Crazy Strange Days podcast presents your Crazy Strange Stories Episode twenty. This is part two of a two part series Strange Sightings in the Gulf Coast region. We're gonna kick it off with Wild People of the Woods and the Wild Girl of kata Hula. Newspapers in the late nineteenth century frequently reported on a mysterious Louisiana figure known as the Wild Girl of the kata Hula. This is by our buddy Terry L. Jones over at Country Roads Magazine. Much like today's Bigfoot Sightings, Newspapers in the late nineteenth century frequently reported on a mysterious Louisiana figure known as the Wild Girl of Katahula. No one ever discovered the Wild Girl's identity, although some speculate she was the abandoned child of a Gypsy woman who once lived in the area with two young girls. Go ahead and blame it on a gypsy's jeez. One of the children was reportedly deformed, and the Wild Girl's footprints indicated she had a club foot. The first stories appeared in the late eighteen eighties, and in July eighteen eighty eight, harrison Burg's Katahula News reported she had been causing a great deal of excitement. Fifteen miles west of town, The Swilly family claimed the girls snatched up a goose on their farm and took off into the woods and invaded several search parties. She's cried wildly and crafty man. A month later, two men reported seeing the wild Girl near Hemp's Creek in Lesalle Parish. The Saint Paul Daily Globe declared, they say she is one of the most ferocious looking beings that the human eye has ever cast upon. The men tried to question her, but she would not let them get near. The newspaper claimed she is as fleet as a deer, and at one leap she cleared a root seven feet high. That's a tall root. She uses no language, only Gibberish, so she's probably feral. Huh. The men described the wild girl as being about sixteen years old, four and a half feet tall, with long, beautiful brown hair, and weighing in at one hundred and twenty five to one hundred and forty pounds. She carried an old knife and seemed to limp when she walked, although they could not detect a deformed foot. Once again, a search party was organized to try to capture the wild Girl, but it was unsuccessful. Three months later, the Saint Martinville Weekly Messenger announced that the Wild Girl of Catahula has turned up again, and this time the witnesses were Captain J. M. Ball and JC Goldean, two men of good character who were fishing on Clear Creek near Little River. Ball claimed that when he heard some nearby hog squealing as if something had attacked one, he and his compatriot investigated. They soon came to a human being standing on a log with a pig in one hand and a short knife in the other. When she saw the two gentlemen about thirty yards off, she did not seem to be half as much afraid as they did. True Dad. Now, The two men are said to have backed away from the woman, who Ball described as a white female without clothes and would seem to weigh about one hundred and forty pounds and as active as a cat. He says she was covered with hair varying in length in different parts of her body. The wild girl finally ran off through the woods with the pig and her knife. The Clear Creek episode led some people to suspect that the entire Wild Girl story as a hoax. The Lake Charles Echo claimed that some Alexandria businessman decided to cash in on the story after the first few sightings. At the time, alligators were often used to advertise matches, patent medicines, and almanacs. Where's that patient medicines? That may be a misspelling. The newspaper speculated that the businessmen got the idea of using the wild Girl's image for advertising and hired Golden Goldean excuse me, who happened to be a popular Lake Charles artist, to concoct the whole story. It's brilliant, brilliant, I say. While the nation's newspapers drummed up interest in the wild Girl, Goldean was supposedly hard at work creating an illustration of her with the pig and a knife to use in some unspecified advertising campaign. The Echo's theory would make sense if it weren't for the fact that respectable citizens continued to encounter the wild Girl for at least three more years. According to an Idaho newspaper, prominent Pineville merchant J. H. Hartner and his sixteen year old daughter were traveling with another couple in buggies from Fishville to Pineville in October eighteen ninety when they saw a white female dressed in a faded homespun dress and barefooted. The woman ran away at a speed such as all say they never saw a human being run. The last mention of the wild Girl the author could find was in eighteen ninety one, when a woman supposed to her was seen in Upper Franklin Parish. She was described as being very powerful, covered with hair, and carrying a knife or sword. On one occasion, she attacked a boy at Lamarra, but bystanderds chased her away. Because this was the first time the wild Girl was known to be violent, a group