Files of the Unexplained (2024) s01e01 Episode Script

[mysterious music plays]
[man 1] I remember one night as a child,
I was watchin' that movie,
War of the Worlds.
[dramatic music plays]
It scared the living daylights out of me
because of all the spaceships.
They were goin' around
zapping people and houses.
- [lasers fire]
- [screams]
My dad told me,
"Son, that is just a movie."
He said, "Things like that don't exist."
Until one day
Two local men confronted authorities
with a rather bizarre story.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker
told of a strange craft
landing near their fishing site
and of being taken aboard
by three unearthly creatures.
[Calvin] I sure as hell
almost had a heart attack.
I I came one darn inch from dyin'.
[Charles] It scared me to death, too, son.
I had been through enough hell
on this earth,
and now I had to go through
somethin' like this.
[man 1] I said, "Now, Daddy,
tell me what happened that night."
He started tellin' me,
and all of a sudden,
I noticed he got tears in his eyes.
I said, "What's the matter, Daddy?"
He said, "Son,
I've been scared in my lifetime,
but I've never had anything
scare me like this before."
"I was so afraid that they were gonna
take me away from here,
and they would never know
what happened to us."
[theme music plays]
[narrator] On the evening
of October 11th, 1973,
Charlie Hickson and Calvin Parker
were fishing on a river
and claimed to have had
an otherworldly encounter.
For 50 years, many have asked,
"What really happened that night?"
[somber folk music plays]
[man 1] I love everything
about Mississippi.
The sound of a train whistle,
Barq's root beer.
It's just a way of life.
The way I was brought up.
We don't get to hurry.
It's just the way to live there.
Dad and I moved to Pascagoula in 1969.
[man 2] Pascagoula was
a sleepy, small fishing village,
until the construction of a, uh, shipyard.
Ingalls Shipbuilding
began manufacturing destroyers
for the US Navy back in the '50s,
which required workers,
and recruited workers
from all over the state.
[Eddie] The crime rate was very low.
You could still, at that time,
sleep with your windows up
and, um, your doors left open.
[nostalgic folk music plays]
Daddy was my best friend.
We did a lot of fishin'.
Daddy just knew how to catch fish.
And he used to make me so mad.
He'd be yankin' them in the boat,
and I wasn't catchin' nothin'.
And I'd put my cork
or throw over beside him,
and I still wouldn't catch anything.
We used to go pick dewberries
and all that kinda stuff.
We raised our own pigs and cows.
And we did it all.
We survived on our own.
Calvin and I went to school together.
Didn't live very far apart
from each other.
He was 18 at the time. Same age as me.
Calvin, and his dad,
and my dad, we'd all go campin'.
We spent a lot of time together.
My dad helped get him a job
down at one of the shipyards.
One day, they decided
to go fishin' after work,
and that's how they ended up
down on the river.
And that's when everything happened.
[ethereal music plays]
[man 3] I had just gotten a bite,
and I was reelin' it in.
As I turned, I almost froze with fear.
A zippin' sound was all I heard.
About 60 or 70 feet away,
some type of craft
was approachin' the ground.
[energy pulsing]
[Eddie] He said this thing
was sittin' there above
It wasn't touchin' the ground,
above the ground,
and it had lights on it.
[suspenseful music plays]
It seemed to just stop, just land.
All of a sudden, it, uh
one end of it just opened up.
[man 3] It seemed to hold me spellbound.
Maybe it would just leave.
We can run for the car,
get the hell outta here.
[Eddie] And then, all of a sudden,
these three beings come out.
They never touched the ground.
Two of 'em came straight to him,
and one went to Calvin.
[Charles] I don't remember
seein' any eyes.
They had somethin' in about the center
of what I would call a face.
Somethin' that came straight out,
more or less about where a nose
on a human being's face would be.
I didn't see any neck.
It looked like it just sit down
on a on a body.
And it didn't have hands as we have.
They They had more or less,
like, pinchers or claws.
[Eddie] They grabbed him by his arm.
And he said from that point on,
he could not move his eyes.
