The Unexplained - Howard Hughes - Edition 752 - Calvin Parker - A Tribute

All Episodes

Previous Next

Sept. 2, 2023 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes

01:47:19

Edition 752 - Calvin Parker - A Tribute

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Across the UK and around the world, I'm Howard Hughes in London, and this is The Unexplained.
	You know, in the decades that I did news nationally and in London, on the radio, and was a journalist, I never enjoyed the process of bringing people bad news.
	It was just not something that I know some journalists do, but, you know, I don't enjoy having to do that.
	In my day, I was on a lot of big stories, like 9-11 and the death of Diana, and they were difficult.
	So it is with a heavy heart today that I bring you this news, and this may well be the first time that you're hearing this.
	Just weeks after we last talked on the television show and on my podcast about Pascagoula and what happened to Charlie Hickson and Calvin Parker in 1973, the alien abduction story that is still resonating down the decades, I'm sorry to have to tell you that Calvin Parker died last week, and the news of this is only just being released by his family, whose wishes, of course, we have all respected.
	Now, Calvin Parker, I first spoke with about six years ago, and I've spoken with many people, delivering extremely unusual accounts of what they say happened to them.
	What came across to me, and I've spoken with thousands of people in my professional lifetime and personal lifetime, is that Calvin Parker always came across as being humble, sincere, and honest in everything he said.
	I came out of the conversations that we had over the years, always of the opinion that I don't believe that this is in any way fabricated.
	I don't believe he's misinterpreted what happened to him.
	I believe that his view of what happened to him is what happened to him.
	And the questions that we're still asking all these years on now, half a century on, is how did that happen?
	Why did that happen?
	And how come now more people are coming forward with their recollections, including people who say they too were abducted and were tended to, for want of another expression, by aliens?
	The Calvin Parker story has been brought to prominence in recent years by Philip Mantle, who knew Calvin well, met him, heard his story, intensively and assiduously researched the detail of the Pascagoula incident.
	This is a very sad day for all of us.
	Whatever you may feel about ufology, whatever you may believe about accounts, the death of Calvin Parker severs a tie with a generation, with a time, and with an incident that people are still talking about.
	And I'm sad that I will never have the chance to talk with him again in this life and that he will not be present for the 50th anniversary commemorations of those incidents at Pascagoula, Mississippi in October 1973.
	After the conversation I'm about to have with Philip Mantle remembering Calvin Parker, I'm going to play you the conversation that I had with him.
	I think six years ago, it was our first conversation, and it's a detailed conversation.
	You can judge for yourself.
	Now, you know that I don't do this on the podcast.
	I don't revisit material.
	Sometimes I'll play a little clip of a past interview.
	On this occasion and on this day, I feel it's important that I let you hear all of it.
	So I'm going to do that right after we've spoken with Philip Mantle.
	So let's connect with the North of England now and Philip Mantle.
	Philip, thank you for coming on.
	It's always a pleasure to speak to you, but not a very pleasurable occasion.
	No sad circumstances.
	And you and I have talked many times about Calvin Parker.
	And we've talked about something that I've just shared with my listener.
	And that fact and that impression that we both had is this man was humble and this man was sincere.
	There is no doubt about that.
	You can take whatever view you want about what he said happened to him and how he interpreted it.
	But you can't take any view other than the one I've just given you about the nature of the man.
	Well, absolutely.
	He was a southern Mississippian and proud of it.
	He always said he didn't have any great education, but he certainly was nobody's fool either.
	But he had charm and wit, was a great storyteller.
	Once you got to know him, you know, and he would, I'll give you an example.
	You know, this about sums Calvin up to me.
	He's been ill for quite some time.
	And of course, with cancer, it was progressively getting worse.
	And his mum was in a nursing home.
	And she even got to the stage where she couldn't recognize Calvin.
	But every Friday night, Calvin used to take his guitar to the nursing home and would sing songs for the residents, even though he was seriously ill himself.
	And the funny part is, he said to a colleague of ours, he says, don't let Philip know about this because he'll put it on Facebook.
	And Calvin doesn't know that I've got three very poor recordings of him singing.
	And he sang in tune.
	I'll say no more than that.
	But what a measure of the man, Howard.
	You know, the man himself is dying, but he still went Friday evenings for as long as he could to sing songs for the residents of the nursing home where his mum was.
	Although he absolutely came across as a man who cared about other people.
	Okay.
