Dir: Darcy Weir
With: Philip Mantle, Charlie Hickson, Calvin Parker, Maria Blair
Format: four x 60-minute episodes
Available: on Amazon, TubiTV and ROKU

The Pascagoula Incident is one of the more perplexing ones in UFO history, because it’s not just an account of an abduction, it’s something which happened to two people at the same time. It took place in October 1973, when Charlie Hickson and Calvin Parker were fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. The men claim to have seen a UFO, whose robot-like occupants (both) paralyzed the pair and took them on board the craft, carrying out an examination of them there before returning them to the river-bank. Most abduction reports involve one person, which makes them easier to write off as hallucinations etc. Cases like this – the Betty and Barney Hill abduction would be another – are more resistant to prosaic explanations, though “hoax” is always a reliable fall-back for skeptics.

This four-part documentary series begins by going over the basics of the case in the first episode. It’s hosted by Philip Mantle, who has been investigating UFOs for decades – I recognize his name from back in the days when I was a teenage subscriber to Flying Saucer Review and the like! He introduces archive footage of interviews with both men (Hickson died in 2011, and Parker in 2023), as well as contemporary media reports. Of particular note, when the men reported their experience to the police, they were left alone with their conversation, unknown them, still being recorded. Their story didn’t change. On the other hand, after the event, Charlie became a “contactee”, alleging multiple encounters – both before and after this one – with alien beings. That always leaves my credulity creaking at the seams.

However, it’s difficult to come away from the first episode without feeling that something happened to Hickson and Parker that night, an event they interpreted as an abduction. There’s little evidence to suggest an outright hoax – though again, Charlie’s embrace of his resulting fame, including writing a book and appearing at UFO conventions, does suggest a possible motive [Calvin was much more reticent about his experience, later suffering a breakdown which required hospitalization] Was that event an abduction? It hardly seems much less plausible than some of the other explanations, such as the suggestion Hickson had a hypnagogic experience – basically, a waking dream – and the much younger Parker was simply asleep, and subsequently influenced into matching his account. Personally, it’s a real puzzle, for which I can’t find any easy explanation.

If the series starts off strongly, subsequent episodes are considerably less effective. The second part centres on Charlie’s hypnotic sessions. To be honest, watching somebody else undergo hypnosis is pretty dull. The film seems to realize this, attempting to jazz things up with (AI?) recreations of what is being described. These look more cheesy than convincing, and matters aren’t helped by an unimpressive audio mix, which frequently buries what’s being said beneath unnecessarily loud music. The third deals with similar sessions undergone by Maria Blair, who showed up 45 years after the event, reporting that she could corroborate what had happened. That alone makes me somewhat skeptical, and the story which emerges under hypnosis, ultimately involving the aliens taking eggs from her to create human-alien hybrids, sounds more like a work of science-fiction – albeit one I’d like to see adapted into a movie.

The final part returns to form, being a profile of Mantle, covering his history in the field., This goes all the way back to the start of the eighties, when he joined the then-nascent Yorkshire UFO Society in Leeds. He makes for a great interview, coming across as down to earth, and not at all like the “flying saucer kook” of cliche. A big plus: he doesn’t have a particular agenda in regard to an explanation. It’s not a case of “Because aliens.” You instead sense that he’s happy to follow wherever the data and evidence end up leading him, with an open mind regarding the cause. He also acknowledges the difficulty of working in a field prone to fraud: “Faking and hoaxing is part of the business,” as well as his part in “the biggest con in UFO history” – Ray Santilli’s notorious ‘Alien Autopsy’ film. He provides an informative and entertaining overview of UFOlogy through the decades, covering a number of cases, both well-known and relatively obscure, such as the experience of policeman Alan Godfrey.

Mantle then circles back to how he came to be involved with the Pascagoula case, and publish Calvin Parker’s book, describing the incident from his perspective. He also describes other eye-witnesses around the same time, suggesting that the area was something of a hot-spot for UFO activity. It’s a very solid finale, wrapping things up – although, inevitably, you will be left with more questions than answers. I’d recommend watching the first and fourth episodes in the series, which provide a good grounding in the case. The pair in the middle, are more likely of interest to completists only, and those who feel that information revealed under hypnotic regression can be depended on as reliable.