He could not speak. He was just ab
He was totally paralyzed.
[man 3] One of 'em took hold of Calvin.
I saw him go limp
and found out later he had fainted.
It was kinda like a hummin' noise.
Just one of 'em made it. Like, "Hmm."
Just like that.
And the only one I seen, it made it.
The rest of 'em I didn't hear
because I was at a point
where I passed out.
Two of 'em reached for my arms.
One on each side.
[Eddie] They took them both
inside of the spacecraft.
And he described it
as bein' inside of a light bulb.
It was so bright.
[man 3] I was alone
for what seemed an eternity.
"God help us. Where is Calvin?
What have they done with him?"
Then I saw it.
Somethin' that resembled a big eye
seemed to come out directly from the wall.
I tried to close my eyes, but couldn't.
The eye came closer.
Stopped about six inches from my face.
The eye lingered there for a while,
then started to move down my body
and returned to move over my entire body.
[Eddie] Daddy estimated
that he was in there probably 30 minutes.
He said, "When they brought me out,
they took me back
to the same place they picked me up."
And he said
Calvin was standin' there by the river
With his arms outstretched like that,
just like he was starin' at somethin'.
[man 3] Just before I reached him,
I heard the zippin' sound again.
And as I looked around,
I saw the blue flashin' lights.
And almost instantly, the craft was gone.
[energy pulses]
[Eddie] Their first instinct was
to get in the car and go home.
And that's what they started,
headin' over there.
Then, they were talkin', said,
"You know, we need to let
the the authorities know about this
because the It could be somebody
gettin' ready to invade us."
[menacing music plays]
[man] There was two men
came into the sheriff's department,
approximately 8:30, nine o'clock.
They were all excited, upset,
wantin' to climb the walls,
hysterical, cryin'.
That's actually all I know
is what happened.
As far as me seein' what happened,
I don't know.
[Calvin] The sheriff department,
Fred Diamond,
they felt like an interrogation
more than somebody you could talk to.
I didn't know what I was gonna do,
or where I was gonna go,
or who I was gonna see,
or who I was gonna tell.
I done made my mind up
not to tell nobody, though.
[woman 1] Well, I didn't find out
about it right away.
I think it was about three days into it.
And I had heard something had happened.
I didn't realize the extent of it
until I actually laid eyes on Calvin.
[Calvin] Back then, I wanted
to protect her, and I didn't know how.
This happened October.
We got married in November.
I didn't know how to keep it a secret
because all the news media
had hammered down.
[tense percussive music plays]
Two Mississippi men say they were
examined by creatures from a spaceship.
There's some question
about how the story got out so quickly.
Calvin used to think
that Charlie might've leaked it
'cause for the national media
to pick up on it so quickly
was pretty phenomenal.
Rolling Stone came to town.
I don't ever remember
reading the article that they wrote.
[typewriter taps and chimes]
[dreamy ethereal music plays]
[woman 2] I was 12.
And I remember that weekend,
I think it sort of broke.
Like, headline.
I was goin' to a sleepover
at one of my friends' house,
and, uh, all I remember is sayin',
"Why is your daddy puttin'
aluminum foil in the windows?"
And she said, "Well, I don't know."
So I went and asked him.
And he said, "It's to keep the aliens
from gettin' to our brains."
[reporter] UFOs are here now.
A number of scientists
take them very seriously.
[Karen] The sheriff's department
was getting
something like two or three thousand
phone calls during that week.
Those were mostly people afraid,
or worried, or curious.
[Rebecca] It was a mess here.
I mean, how the town was.
I know how the police department works
with, you know, calls comin' in.
I just can't imagine
all the calls that they had gotten.
Not only there,
but, you know, at the county.
Seein' blue lights,
and people were scared.
At first, it was treated as a big joke.
But no one who has talked
to the two men is laughing now.
There's two different reactions.
The people that were afraid
to stay at home by themselves at night.
You know, aluminum foil hats
and things like that.
[suspenseful music plays]
And there were some people
that dismissed it.
Most people in Pascagoula
probably just discounted it
and said, "That couldn't have happened."
