At the station, they were interrogated and then left alone with a tape recorder running, which they didn’t know about. The recording is available on the web, and both men sound like they had definitely gone through a traumatic experience. Martin asked Calvin if he was mad about the tape, and he said he was at first but then he realized “All it did was prove a point.”

They asked that their story be kept quiet, but someone at the station leaked the story to the press. According to Calvin, when they went to work at the shipyard the next day, there were so many reporters that they were unable to function, and they were sent home with pay. Calvin noted that the management provided them with an attorney to help them handle the press.

Alexandra Kennon wrote an article headlined “The Pascagoula Abduction,” which was posted on the Country Roads Magazine website on September 21, 2021. She spoke with Calvin, his wife, Waynett, and Philip Mantle, a long-time British UFO researcher and owner/ operator of Flying Disk Press, through which he published Calvin’s book.

Calvin described his life at the time of the incident. According to him, he was 19 at the time and a month away from getting married. He said, “I wanted to get married, wanted to have children, wanted to have grandchildren, wanted to buy a house, retire, and fish …”

Calvin then described the incident. In his telling of it to Kennon, he spoke of a creature coming into the room when he was on a glass examination table in the craft. According to him, “She was normal. Matter of fact, if I’d been in a barroom drinking or something, and was single—you know at this time—I’d have probably asked her out on a date.” He said the only thing different about her was that her two middle fingers were longer than a human’s.

According to Calvin the creature then opened up his mouth. He told Kennon, “That’s when she took her right hand and started running it down my throat, and I started gagging. She had scratched it up real bad, and it was bleedin’, it was a darn mess.” He said the creature then made a sound that seemed to come from deep inside its throat. He said, “I don’t know if you ever heard a alligator’s matin’ call, where they vibrate the whole air around you, but that’s how it sounded.”

After describing the incident, Calvin told Kennon about his life in the aftermath. He said he lost his job at the shipyard because people wouldn’t leave him alone, so he drove back home to Laurel hoping to be able to leave everything behind him. As he told Kennon, that wasn’t to be:

“And it started from there. It was just like a roller coaster. I went to work, the reporter would show up at work while I was workin’, and you know, the people you work for, eventually, they get tired of that, so I’d lose another job.”

Calvin started going by the name “Randy” and would move to another area whenever he was recognized. Mantle compared him to the character in The Hulk, who also had to move to hide from reporters.

Calvin’s life changed due in large part to his wife, Waynett. They had divorced briefly because of the difficulty Calvin was having in handling the stress of his situation and then remarried. Waynett began to encourage Calvin to embrace his experience and write a book about it after an episode at a neighbor’s wake they were attending. Calvin signed his real name in the register, and according to Waynett, “Well, hell honey, they started looking for him at the wake, people were. People were taking pictures! It just wasn’t the place or the time.”

According to Kennon, as they left, Waynett told Calvin, “Baby, we need to write a book.” Her idea was that if he put his story out there, people would stop bothering him about it. He replied, “I’m not gonna write no book.”

After Calvin got in touch with Martin, Martin put him in touch with Mantle, who had been looking for him after Hickson had died in 2011. They arranged a book deal, and as part of the agreement, Mantle was to publish the book just as Calvin had written it, with no editing whatsoever. According to Mantle, Calvin wanted people to know just who he was and he did as Calvin requested.

Calvin wrote another book, Pascagoula – The Story Continues: New Evidence & New Witnesses, which Mantle published in 2019. That same year, his experience was validated with an historical marker describing it placed near the site.

Martin described another happy outcome of Calvin contacting him: “A woman asked me for Calvin’s email, so instead, I forwarded her email to him. It was an estranged daughter. Calvin called me one day to tell me it was a blessing. They were talking every day…”

A special Thank You to Charles for this great memorial!  Martin