Hickson Oral History (1979)

Title page of the oral history transcript that lists the call number of the item, followed by The Mississippi Oral History Program of the University of Southern Mississippi volume CVIII 1979. Below that is An Oral History with Mr. Charles Hickson Native Mississippian with a note about the interviewer Dr. Orley B. Caudill.

In 1973, two shipyard workers—Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker—claimed to have been taken aboard a UFO by strange, wrinkled creatures with webbed hands and subjected to examination. Hickson 1979, Orley B. Caudill interviewed Charles Hickson as a part of the Mississippi Oral History Project at the University of Southern Mississippi. In the interview, Mr. Hickson gives his background and describes the abduction event in detail. While fishing off a pier in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a spacecraft landed accompanied by an intense zipping sound. The spacecraft, he said, was either oblong or round, and it never touched the ground. While aboard the craft, Mr. Hickson tried to call out for Calvin, but he could not hear his own voice.

Hickson described the way his life changed after the UFO event. Much of the interview deals with the aftermath, including public engagements in venues of all kinds—churches, radio shows, and television programs—describing his experiences.

Since 1971, the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at Southern Miss has worked to collect interviews with Mississippians of all backgrounds and many of these interviews have been transcribed and housed in Special Collections. There are over 1300 transcribed interviews in the collection.

For more information about this item, contact Andrew Rhodes at or 601.266.6765.

Text by Andrew Rhodes, Special Collections Specialist.