It was just too out there to
to be something that possibly occurred.
[Karen] You know, the first thing
someone asked me when I went to church,
and they were like,
"Yeah, were those guys drunk?"
I knew he was tellin' the truth,
without question.
[narrator] With no hard evidence
to prove they were abducted,
the town was divided
on believing Charlie and Calvin's claims.
Even so, their story never changed.
[ethereal music plays]
[Eddie] Daddy was always kinda jovial,
liked to laugh and everything like that.
And after this happened to him,
he kinda lost some of that.
I could just see it
in his eyes, in his face.
And his mind was always thinkin'.
And for a long time, I do know
that he did have problems sleepin'.
My mother, she was scared to death.
It freaked her out.
I mean, really, it did.
He had cold sweats.
Had to change his sheets
at least two and three times a night.
From cold sweats.
And he's never been the same since,
and I haven't either.
My dad, of course, bein' older,
and what happened to him
in Korea and stuff like that,
he was more prepared
for somethin' like that than Calvin.
[Waynette] When Calvin got out of the car,
first time I had seen him
since it happened, four days later,
I can't say he ran towards me,
but he got to me pretty quickly.
We embraced and hugged
for the longest time.
I noticed his mouth was quivering.
Just very traumatized, very unsettled.
You experienced a a couple
of breakdowns, is that correct?
Yeah, there was a time or two
that I had to go into hospital
on account of my nerves.
And, you know,
I still have problems with my nerves.
When he went to the emergency room,
he tried to tear the place up.
He just couldn't handle it.
And that's why I believe Daddy went off
and tried to let everybody know this.
Calvin didn't wanna talk about it.
All he wanted to do at that time
was forget about it.
[Rebecca] I don't know what happened.
I truly don't.
I don't. But after I met Mr. Parker?
Somethin' happened to that man.
There's not a doubt in my mind.
[ethereal music plays]
[Waynette] Do you remember the first time
you saw me, baby,
when I met you outta the car?
Yeah. I was so glad to see you.
- So glad.
- How long we had held each other?
Yeah.
[Waynette] I could tell he didn't wanna
talk to me about it, which was fine.
I didn't wanna do anything
that was goin' to upset him.
I gave him his space.
And I felt like in my heart
that when he got ready
to talk to me about it,
he would.
[tense ethereal music plays]
[Karen] There was a lot of UFO activity
in the area in the '70s.
There was UFO sightings
all along the Mississippi Coast.
There was a lot of it.
A lot of some kind of activity.
[narrator] The area
where Calvin and Charlie fished that night
was near the Pascagoula River drawbridge,
which at the time was operated
around the clock by a bridgetender.
[Karen] One thing that really bothered me
when I started lookin' into this case,
the bridgetender did not see anything.
So, there were two bridgetenders.
And you can see by one of the photographs
of Charlie down by the site
You can see that bridgetender's box
in the background.
So it was not far away.
Why didn't the bridgetender see it?
If it was so bright,
if it happened right there,
there was a reflection on the water,
all these other things,
why didn't the bridgetender see it?
[narrator] Calvin and Charlie thought
they were alone in what they saw.
But the spot where the encounter occurred
was not far from working shipyards
and private residences.
And there were others who saw something
the night of October 11th.
[enchanting music plays]
[man 4] I was at my home,
and I was leavin' right at about dusk,
me and my girlfriend.
When I got in my car,
I seen these strange lights
over on this side of the river.
They were like LED lights,
like 6K LED lights, they were so bright.
And LED was unheard of then.
And I thought maybe
it was a big plane comin' in or something.
And wrong place for a plane
to be landing. [chuckles]
But when we got up on the bridge good,
then the lights got brighter,
and they were
right over the old shipyard area
there on the south side of the bridge.
And as we got on up on top of the bridge,
the lights didn't move.
They were just stayin' right there.
[wind chimes jingle]
[woman 3] I happened
to be outside in my backyard
and saw something odd
that I watched for 20 minutes.
It was basically blue.
It appeared to have a line of lights,
you would say, rotating around it.