	Talk to me about then your connection with Calvin Parker, because it became a close one.
	How did you get to know about him?
	How did you find him?
	How did you persuade him to speak with you?
	Yeah, I mean, I knew about the story from the 1980s, and it always stayed with me.
	And then, I think it was 2017, I obtained the rights to republish Charles Hickson's book, UFO Contact at Pascagoula, that he'd co-authored with William Mendes.
	And I knew Charlie had passed away in 2011, but I wasn't sure about Calvin.
	I looked online and I found he'd been interviewed in 2013, but I could find no real reference to him after that.
	So I started literally just bugging people, Howard, you know, and it was podcaster Martin Willis Who said, I've got an email for him, Philip.
	I'll contact him.
	I don't know if it still works.
	And I know Martin, and he said it works, and he'll speak to you.
	So Martin gave me his phone number and I run him up.
	And he was very pleasant, you know, but it was obvious he wasn't going to tell me a lot.
	You know, now, what I didn't know, Howard, was in the background, a cop just a few weeks earlier, he'd gone to a funeral of a friend and he'd written in the Condolence book coming out of the church, you know, a few comments, signed his name.
	And those coming behind him saw his name and started, you know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
	So Calvin's wife, Waynette, said to him, why don't you write your own book?
	You know, you can tell everybody the story.
	And he said, yes, dear, yes, darling.
	You know, you patronize.
	I'll write the book.
	And then, of course, a few weeks later, you know, I popped up.
	All I wanted was an interview, Howard, nothing else, just to bring Charlie Hickson's book, maybe up to date, because it was published in 1983.
	And so I explained that, and he didn't say, you know, so I wrung him back.
	We arranged to speak again.
	And again, he said to me, well, I've began writing my own book.
	I think this is a way of trying to put me off.
	But I said, well, great.
	I'll send you a contract.
	So he agreed, but on one condition, and again, I think this is a measure of the man.
	He says, you do not change or edit anything I put down.
	Otherwise, the deal is off.
	He says, this is my story.
	I also want people to know me as a person.
	You know, I'm not an educated man.
	So if I get words wrong, hard lines, they're going to stay wrong.
	So that's where we began.
	And, you know, he said, I've started writing him books.
	I said, let me see what you've got.
	It was just some notes.
	So we organized an outline of his first book.
	People say I ghost wrote the book.
	I didn't.
	Calvin wrote it.
	And what he'd write a piece and then I'd say, tell me a bit more about that.
	What does this mean?
	I'm not sure what I quite understand this bit here.
	And eventually we'd end up with a chapter.
	Then we'd move on to the next one.
	And I said to him, look, you know, have you got any photographs, documents?
	No.
	I mean, nothing.
	They'd all gone in Hurricane Katrina.
	His house was under 10 feet of water.
	So my main job, as well as helping Calvin through, guiding him through the writing process, was to pester the living daylights of anybody and everybody in a polite way, Howard, saying, I'm working with Calvin Parker, new book.
	Have you got any photos, documents, newspaper cuttings?
	And I'm still doing that to this very day.
	So we started off with nothing.
	We've ended up with quite a nice archive.
	And we would then speak via this technology, via Skype, on a regular basis to figure out how the book was going.
	And then we'd chat more about him and his life.
	And, you know, have you got grandchildren, Philip?
	And, you know, and it got to the stage, we became very good friends.
	And we used to chat nearly every week, at least once a week, then emails as well, of course, in between.
	And it got to the stage where we weren't talking about what had happened to him or UFOs.
	It was about things in general and politics and sport and, you know, religion and so on.
	And of course, he had a great sense of humor.
	And he had many, many fishermen's stories, shall we say, you know.
	And I've said this.
	I'll give you another idea.
	He's probably the only abductee who got in trouble with his wife.
	In 1993, Calvin had a second encounter.
	I'm not going to go through the details, but he went under hypnosis with the late Bud Hopkins.
	And we obtained a copy of the tape of that hypnosis session.
	So I had it digitized.
	I sent it to Calvin.
	He then put it on a CD and he didn't listen to it for an awful long time.
	And then one night he decided he's going to sit out on the porch and ask Waynet to join him.
	He's going to play this CD.
	Now, on this occasion, he was going out on a little boat, only for a couple of hours.
	So he says, I'm on the boat, got some bottled water and a sandwich.
	And he's reliving this under hypnosis.
	And he drinks his water and he eats his sandwich with his wife sat next to him.