of armed men gave chase with dogs, but could not catch her. The ultimate fate of the Wild Girl of Cattahula is not known all right Louisiana's wild Men. For whatever reason, reports of feral humans were somewhat common in the nineteenth century. Again by Terry L. Jones. For whatever reason, reports of feral humans were somewhat common in the nineteenth century. Last month's Callum focused on the Wild Girl of Catahula, but it turns out that she was not the only mysterious person roaming through the woods at this time. In eighteen sixty, the Bedford, PA Gazette reported that a wild man of the woods had been captured hiding in bushes on a plantation thirteen miles below New Orleans. The man spoke French in a manner not at all wild, and was armed with a pistol, with which he popped at every passenger along the road. Having frightened an entire parish out of its wits, a strong force was mustered to capture him. Nobody knows him, nor will he give an account of himself. Another so called wild man terrorized wind Parish. At the same time, the wild Girl of Catahula was being spotted in nearby parishes. According to the Richland Beacon, a mister Fletcher came to Winfield to report a wild man in the woods of Ward two Now. Fletcher claimed that Betty mccrwe and her little brother were walking on the road when they saw a nude man standing nearby. The wild man screamed when he spotted the siblings and ran into the woods. Later in the day, another man spotted him again on the same road and gave chase, but lost him in the woods. I don't recommend ever doing that, folks, don't go after naked men into the woods. It's a bad idea. Apparently, the stranger was never seen again, and the newspaper reported whether the man is a lunatic ding Ding ding Ding or some wild human being, no one knows. A wild man of Terre Bone was the most famous of such people. Hopefully I don't have to pronounce that again, terrell Bone, although he might be better described as a hermit than a farah. Jean Baptiste Dugas was born in eighteen twelve and became a successful Terrebonne parish planter who reportedly went insane, supposedly because his true love left him for another man on her wedding day. He vowed he would no longer be part of this cruel world and retired to a hut he had built on his land. There he remained for fifty years while administrators cared for his considerable property. Even though he had a trunk full of clothes, du Gas simply wore a blanket and slept on a pile of moss. Initially, he lived on snakes, rats, wild hogs, but his administrators finally began bringing him food shared with the insects that inhabited his hut. It was said that Dugas even fed the ants by pouring syrup in oyster shells. When the hut burned in eighteen ninety, the local men built him another. Dugas was described as being a gentleman who avoided people, although he did interact with children who sometimes visited. He was not considered dangerous and less provoked, and then was best left alone because he always kept a knife handy. The only time Dugas was known to have left his property was to attend court in Huma after being charged with destroying the local Catholic church. Dugas has had donated the property for the church, but became upset when dancing was allowed at a fund rate raising of affair. The Courier reported that Dugas was caught red handed trying to tear down the unfinished structure. During his trial, he claimed in defense that the place was intended for a house of warship and not for the purpose of amusements. The jury acquitted him. Dugas died in eighteen ninety one at the age of seventy nine. The following year, a wild man wearing nothing but a hat and shoes was captured at the residence of one John Folson thirty miles northeast of Rain, without giving details. The Crowley Signal reported that he had to be lassoed to be apprehended. He had been roaming at a large at large for some time and created an excitement amongst the farmers in the neighborhood. It was impossible to have identified him. One of the oddest sightings of a feral human also occurred in eighteen ninety two in nearby in Arkansas. A North Carolina newspaper reported that a Benton man saw a strange looking animal running with three wolves. Man, that's sweet, sounds like a bad dude. Curious, he followed them and was shocked to see a teenage boy running with the pack on all fours. When the wolves stop, he would stand up to look around, but then drop back down to the ground to run. The witness claimed the naked boy was able to get over the ground as rapidly as the wolves and showed no sign of human intelligence. The man recalled that wolves had carried off a baby about fifteen years earlier, and speculated that they had raised him as part of the pack. All right, so it seems we're going to change gears here a little bit. We're going to have We're going to get in to the Golf of Mexico with sea serpents of the golf Nessy's Southern