And it stopped, and it just stayed there.
And it had actually lowered down
to the close to the horizon.
[tense music plays]
[woman 4] We were stopped at a red light,
and I could see
an object comin' toward us,
but I couldn't make out what it was.
I said, "Look."
It It was so low,
just above the light poles.
But there was no engine noise.
And it's got
a really bright light under it
that you couldn't look at it
at a long period of time.
The radio started, uh, actin' crazy,
and we were freakin' out.
And we're sayin', "What is this?
What in the world is that?"
[Susan] And then,
the only way I can describe it is
it shot off to the north and disappeared.
Really high rate of speed.
Just like, pew! It was gone.
[Rusty] We didn't know what it was either.
All of it came together
in the same timeframe, same evening.
We didn't know what we'd seen,
but we we seen the lights from it.
I headed back in the house,
I told my parents.
And they told me this,
like, "Well, you know,
I wouldn't tell anybody about this.
They're gonna think you're crazy."
That was the the way
things were looked on in that day.
[Judy] Everybody was sayin',
"Well, I'm not tellin' anybody.
They won't believe us."
You know? "And they'll make fun of us."
And we kinda made a pact that nobody
was gonna say anything about it.
[Rebecca] I think people were nervous
and worried about what someone else
would think about them.
Whether they believed it or not,
it was taboo.
They couldn't relate it
to bein' in the Bible
or bein' a part of somethin'
that God created.
[Eddie] Daddy was a very religious man.
He was raised that way by his mom and dad.
And Daddy raised me the same exact way.
He turned to his faith
'cause he knew
that God's not gonna put on him
anything on him that he can't handle.
I certainly believe in in God.
And I think that, uh, God,
in all of his greatness,
uh, didn't only create
this little world here.
He created all those worlds out there.
[Rebecca] There's been some witnesses
that's come forth after the fact,
uh, way after the fact.
I'm not so sure
that people much care anymore
about what someone says about 'em.
Who are we to say God didn't create
somethin' else out there?
[Jay] I remember The Tonight Show
and other national media
that picked up on the event.
I mean, the story is
is an amazing story,
that two average-guy shipyard workers,
fish for a little while
after they got off work,
and, uh, all of a sudden, what happened
apparently changed their lives.
[narrator] After the story broke,
Charlie and Calvin
were flooded by media requests.
News outlets and TV shows were eager
to have the men share their experience,
and profit from it.
[Eddie] Daddy appeared on several shows.
He was on Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett,
and To Tell the Truth.
Number one, could you
did you have the power
to resist or to restrain yourself,
or was you sort of hypnotizin'?
Uh, I didn't have any power to resist. No.
[host] All right.
So, will the real Charles Hickson
please stand up?
[audience exclaims and applauds]
[mysterious music plays]
[narrator] There was money to be made
off a UFO story.
And Charlie, in particular,
didn't miss an opportunity
to recount the abduction.
Charles Hickson is preparing
to tell his story on stage
before an audience for a price.
Hickson has teamed up
with a group of hypnotists and psychics
for a series of personal appearances.
The price of tickets
is five and ten dollars.
When he's not busy
making personal appearances
or appearing on radio
and television talk shows,
or promoting his record,
Hickson works on the book
he's writing about his experience.
[Eddie] My dad has been
all over the country on interviews
and stuff like that.
And I want you to know
that he did not profit from this
by any at all.
All he would ask these people
is to pay him
what he would lose in a day's work.
[ethereal music plays]
[Calvin] Charlie, I
lost confidence in him
because we agreed
me and him weren't gonna tell nobody.
And he I felt like he told the world.
So, I didn't have nobody,
I didn't feel like, down here.
I had a lot of people,
but I I didn't feel
like I had anybody I could talk to.
[Eddie] The news media
was just everywhere.
It started to get to Daddy.
And he was bein'
pulled this way, pulled that way.
And anybody watchin'
the To Tell the Truth,
they could tell and look at his demeanor
and tell that it took a lot out of him.
He wasn't the same Charlie.
Mr. Hickson was out-front
and very visible after this happened.