	She'd made the sandwich, by the way.
	And he says, the most god-awful poloni sandwich I've ever tasted.
	Well, he got it both barrels from Waynette.
	I was just going to say, she wouldn't have taken that too well, would she?
	So it became an in-joke between us, you know.
	And we had a film crew out there last year making a new documentary, a British film crew.
	I'll be out later this year.
	And I said to Waynette, you know, when they arrive, whatever you do, don't make them bologna sandwiches.
	And we'd just fall about laughing, you know.
	And, you know, Calvin sadly passed away on August the 24th.
	You know, he'd fought the cancer, kidney cancer, as best he could.
	I'm happy, pleased.
	I spoke to him the week before.
	I couldn't get him on Skype anymore, but I got him on the telephone.
	And I said, look, you know, I respect you and I love you, Calvin.
	And it was very upsetting.
	You know, and then Wayne said, you know, they'd give him approximately a week to live.
	And, you know, when she told me that, you know, he passed away the very next day.
	So he wasn't suffering.
	You know, I think he'd understood his time had come.
	And I think he, whilst he didn't want to die, you know, he wasn't the man he used to be, Howard.
	He was a fit, strong man who could fix anything or go fishing.
	And he lost all those abilities.
	But a lovely, lovely guy, you know, and there's funny stories that we used to talk about each other.
	So he'd tell me one funny story.
	And I worked in a factory most of my life, Howard, so I'd tell him some of the antics the factory lads got up to, you know.
	So it was, yeah, it's sad.
	But, You know, I'm just glad I was able.
	He wanted to leave a legacy, Howard.
	And that legacy was to tell his story in full for future generations.
	And maybe at some point, somebody somewhere, you know, might figure out what happened to him and Charlie that night.
	But at least he's done that, and I'm happy I helped him do so.
	One of the things that people level sometimes through emails to me at those who publish books, those who tell their stories, is that you're giving publicity to these people and they're only in it for money.
	They're just trying to get our money off us.
	Now, it always appeared to me that, and it was patently obvious, that Calvin was not doing this for money.
	That was the last thing he was doing this for.
	Well, exactly.
	I mean, Calvin said he thought the book would only sell 10 copies and he'd buy nine of them, you know?
	Well, he was wrong there.
	Yeah, and, you know, it did do, you know, it was successful was the book, and we followed it up by a second one.
	But, you know, it was never, I mean, we live in a commercial world.
	I don't run a charity.
	But money was never the motivating factor and still isn't.
	You know, if I never sell another book tomorrow, Howard, will not make any difference on my own personal finances.
	And so it wasn't, you know, we're happy that it was a commercial success as well.
	But the main drive, and it was a drive, I use that word in the right phrase, Howard, was to get that story out there.
	And then when others started to come forward, was to document everything and everything we could to the best of our ability.
	Because with the greatest respect to a lot of people, Calvin being an example now, you know, we are chasing the Undertaker.
	They're of a generation that are getting old.
	You know, again, I'll give you an example.
	I forget what year it was, but just on the running to Christmas, Calvin went into one of the local stores and a chap he sort of half knew came up to him and said, hello, Mr. Parker, you know, I saw that UFO that night.
	So Calvin, you know, being an affable chap, said, I'll come and speak to you after Christmas about it.
	He said, okay, the gentleman didn't make it through Christmas.
	So what information he had is gone, you know.
	So my wife said to me at one point, you were like a man on a mission because we were finding new information or new witnesses one way or another.
	And with my amazing co-author, Dr. Irina Scott in Ohio and one or two others, we documented them as quickly and as fast as we can, just in case, Howard, you know, just in case.
	I mean, I took seriously ill at the age of 41 and I was fit and healthy, you know, wife, family, children, job, and it came completely out of the blue.
	So I know as good as anybody, that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us, you know?
	So, but money was certainly not a reason for writing the book.
	And he wanted just to leave a legacy.
	He has a daughter.
	Sadly, Calvin's son passed away a number of years back.
	His only brother had passed.
	His mother and father had gone.
	So, you know, he wanted to leave this for future generations.
	And to the day he died, Howard, he was looking for answers.
	He was still bewildered to what happened to him and Charlie that night.
	And if we could have given him a rational explanation that fit all the different parameters, I think he would have been satisfied with that.
	But sadly, there isn't one.
	Certainly not one that fits the different parameters that make up these events.
	Because there are so many aspects of it, Philip.