cousins. And this one is also by doctor Terry Old Jones. He keeps rocking it out. Man. Summers upon us and families are heading to the Gulf coast to fish and swim, enjoy the water, but watch out for riptides, jellyfish, and sea serpents. That's right, if newspapers are to be believed, there are some strange creatures swimming around out there. An early sea serpent sighting occurred during the Civil War when Union forces occupied Ship Island, Mississippi. Major H. P Ritzius that's his last name, man for sure, was part of the garrison and recalled how eight monster fish swam into the harbor during the summer of eighteen sixty four. And we know that big. There's some big catfish out there, man Now. He and a few other men gave chase in a boat and managed to put eight harpoons into one of the creatures, but it dragged the boat ten miles out to sea before dying. A revenue cutter happened to be passing by at the time and towed the prized back prize back to the wharf. The fish was measured eighteen feet long, fifteen feet wide what and six feet in diameter. Weighed eighteen hundred pounds. That sounds like almost a square fish man. Its mouth had no teeth, but was four feet across in three feet deep. Ritzius reported that the meat had the consistency of unrefined cod liver oil and was unfit to eat the photograph. A photograph of the animal was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, but scientists there when I'm unable to identify it. Hmm. In eighteen eighty nine, the Los Angeles Daily Herald reported Captain James P. Hare of the Trinity Shoal Lightship off the mouth of the Mississippi River killed another Beckie myth. Captain Hare described it as hideous a creature as ever the human eye rested upon. I found it impossible to name or classify this monster. Hair and his crew armed themselves and approached the sea serpent in a small boat. The monster began thrashing wildly when Hare fired at close range, and then opened its mouth, revealing large tusk like teeth, and charged. According to Hair, the creature seized the side of the gunwale of our boat and crushed it as easily as though it was made of glass. Using the captain's rifle axes, hatchets, and harppoons, the crew finally killed the Leviathan and Hair cut off ahead and took it back to the ship. Hair described a serpent as being rusty, black on top, fading to a yellowish white on the underpart. While he was not able to judge its overall length, he claimed that at least forty to fifty feet of the animal was visible under the water. No mention was made of what happened to the severed head. Seven years later, the Okalla Evening Star covered and encountered the boat the Crescent City had with another golf monster. The boat was trolling a mullet on a shark hook off Carabelle, Florida, when something grabbed it. The newspaper reported everybody was panic stricken as the water began to foam at the end of the troll. When the creature began stripping line. The boat gave chase for several miles before the crew was able to bring it to the surface. After the passengers and crew shot and killed the serpent. It took a haw, sewer and capstan to bring it aboard. I'm unfamiliar with Most have a block and tackle of some sort. I guess as that nauticle for block and tackle. The eel shaped animal was just over forty two feet long and seventy two inches in circumference. Its spoonbill shaped head had a large shark like mouth teeth set at forty five degree angle to the rear. It also had a long, forked tongue, and fins up to eight inches were on the tail. The animal was generally brown in color, but had a greenish black which caused it to look black in the water. The underbelly was yellow. Summoning up its odd appearance, the newspaper claimed it is a horrible, slimy monster. The creature was taken back to Carabelle and examined by many people, but it apparently was never identified. Perhaps the only sea serpent to be reported officially to the UNS Navy was sighted on November twenty third, nineteen oh one, about one hundred and twenty miles southwest of South Pass and plaquem Manes Parish. I butchered that boy. One of the main entrances to the Mississippi River from the Gulf. According to The Washington Times, Henry Nilligan, the steamer Irida's third officer, filed a report with the US Navy's Hydrographic Office in which he wrote, we passed a large sea serpent, appearing about a one hundred feet long. The head had a blunt, square nose and was ejecting water to the height of two to three feet from its nostrils. The animal or fish had three distinct sets of fins in a long and a tail lying across like a porpoise my bad, and its back was a series of humps like a camel. It was heading about east true and moving slowly. It is not known if the Navy followed up on Nilligan's report. It almost sounds like this kind of sound like one of those giants, sturgeons, kind of in a way you guys think. I don't know. I think a lot of