But Mr. Parker had
significant, uh, emotional problems
as a result of the incident,
and sort of shunned the publicity.
I think he was strugglin'
to comprehend it himself.
He was questionin' himself mentally.
I don't know how you couldn't.
He wanted to stay outta the public eye.
Because, you know, you never know
how people will treat you
after somethin' like this.
I do remember Mr. Calvin tellin' me
that he was at a funeral here, local,
and somebody recognized his name
and came up to him and said,
"Are you Calvin Parker? The"
And And he said yes,
but he said he did not hang around.
He said there was someone mourning,
someone being gone.
And he said he and his wife just got
in the car and left and went home.
[Waynette] Several of 'em
followed us out to the car even.
So, we got away from 'em,
and we were on our way home.
And shortly after that, in 2018,
that's when he started
openin' up to me about it.
I knew whatever it was was traumatizing,
but I didn't realize the extent.
You know, something comin'
from the unknown,
and they have you,
and they're pokin' and probin'.
And, I mean, you don't know
if you gonna live or die.
I don't think anyone
really knew what to think back then.
The ones that say they saw the lights
said they were scared.
They were scared that if they came out
and admitted to seein' it,
that they'd be shunned too.
[director] Did you believe it immediately?
I I'm not sure. Uh, probably not.
I mean, I I was young at the time.
But, uh, the secret recording
of the the two, uh, characters involved,
that went a long way
to letting people know
that this this was a
very possibly, an actual incident.
[Charles] I guess
they really could have harmed us, son.
[Calvin] I'm embarrassed by it
'cause nobody believes us.
[Charles] I've never seen nothin'
like that before in my life.
[narrator] In early 2020,
a recording surfaced
that, to many, added credibility
to Charlie and Calvin's story.
The night they reported the abduction,
Pascagoula police officers
recorded the men without their knowledge.
[Karen] When the sheriff
put Charlie and Calvin
back in that room by themselves,
he put a tape in a drawer
or up under the desk.
Somehow, he had installed it.
[Calvin] You hear about somethin'
like that, but you can't believe it.
[Charles] You hear about it,
but I know, Calvin, I know.
- [Calvin] Came one darn inch from dyin'.
- [Charles] It scared me to death too, son.
They put these two guys back in that room
by themselves and left 'em.
That would've been an opportune time
for them to say,
"Gosh, you think they believed us?
We maybe need to get our story straight."
But there there was
no change in the story.
[Calvin] I'm I'm just layin' here
cryin' right now.
[Charles] Yeah, I know.
[Calvin] I'm embarrassed by it
'cause nobody believes us.
[Charles] I guess
they really could have harmed us, son.
[Calvin] I passed out, and I passed out.
That's the first time
I ever passed out in my life.
[Charles] Well, you can't make people
believe that, though.
[Calvin] I can't figure out the damn door.
You You see how that door
come in on itself?
[Charles] Yeah, I don't know, son.
I don't know.
You could hear the fear in their voices
and the sincerity.
And especially Calvin said
You could tell
he was scared half to death.
They were absolutely convinced
that what had happened to them
was reality.
[intense pulsing music plays]
[narrator] Years later,
Calvin claimed to have been visited again.
And unlike before,
Calvin shared his second encounter freely
in an effort
to work through his experience.
What are your thoughts today on something
of this magnitude happening to you?
I am more mentally stable now
than what I've ever been in my whole life.
And I can deal with this
in a more mature manner.
Talkin' about it
kinda gave him a little relief.
You know, it can't be good for anybody
to keep somethin' stored up that long.
There's probably some
that still think he's he's crazy.
But you know what the great thing is?
He don't care anymore.
Honestly, I think telling
his story sort of set him free.
[narrator] Charlie Hickson also claimed
to have been visited a second time,
in 1974.
[Eddie] He was sitting under a tree
eatin' an orange one day,
and he said he just got this feelin'
somethin' was watchin' him.
And he said he turned around and looked,
and there was two of 'em
standin' right behind him.
And they never came any closer.
And he said it was just like a radio
that turned on in his head
that, "We mean you no harm."