	Now, look, I want to just return to something you said earlier on, because I think it's important.
	Calvin was always very keen that this had to be his story in his words, and all of us respected that.
	And there is no reason not to give him his wish, which we did.
	Do you think that he was so keen on that because of experiences they might have had, both him and Charlie Hickson, at the beginning of this, and with the way that the media had treated the story back in the day?
	Yeah, he was wary of the media, and he'd every right to be.
	But as I pointed out, you know, well, the media, you know, you don't have to talk to them.
	That's entirely up to you.
	And I specified that the only thing that we controlled was what went in these books.
	We didn't control anything else.
	I mean, there is a movie script written.
	It's not been taken up.
	But I said to him, look, if you go down the movie Rhine, Calvin, I want to make you aware it's not necessarily going to be accurate or, you know, totally accurate.
	So if that is a problem for you, don't do it.
	The only accurate thing we can guarantee is your book, your story.
	You've written it.
	I've helped you.
	I've acted like a guide or an editor, if you like.
	But it was Calvin that wrote it.
	And he was happy with that.
	He just wanted that story to be here.
	I think then, I mean, before I met him, he'd been poorly.
	He'd had a stroke.
	He'd have open heart surgery.
	And he was due to come to England at one point, but he took ill and couldn't make it.
	And he hadn't been diagnosed at that point, Howard.
	But I think even then, Calvin knew that, you know, the clock was ticking.
	And we did everything we could to document every tiny aspect of it in any way possible.
	And it's still coming in, Howard.
	I mean, just earlier this month, a lady by the name of Chelsea Norton Prince at the Ocean Springs Historical Society in Mississippi had two boxes of letters donated to her that used to belong to Charles Hickson.
	And she has digitized them all.
	I have them all here on a thumb drive.
	And they were just sat in a lady's garage, you know, gathering dust.
	So there is more information to be had.
	I know it.
	And, you know, we'll have to wait and see what happens in the coming weeks and months.
	This is a story that is not over by any manner or means.
	And it is extraordinary in a way that I don't Think, and people may tell me that I'm wrong, that Roswell didn't deliver like this.
	Roswell didn't keep returning recollections of people in the way that this does.
	People keep coming out of the woodwork, and that's partly because you've been working it.
	I know that.
	Now, one thing we have to say is that we're doing this conversation a week after Calvin died, and that's for a very specific reason, and for a reason I totally understand.
	And we can really sum it up this way.
	The family wanted to be able to hold a memorial service, a small one for the man first, before the world got involved.
	Yes, absolutely.
	I mean, his wife, Waynette, you know, I've spoke to her on the phone a couple of times.
	Again, don't mind to admit I was crying when I first spoke to her.
	But she said she wanted a small private memorial service.
	I know I've sent flowers, you know, behalf of me and my wife and the wider UFO community.
	You know, I couldn't name names, just a general statement.
	And I said, you know, I asked her why I said, well, she didn't want people turning up.
	It's only a small memorial place where they're having this, a small funeral home.
	And I said, I understand.
	I understand.
	And I won't say a word until that's over.
	And it's over with now.
	So, you know, we can talk about it.
	But, you know, I had to respect the family wishes.
	And I dare say she may get cards and other things as a result and comments here, there and everywhere.
	But, you know, it was the family's wishes.
	And I've abided by that, Howard.
	Well, they've handled it with great dignity, I think.
	And yes, there will be reaction now.
	But we have to remember that when anybody dies, it doesn't matter what they've experienced, what story they tell, what position they've held.
	They were a dad, a husband, a human being first.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, his wife, Waynette, was the girl he was engaged to when all of this started in 1973.
	And we used to joke again that it was all Waynette's fault because Calvin didn't live in Pascagour.
	He lived 200 miles away.
	But he was doing like two and three jobs a day because they were getting married.
	They've just got a new car.
	And she wanted to see more of him.
	So he wanted a regular job with a guaranteed income.
	And that's why, you know, his father said, well, why don't you phone Charles Hickson?
	He's a foreman in the shipyard.
	He can get you a job.
	And that's what happened.
	You know, he'd work in the shipyard 915.
	He would board at Charlie's Monday to Friday and go home on a weekend.
	And of course, his first day at work was October the 11th, 1973.
	And the reason I'm chuckling is because he said, I got hired, fired and abducted all in the same day.
	Something up, doesn't it?