these are just misidentificated. That made that word up, miss id misidentified critters. That's my story, That's what I think. Alrighty, moving on, what do we got one of the most famous Southern alien abduction cases of all time? Super interesting. I think these guys were telling the truth as they knew to be aliens in Pasca Gula the Pasca Gula Abduction. Nearly fifty years after becoming one of the most credible alleged alien abductees in history, Calvin Parker shares his story by Alexandria Keenan forty six years I kept hit a secret. I didn't even tell my wife about it, Calvin Parker told me in his thick Mississippi accent referring to the evening of October eleventh, nineteen seventy three. The evening Parker was fishing on the Pasca Gula River with his friend Charles Hickson. It was his first day on the job at F. B. Walker and Son Shipyard, a job Hickson had helped him to get. He was nineteen years old, his wedding and month away with aspirations to live a simple life. I wanted to get married, wanted to have children, wanted to have grandchildren, wanted to buy a house, retire in fish, he says now sixty seven over the phone from the back porch of his current home in Moss Pointe, Mississippi. So the retirement and fishing has come about, but it was a long battle. To get there, he says. Pasca Goula native Rebecca Davis distinctly remembers Parker and Hickson's story first breaking when she was twelve years old. I was at a friend's house, and you know, we live in the Bible Belt. I asked my friend's dad why he was putting aluminum foil in the windows, Davis recalled over the phone. He told me it was to keep the aliens from getting to our brains. Are you kidding? That was a real thing, tim foil hats. When Davis got home, she immediately asked her parents and grandparents about the aliens. I was stopped in my tracks and told will you not talk about these things? Don't ever mention it again. Davis said, I was brought up a missionary Baptist, and so yeah, it was taboo. You didn't talk about it, and pretty much South Mississippi was that way despite the outward secrecy. When Davis's grandmother passed away in two thousand and five and the family cleaned out her house, Davis discovered her grandma had saved every local newspaper article about the case of Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson. The events the two men reported that night thoroughly derailed Parker's pursuit of a quiet moundane life. It had all started when Hickson asked Parker if he wanted to go fishing after work. Parker, new to town, hadn't brought his fishing gear with him, so Hickson offered to loan him some of his. Now, for a man that loves to fish from the south to offer you to use his fishing equipment, that's like him offering you his wife, Parker said, just unheard of. The men tried fishing in one location, but the swarming bugs prompted them to head back to the shipyard, where there were fewer lights to attract insects. That seems backwards. Parker pointed out posted signs to Hickson when they pulled up, but Hickson brushed off his concerns about breaking law. That don't mean nothing. I fish here all the time. They walked down to the old pier, cast out their lines and waited for a bite. I distinctly remember I was looking at a boat across There was an old or boat that they do the weather with, and it was made out of steel, And I was thinking to myself, now, how does something made out of steel float. Parker remembered, that's where my mind was, and that's when I noticed a blue, hazy light coming in from behind. You could see the reflection across the water. Thinking the lights were the police, he turned to Hickson and said, Charlie, we in trouble. You lied to me and were fixing the go to jail. That's the quote, so don't email me that. I mean. When the men stood up and turned around, they said they didn't see police cars, but instead a long ovuler craft floating about two feet from the ground, emitting a blindingly bright light. There was three bulky looking creatures. I still didn't know what they were that was coming towards us, Parker told me. By the time they got to us, I still couldn't see, for the light was so bright. He described to of the creatures grabbing Hickson and one grabbing him, and that's when it carried me aboard the craft, he said. Now, Parker said, the creature stopped at the door and in injected him with what he described as go to hell shot. Whatever it was ushered him from absolute terror to his sort of peaceful apathy. I didn't care what happened. Then, you think this was like the military screwing with these guys. I think, man, I think so. I think it's some kind of black budget project, messing with a couple of good boys down by the river in the middle of the night in a helicopter or something. Parker described being taken aboard the craft, down a hallway and into the room, where the creature placed him on an examination table made entirely of