Pascagoula, Miss. (AP) - A weird thing happened to Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker Jr. as they stood casting for croakers in the Pascagoula River - and it changed their lives.
They said a spaceship hovered nearby an three pale, wrinkled creatures seized them, took them inside for an examination, then let them go.
Incredible? Of course. But mystified investigators placed the report in a special category because they found no logical way to debunk it.
Authorities said whatever happened undoubtedly was a soul searing experience for Hickson, a 45 year old shipyard foreman, and his young visitor, the son of a family friend.
It took place last Oct. 11 near the beginning of a great flap over Unidentified Flying Objects - UFO - along the Gulf Coast.
For a couple of weeks, hot reports of UFO sightings had people out staring at the night sky. From New Orleans, La., to Mobile, Ala., the light of any passing airliner was liable to cause traffic accidents.
Then, as inexplicably as it began, the UFO flurry was gone - but not forgotten by Hickson or Parker.
"I've done everything I can to prove I'm telling the truth," Hickson said recently.
He is a slightly stooped man of middle height with a monkish fringe of hair, a slow and serene Mississippi drawl. He has four children and lately has been working two jobs, which occupy him from 8 a.m. until 9:30 p.m.
"As long as I'm working, I don't have any problems, but when I don't have anything to do, I sit and think," he said.
"I don't reckon I'll ever get over trying to figure out where they came from - and why they picked me."
Hickson's report, briefly stated, was:
He and Parker, 19, were fishing at old Schaupeter shipyard. The site has since been scraped clean for new construction. At the time, it bore the ruin of a barge drydock, two rusty iron piers, a jumble of auto hulks, empty bottles and beer cans.
Though it seemed to be an isolated spot, it was not. Pascagoula is directly across the 100 yard wide river; Ingalla Shipyard's huge cranes loom a mile to the south; busy U.S. 190 is 150 yards to the north.
A soft darkness had fallen as the men cast their lures. An oblong luminous blue blob circled, descended, hovered nearby, just above the junk.
Hickson said he and Parker were too stunned to run, and in any case there was no place to flee.
An opening - not a door, simply an indescribable opening - appeared in the side and three pale creatures came out, paralyzed him, floated him into the craft, rotated him before an instrument resembling a big eye, then put him back on the pier.
Parker, reported almost in shock when officers questioned him three hours after the alleged encounter, said he blacked out as the creatures approached and remembers no more of it.
"They weren't lying," said Howard Ellzy, chief investigator for the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. "Whatever it was, it was real to them."
Ellzy's evaluation was later backed up by a polygraph test given by both men.
Since then, Park, a shy, lanky, unsophisticated youth who came here to work at the shipyard with Hickson, has returned home to Laurel, Miss.
Joe Colingo, attorney for the shipyard, said Parker was first treated at a hospital for the stress of a "complete physical and emotional breakdown."
For Hickson, things have been a bit better than he expected when he decided that, "though I'll be the laughing stock of the country." he had to tell the story so government officials would know of it.
Government officials didn't show much interest. But Hickson, convinced his UFO came from another world, said he was surprised by the number of people who accepted that as logical.
He said he hadn't pondered the matter before Oct. 11 but, "I don't see why God would put life on just this one small speck and no other place."
He said he plans to make a recording of his story.
Meanwhile, nights are long, his sleep uneasy.
"I wake up every three or four hours, sometimes in a cold sweat," said Hickson. "I don't know what is terrifying me so. Maybe I am reliving what happened.
"I know I always have the feeling there's something important that I just can't remember, no matter how hard I try."