	So we said to Wayneette, well, if he hadn't got engaged to you, he wouldn't have been going to work in the shipyard.
	So it's your fault, you know.
	And she just laughed.
	She just laughed, you know.
	And that's how I'll remember him, you know, with that smile on my face.
	Now, he was a person who lived his life in public.
	I don't mean that he was putting on shows and giving talks and stuff like that, because by and large he wasn't.
	But what I'm saying is that he was an accessible individual, an ordinary man.
	He didn't live in Fort Knox.
	He didn't hide away.
	He couldn't afford to.
	How did he handle those things that you and I both get and everybody who does anything gets?
	Those who contact him with a contrary point of view.
	In other words, those people who say, you're making it all up, I don't believe you.
	And, you know, all of the above.
	How did he handle skeptics?
	He just said, fine.
	I don't care.
	That was it.
	You know, I'll give you another example.
	He didn't mind if no one believed him.
	You know, he was telling the truth.
	And again, I can't remember the year, but Charlie Ixton got in touch with him and said, look, I'm doing a TV show at such and such.
	Why don't you come along and we'll meet up and have a chat?
	Not for him to go on, but to have a chat.
	So he agreed.
	And it was being organized by a journalist.
	And the journalist paid for Calvin to go out there.
	And when he got there, he said, oh, the TV show's been cancelled.
	And Calvin, you know, wasn't really that bothered.
	And he said, well, why?
	He said, well, there's a scientist on the show who's refusing to speak on this TV show if Charlie Hickson is on it.
	And again, Calvin couldn't get his head around it.
	So this journalist, the so-called scientist, Charlie and Calvin, went over the road to have some dinner and see if they couldn't work things out.
	And Calvin's just sat there.
	It wasn't a scientist.
	It was Philip Klass, the debunker Philip Klass.
	And so the journalist again said, why would you not go on the television show?
	And he said, I won't go on the TV with Charles Hickson because he's a liar.
	So Calvin stood up and he's because if he's calling Charlie a liar, he's calling him a liar as well.
	And he made his point of view, how can I say it, very, very, very sternly to Mr. Class.
	And Calvin said, we both flew home on the airplane that night with no dinner.
	Oh, my Lord.
	In other words, you say?
	In other words, I don't mind if you don't believe me, but if you call me a liar, that's a different thing.
	I think there was a bit of the John Wayne about him.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, just again, another story about me.
	For a couple of years, he was a bounty hunter.
	Yeah, he was a bounty hunter.
	And he said, one night, Philip, I went to get this guy and I took my baseball bat with me.
	He says, biggest mistake I ever made.
	I said, why?
	He says, because this fella took the baseball bat off me and hit me with it.
	So he said, after that, I always took my gun.
	They don't argue when they're gone.
	And it was all legal, of course.
	It wasn't some kind of maverick.
	It was all legal and above board.
	And yeah, so the biggest mistake I did was take my baseball bat with me.
	Well, he lived a full life.
	I didn't know that story.
	So, look, over his life, he paid a price for this, didn't he?
	At one point, he found himself having to move town to town to try and remain anonymous because he decided he wanted to have none, well, not to have nothing to do with it, but to have a lot less to do with it.
	You know, he wanted to get on with his life, in other words.
	So he did pay a price.
	And he wasn't rich by any manner or means.
	I think he probably had financial problems.
	You can tell me in later years.
	But, you know, he paid a price for all of this.
	He did.
	He was severely traumatized by it.
	And he was like, you know, I think we mentioned it before, the 1980s TV series, The Hulk.
	You know, and his real personality, you know, Dr. Banner.
	They were pursued by a journalist.
	And every time he caught up, they moved to a different town.
	And that's exactly what Calvin did.
	But not on his own with his wife.
	And at that point, too, you know, his family.
	And there was even one point he used a false name.
	And the boss called him into work one morning and said, I've got to fire you.
	He said, why?
	He said, well, your name and your social security number don't match.
	You know, because he hadn't changed it by deed poll or anything like that.
	He just used it.
	And it was to keep people away from him.
	And he got so low at one point.
	He even phoned.
	This is a sad, sad, sad story.
	But I'll tell it anyway.
	He phoned his life insurance.
	And he said, am I covered for suicide?
	And they said no.
	Because he thought his wife would be better off without him and a lump of money.
	So he went into a cowboy bar, picked a fight with half a dozen cowboys who beat the living daylights out of him.
	He staggered out of the door, was so disorientated.