glass. According to Parker, at that point, the gray, wrinkled creature that brought him aboard the ship left the room. That's when something came out of the ceiling, about the size of a deck of cards, he said. The square shaped objects circled around him, making a series of clicking noises. I never thought about it until here lately, But it was like this MRI I was in, except the clicking wasn't that loud, Parker explained, looking back, And then it just shot back up into the ceiling. Then a small being entered the room, which Parker said he made him feel more at ease. He could move his body but rolled his head toward the creature. She was normal, he said, matter of fact, if I'd been in a barroom drinking or something and was single, you know, at this time, I'd probably have asked her out on a date. It looked just like a human, he explained, except for its middle fingers. Her two middle fingers were real long, were real longer than what an average persons would be. Parker recalled that, without saying a word, the creature put its left hand on its jaw and opened his mouth. 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 bleeding. It was a darn mess. It pulled its hand back out. Parker had the impression that it didn't want to hurt him anymore. Then it made a groan from deep within its throat. I don't know if you ever heard an alligator's mat and call where they vibrate the whole air around you, but that's how it sounded. So it was like infrasound again coming across that with like the bigfoots and stuff, they have a sort of infrasound, or that's what people say. That's when the creature that brought or excuse me, that's when the creature that Parker said initially brought him aboard the craft. I really believe it to this day. It was a robot, added, returned and carried him back to the bank of the river. That's where the story really starts, he said, and then my life turned pretty much to hell right after that. Parker said his first instinct, which Hickson initially agreed to, was to not tell anyone about what happened to them. Shaken and in shock, the men returned to the car to find the passenger door window shattered, though still in place in the frame. When they opened it, the glass fell out. Parker said that the car, which was relatively new and had never previously had issues starting, failed to start several times before it finally cranked. The motor sounded rough. On the drive back home, Hickson changed his mind. He thought they needed to tell someone about what happened to them. The spite Parker's protests, Hickson dialed Keysler Air Force Base in Biloxi and briefly explained what happened to them, before being told that they didn't handle UFO reports anymore. Project Blue Book was finished. They said to call the local authorities at the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. The men were questioned separately about their experiences, then put in a room alone together where they were secretly tape recorded. Now, this is where it gets really interesting because they would have no way of knowing that, you know, it was hidden. I mean it's like bugging a room back in the day, right, I mean, everything was hidden. You wouldn't know you were being recorded, So those conversations would be naturally, you know, obvious to what as to what happened. So on the tape they were still talking about what happened to them when they were being recorded, and how scared they were, said Philip Mantle, a researcher with over forty years of experienced studying UFOs, whose company Flying disc Press published Parker's two books about the abduction. I think Calvin's almost praying at one time. Now, if you've never heard this, and you can get these on all like Discovery Channel History only you know they actually they have I believe they have the tape. Maybe it's a reenactment, but it was pretty wild. These guys. The sheriff and the deputies were dumbfounded because they thought, okay, these boys, well boys are drunk old boys, are you know, pulling the wool over their eyes? Whatever? Messing with them, but when they heard the recording, they it really gave credence to their story in their eyes. Parker said that after the deputies listened to the oh here you go, I should have shut up and just read. Parker said that after the deputies listened to the secret tape recording, which he and Hickson didn't learn existed until much later, they took them more seriously. Parker urged the authorities not to tell anyone about what he and Hickson reported. I wasn't gonna tell a soul, he emphasized. But when we got back to the shipyard the next day, they already knew. When they got to work, FB, Walker and Son's shipyard was swarmed by the newsvans. Parker estimated that around two hundred reporters were there hoping to talk to him and Hickson. That's gotta suck. In addition to the reporters, astronomers and pioneering ufologists, doctor j Allen Heinick and doctor James