"And we will be back."
He said, all of a sudden, they were gone.
Just boom, that fast.
[sweeping melancholic music plays]
My daddy was one of the first
that was captured by a UFO.
He stuck to his word till the day he died.
It never changed under anything,
and that's that's good enough for me.
[Calvin] You can't live a normal life.
You always got this
in the back of your head.
She's lived through this and all.
I know it's been hard on her.
She hadn't got much credit for puttin' up
with me through the whole thing.
Really, I didn't do her right
because I waited a long time
to talk to her about it.
Eighteen years.
- No, more than that.
- More than 18, darlin'.
Yeah.
How do you tell somebody that you love
somethin' like that?
Will they think
you're an idiot or somethin'?
[laughs]
[sighs]
[mellow music plays]
[Eddie] This is the marker
that was dedicated
in my father and Calvin Parker,
across from where
the actual incident happened.
And I'm very proud of it.
And
it it's a legacy to him,
is the way I see it.
My dad was a to me, a super, super man.
And I miss him dearly.
[Rebecca] The marker brought healing,
um, not only for a community
that, I think, at the time didn't believe,
but especially for Mr. Calvin.
So, we laid that out,
and we made that happen.
Mr. Calvin was blown away.
It felt real good
to have the city to acknowledge it.
And I thought it was a a big honor.
And I I told Waynette,
"When I die, just scatter my ashes
right around the marker somewhere."
'Cause I have a marker there,
and people will be able to come and visit.
[Rebecca] Mr. Charlie's family
was there as well.
And they got a chance
to talk about their life,
growin' up with the whole scenario.
[Jay] The experience
of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker
is so unique that it cannot be ignored
as part of our our culture here.
[gentle folk music plays]
Third Fridays are events
that are held in the downtown area.
Bands, food trucks
And one of the Fridays
is dedicated to the alien abduction.
I believe, as a city,
we need to celebrate that story.
[voice on recording]
We come from a world far away.
[bleeps and bloops play]
[Rebecca] Now I have, you know,
the blow-up, green ones.
As tall as him. I've got a
Actually, one taller than him,
that we have to sorta tie,
you know, to one of the poles.
[voice on recording]
Take me to your leader.
[Rebecca] There's one
in just about every business.
But this is my prize.
This is just the cover of the first book
that, uh, Mr. Parker wrote.
I have bigger ones that he signed.
And only a few people got one,
and I happen to be one of 'em.
So, I was very proud of that.
[melancholic guitar music plays]
This is in the '70s, early '70s.
Times were different.
I think people are more open-minded now.
[Jay] The bottom line is,
they were a couple of shipyard workers
that did not ask for this,
and that it it just occurred
and have no reason why it occurred.
But I think it's very good
that they both have been able
to come forward and say,
"Yes, this happened.
Yes, we were part of it."
"Believe it or not, it happened."
I don't not believe.
I could not rule that out.
You know, when you think about it
And this is probably why
Pascagoula reacted like it did.
You think about it,
it will rock your world.
If you really believe that it happened,
then it should change your whole life.
It It certainly changed theirs.
[Eddie] My daddy, he always wondered
why he was the chosen one.
He didn't understand why they would wanna
They chose him,
a just an old country boy.
He thought about that a lot.
If I was gonna lie about it,
if this is some kinda hoax,
I'd for sure come clean.
You don't wanna go meet your maker
and have all that on you.
I really wasn't plannin' on it.
I figured the Lord has
his own his reasons for doin' things.
That if it's good enough for him,
it's good enough for me.
[narrator] Who knows what really happened
on that river all those years ago?
But for Charlie and Calvin
and many others in Pascagoula,
there is no question.
[Eddie] You look into space at nighttime,
if you get away from light,
you can see thousands of stars.
As far as we can tell right now,
they ain't found the end of it yet.
So, you can't tell me
there's not somethin' out there somewhere.
And my daddy believed that.
I know there's other worlds out there
with life on it.
And someday, everyone will know that
to be a fact without any doubt.
[mysterious music plays]