	He turned around and staggered back in and got another beating.
	But obviously they didn't kill him.
	He thought, I'll do this and I'll be dead.
	But that's how bad the trauma got with him at one point.
	And of course, the one person who stopped with him through all this was his wife, Waynette.
	And she's still there today, of course.
	And I did say to him at one point, Calvin, I said, you're not allowed to die.
	He says, why?
	I said, because Waynette's not given you permission yet.
	And he just laughed.
	You know, we just laughed about it.
	And she's in the background laughing.
	I can hear her laughing in the kitchen behind us, you know.
	But that was a way to look at it.
	And he dealt with his illness with, you know, style, you know.
	Fortitude.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, we talk and I knew how ill he was, but he wouldn't know.
	It was still the same Calvin, you know, with the same, you know, different stories.
	And so he certainly, he would tell me how he was going, you know, but we didn't dwell on things.
	It wasn't, you know, long in the, you know, long faced.
	We'd still laugh and joke about things.
	And I think he appreciated that.
	And he took his mind off it as well, Howard, you know.
	It's a real, almost like a movie script story.
	I feel that, okay, we're talking about a movie about Pascagoula.
	Maybe there needs to be a movie about the life and times of Calvin Parker himself.
	Well, you know, there is the movie script written.
	It's been written by two professional screenwriters.
	You know, not a coal miner's son like me, you know.
	Also, there is a four-part drama series.
	Again, professionally written.
	And the drama series goes a bit more into the way that this encounter affected Calvin and his way of life and his family life.
	That story I told you about the baseball bats, that's in it.
	You know, that's in the drama series.
	It's not in the movie script.
	There just isn't enough time.
	So, you know, both options are available.
	And I'm biased, obviously, Howard, but I think they make great viewing, whether on the small screen or the big screen.
	But the drama series does go a lot more into the relationship with him and Wayne Et.
	And it pays homage to sort of the folklore in Pascagoula.
	There's a folklore story about a mermaid in the river there.
	And nobody will know unless you know the area.
	There's one scene in the drama series where, before they get married, Charlie and Calvin go skinny dipping.
	You know, they go swimming in a local spot.
	You know, you're not up to anything, you know, up to other.
	Just go swimming.
	And Calvin holds Wayne Et and he said, you know what?
	You look like a mermaid.
	And that is, you know, also part of the myth and legend of the area.
	And lots of other things.
	And, you know, I won't go into any great detail.
	But it would.
	It's the only thing we weren't able to deliver in his lifetime was the movie.
	Because I used to say, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing you on the red carpet in a tuxedo.
	And he says, so long as I can still wear my fishing cap.
	You know.
	That would have been a sight to see, wouldn't it?
	It would.
	50th anniversary coming up in October.
	Sadly, Calvin, we now know, is not going to be there for it.
	That's particularly poignant and particularly sad.
	Will plans go ahead for commemorating the event?
	Yes.
	I mean, one of the local charities is called, you know, Main Street Pascagoula.
	They organize events throughout the year for all kinds of things.
	And they've already got it planned.
	It will be on October the 20th in Pascagoula.
	And it'll be a fun day out.
	There'll be stalls and stands and alien face painting and all that kind of thing, you know.
	And they've acquired some books from us.
	So they will have them available.
	And it's a charity.
	it was the same charity Howard that raised the money.
	So it didn't come from taxpayers.
	It was charitable donations that paid for the historical marker that is at the site now and was opened, I think, in 2019.
	It was officially unveiled by the mayor.
	And it's the only time I've seen Calvin really, really emotional.
	He was interviewed by the local news and he stood by the marker and he's crying.
	He's crying.
	And he said he wanted to have his ashes scattered there.
	So maybe on Saturday, you know, he got his wish.
	I'll find out more later, I dare say.
	But he was very emotional.
	And again, from a UFO standpoint, I don't know of any memorials that have been dedicated to people like this, you know, while they're still alive.
	I think Tom Reid is one in Berkshire.
	But, you know, I may be wrong, but it was a lovely, lovely gesture.
	I have a copy of it here on my wall at home.
	And, you know, maybe the town will come up with some other way of commemorating it in the years as they go by.
	Again, we'll have to wait and see.
	How did he live his life in later years?
	I ask this for a reason because it seems to me, and I know that you will have a story that you might want to tell me about this, that he inspired empathy and sympathy and understanding from people all across the world.