Harder arrived in Pasca Gula within thirty six hours to interview and hypnotize Parker and Hickson. Now that's that's the heavy hitters right there. Heinech, dude, right, project Blue Book all that he was at first he they brought the Air Force, brought him into kind of depunk things, and he did. But then he became a believer after so many you know, just bizarre just witnessing and investigating so many bizarre occurrences. Apologies, I'll continue less of me, more of this content now. How he got from California to Pasca Gula, Mississippi in that short amount of time, I don't know, but he was down there. Parker later told me about Heinek, who was a scientific advisor for the for three major UFO studies undertaken by the US Airport Force. It was Project Signed, Project Grudge, and then graduated a Project blue Book. We covered Project Sign and Grudge back and I don't even know what episode. Well, of course I lost my job at the shipyard because people wouldn't believe or wouldn't leave me a. Parker told me he drove back home to Laurel, hoping to leave the events of October eleventh behind in Pascaaluga, Pascagoula, 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 working and you know, the people you work for. Eventually they get tired of that, so they I'd lose my job. Eventually, Parker went by the name Randy to avoid constant barrage of the press, and that's where I went from there to hide. But this has followed me my whole life. From his home in West Yorkshire in the north of England, Mantle described the plot of the nineteen eighties television show The Hulk. Basically, the Hulk was tracked by a journalist and every time the journalists caught up with them, he'd have to move on to the next town. Calvin was the real life Hulk, although he didn't turn into a big green monster. Every time he was recognized or the journalists caught up with him, he literally with his wife and family packed up to get away from them so they would start all over again. Poor Deed. Of course, despite the Sheriff's office secret tape recording the multiple hypnosis sessions and the polygraph tests backing up Parker in Hickson's story, many of even the men's own friends and family did not believe them. We took polygraph tests, voice stress tests, been hypnotized three times, had more credible witnesses than any case around, and more credible people talking. Parker said, But see, back in the nineteen seventies, people thought you were crazy to have done something or seen something like that. Parker said that he isn't sure who believed him and who didn't at the time because he avoided talking about it for so long. One thing, my daddy in law didn't believe me when this first happened. He told my wife, you don't need to marry him, and all that stuff, he said. But he came back and apologized. He pulled me aside and said, son, I owe you an apology. I didn't believe you when this happened, but I've seen something since then, and I believe it. There's no doubt in my mind that this happened to you. Parker, still a religious man, had once considered becoming a preacher. Another dream derailed that night. It took so much credibility away that I wouldn't have had enough people coming in that would believe me. I didn't think so. When a documentary reporter later asked him, how would you feel if I told you I didn't believe you, Parker answered, you know, fella, that's your opinion. If you want to believe it, you can. If you don't, you don't. I know what happened. I know I'm telling the truth. Now in his retirement, with Hickson having passed away in twenty eleven, Parker is more open to talking about that night than he was before. His wife, Whynette, is largely to think for that. This is despite the fact that decades ago, Parker's experience on the river led to their brief divorce before they remarried. It was all my fault. It wasn't her fault, Parker emphasized on a speakerphone with Wynette sitting next to him on the porch. I just couldn't handle the pressure. I had a nervous breakdown. It was why who encouraged Parker to write his books, to stop going to such great lengths to avoid talking about the abduction. She got the idea a few years ago when they were attending a neighbor's wake together. Parker hadn't used his real name in their neighborhood until then. When he signed the registrar book well Honey, they started looking for him. At the wake. People were called Whyette. People were approaching Parker asking for him to tell the story and requesting pictures. People were taking pictures. It was just it just wasn't the place or the time, she said. After leaving the wake, she told her husband, Baby, we need to write a book, suggesting that if he put his story out there, people might quit asking him about it so much. Parker replied, I'm not going to write no book. Book. Whynette went to the library to check out a book about publishing anyway, And in the meantime, phil Mantle had contacted Calvin and he'd been looking for him forever, and between me and Philip, Calvin didn't really have a choice, she laughed. Mantell has been studying UFOs for over forty years and to this day finds Parker and Hickson's case one of the most remarkable and credible of the countless he has researched. In addition to the many books he has written and published with Flying Disc Press, Mansell's resume includes former Director Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and former Mutual UFO Network MOFON representative for England. He first learned about the Pasca Goula abduction in the early eighties when the British magazine series The Unexplained published an article about it. It always stuck with me, Mantle said, I don't know what it is, Alexandria, but something just stuck in my mind about it. Mantle first tried to get a hold of Charles Hickson, knowing he'd spoken at conferences in the past and was more open to discussing the uniform or excuse me, the encounter than Parker. Later, after Mantel began his publishing company, he set about obtaining the rights to publish Hickson's book, but discovered that Hickson had already passed away. As I'm preparing for this publication, I thought, I'm sure Calvin Parker is still alive. I wonder if I can get an interview with him, he said, So I set off trying to find Calvin. After three long months of searching, a fellow UFO researcher was able to connect them. So we spoke on the phone, and he was polite, you know, but wasn't really telling me a lot. Mantel said of he and Parker's first conversation across the Atlantic. When Parker mentioned his wife wanted him to write a book, the Mantel told him about his publishing business and sent over a draft contract to his amazement. Parker signed it and they began working on what would become Pasca Goula, the closest encounter my story. One of Parker's bigger, biggest stipulations for agreeing to the project was that Mansell was not to edit anything, despite Parker's lack of formal education or writing background, so what he told me was exactly what we were going to publish. Mantle noted, even said keep the spelling mistakes in, in the typos, in the grammar, because he wanted people to know who he was as well as what had happened to him, and that was very important to him. Parker collaborated this, corroborated this, my bad. I made him agree to not change nothing, not to correct any spelling, not to change a word or anything in the book, Parker said, and he's held by that and did good. Now that Parker has written two books published for international audiences by Mantle's Flying This Press, by all accounts, he's glad he did. We'd never taken vacations or anything. So after the book, I got a chance to go to these conferences and speak, and it really opened my relationship with my wife, Parker remarked. To both Parker and Mantle's surprise, the book was a massive success. According to Mantell, the books he published with Buying disc Press are not typically commercial successes, but our books, he thinks, deserve to be published. Nonetheless, besides his wife occasionally making him a cup of tea, he said, he is the company's sole employee. To our amazement, it became an Amazon bestseller and featured in USA Today as well as local and national papers. And it just went from there, Mantle said. The rest, as they say, is history. When the book was first released, Parker gave copies to his own friends and family as a means of explaining to them the story that so impacted his entire life, but that he had never spoken to them about. Since then, I've told it millions of times. I didn't know there was such an interest in all this, Parker marveled. He gets a standing ovasion when he gives a talk on a car everywhere we have been, why not, chimed in her pride audible. In twenty nineteen, a historical marker was placed near the Pascagoula River, across from the site where the alleged abduction took place. It remains the best documented case of alien abduction, particularly since there is a secret tape involved and not one, but two witnesses. The end of the plaque reads when it was officially unveiled. Excuse me, I kind of that's the end of the plaque, That's what I read. So when it was officially unveiled, Parker was so overwhelmed by the emotions of finally having this story he was ridiculed about for decades, legitimate, legitimate, ize, legitimate, ized that he cried. It was one of the happiest moments in his life. And that is rare that such memorials to you incidents exist, Mantle said. They are a couple in different parts of the world, but they're usually placed there long after they're dead and gone. You know. Thankfully Calvin was there to see it and enjoy it and have it officially unveiled. Patients, folks, there's more. In recent years, even more instances of validation of the story have emerged. More than two dozen witnesses have come forward with their own reports of UFO sightings on or around the Pascagoula River in Jackson County in the weeks surrounding. October eleventh, one man reported seeing a large ship floating over the river from the cab of his crane while he worked. That night, a couple reported seeing a large vessel with a blue light flying low over the river as they drove over a bridge. When the man went to visit his aunt the next day, who also lived in the air, before he said anything about the sighting, she said, y'all, never guess what I saw last night, and reported the same thing. Yet another couple said they were on the opposite bank waiting for a boat to come in when they saw blue lights across the river in a gray creature in the water. A man told his wife, don't tell anyone, they'll think we're nuts. Of course, the next day, who was on TV news man a last and answered Charlie and Calvin Mantle, along with doctor Irenas Scott, a psychologist who has authored multiple books on UFOs, have been diligently working. Excuse me at work tracking down these witnesses and collecting their accounts for a new book, The Pasca Goula Close Encounter Witness Witnesses on the Record, which is set to be released sometime next year. My wife said, I was like a proper police investigator looking for this evidence, Mantle chuckled, and we found it. We've found it. One of the best documented witness accounts came from two fishing boats with ten passengers total that went out on the river on November sixth that same year. The fishing party said that they saw something large and illuminated floating beneath the surface of the water, which they hit with an oar before applying cat and mouse, playing cat and mouse with the vessel, chasing it around the river. They reported the account to the coast guard, who sent a boat out and experienced exactly the same thing. We have all the coastguard documents, Mantel said, it was all documented. He has since located a photograph of the ten witnesses in the fishing party, and with the help of social media, has tracked down and interviewed one of them who is still live, who confirmed the account. This is just a few weeks after the event in the same river. Make of it what you will, Mantle said. Information still comes in slowly but surely, but it still comes in. I'm a bit of a pest. Alexandria. My colleagues grown when they get an email from me if it says Pasca Goula in the subject, Mantell said that it's understandable that so many witnesses hesitated to come forward sooner. We have to remember as well, in those days, who would you tell if you see the news media basically mocking Charlie and Calvin, There really wasn't anyone else, he said. They were different times, and of course when Calvin came out of the woods and went on the record, they saw the media coverage the second time around treating it very respectfully, so that encouraged them to do exactly the same. Mansell and Parker, who have forged in an unconventional relationship friendship skyping in their vastly different accents from across the globe, are hopeful that even more witnesses will continue to come forward with reports. From that strange autumn in and around Jackson County. There seems to have been a huge what we call a flap. There were a lot of UFO sightings from a few days before to a few days after, but the peak of them was the Parker and Hickson event. If you like, Mannel explained, and by all means, if there's anyone out there that did see anything, and that will be willing to speak to us in confidence. By all means, ask them to come forward. We guarantee we will treat them with respect and not release their details if that's what they want. We're just interested in the information. It's that simple. Since his first book came out, Parker told me he no longer has nightmares about the abduction. After the book came out, I put all this behind me. It's out in the open. I've accepted it, and it was just a big relief come across my shoulders. He said. His energy these days is spent enjoying his retirement with Wyette, fishing, and battling a recent cancer diagnosis. I'm fighting a totally different battle right now, he said, but it's not the first one. Despite all this, he says he'll never forget what happened to him the night of October eleventh, nineteen seventy three. I feel like we was just at the right place at the wrong time, Parker said, of he and Hickson's choice of fishing location that night. But like I say, it's something that lives with you. Ye. That's a crazy case, man, That is it. Everybody, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. Please five star, rate, and review wherever you find your podcasts and share the show that would Rock And also please check out if you're down with conspiracy theories and true crime, check out the new podcast Chasing Bad. You can find that anywhere. All right, man, peace out. I've been mixed strange and I am gonz Old ding Anas. It is as names. It is an essay name.