	Well, he was, you know, going back to his roots, Howard, he was a simple man.
	You know, he'd planned his life out.
	He'd met his childhood sweetheart, Wenette.
	So it was Wenette, married, children, grandchildren, you know, house, job.
	And that was it.
	That was his plan.
	That all went out the window on that night of October the 11th.
	But once he stopped wandering around and finally settled down, he'd work, he had his own construction company up until he took ill.
	This is before I met him, and then he ended up with open heart surgery.
	So that was his working days coming to an end.
	He still did a bit of work in construction and things like that.
	But he was a great fisherman.
	They lived literally by the river.
	You could see the river at the end.
	And he got an old houseboat.
	And when I say a houseboat, I mean a houseboat.
	But it needed some work on it.
	So he would go and work on that, you know, fix that up.
	And I think maybe once in a blue moon, him and Wayne Edward take the whole huge amount of $200 and go drive to one of the local casinos and spend an afternoon, you know, with their $200 at the casino.
	But that was a treat.
	And he still had, you know, he's got family, his daughter and friends.
	I think his mum lived with him.
	So he had a busy life, mainly fishing.
	But when I came along and when his book came out, it gave him a new lease of life.
	This burden had been lifted off his shoulders, Howard, because the media now treated him with respect, you know, and there was nobody laughing at him on TV.
	A couple scratching their head, maybe, but certainly not laughing at him.
	And then he got invited to speak at a number of UFO conferences, which he enjoyed immensely.
	And it was more the meeting of people rather than him standing on the stage that he enjoyed.
	And he got involved with the local charity.
	One of the things they raffled off in this charity was an evening fishing on the Pascakool River with Calvin Parker.
	That's a prize to have got.
	Wow.
	I'd like to have done that.
	So he had that sense of humor and he offered that as a prize.
	And he took somebody fishing, you know, whoever won.
	But this gave him a new lease of life.
	He liked doing the podcasts, which he did an awful lot.
	But he really liked, he was a people person, you know, he liked meeting people and talking to them and discussing with them.
	And he said, I wish I'd done it, you know, earlier, Philip.
	I said, well, you know, none of us can go back in time.
	It's done now.
	And let's just see what happens next.
	You know, we didn't plan an awful lot.
	We just, you know, once his book came out, Howard, you know, the wheels seemed to be set in motion and it took on a life of its own.
	And we've learned so much more since then.
	And, you know, and he got a lot of enjoyment about speaking with people and chatting with people.
	He went to one conference and he always wore the same fishing cap.
	You know, it's dark blue and it's got fishing on the front.
	I've actually got it now.
	And somebody came up to him at the conference and said, I'll buy your fishing hat for $200.
	Calvin looked at them as if they were, you know, crazy.
	He says you can go and buy one down at the store for $10.
	But I said, but yes, Calvin, but that wouldn't be your fishing cap, would it?
	And he couldn't understand it, Howard.
	He couldn't get his head around.
	But it's just a fishing cap.
	That's called celebrity.
	Yeah, and he couldn't understand it.
	He thought that, you know, this is daft.
	You know, go get one in the store for $10, exactly the same.
	And his has seen better days as well, you know.
	He's been in the water.
	I don't know how many times.
	But he couldn't work out why somebody would want that particular one with that providence to it.
	Absolutely.
	And when I explained it to him, he said, well, it's not the cap I was wearing that night.
	It says it don't matter, Calvin.
	Calvin Parker's cap.
	That's the cap.
	Wow.
	Well, that is celebrity and that is fame.
	And, you know, he deserves all of the notoriety.
	And I mean that in a nice way that he got.
	Now, there was one story that you told me before we began recording.
	You don't have to tell it here now about the houseboat.
	But if you want to, please go ahead.
	Yeah, I mean, there was a gentleman.
	I won't mention his name, but he's featured in our new book.
	And his real name is in the book.
	He had a sighting, and he got Calvin's phone number and went over to speak to Calvin and drew what he saw and explained to him.
	And I haven't spoken to him probably in three or four years, Howard.
	And then he phoned me up a couple of nights ago.
	And he says, I hear Calvin's moved, because Calvin moved house when he took ill, and then sold his houseboat.
	He Must have seen it up for sale on whatever website or whatever.
	And I said, Yeah, Calvin had passed away at this point.
	So I didn't tell him.
	And he says, Philip, he says, I've come into some money.
	He says, Tell Mr. Parker if he wants his houseboat back, I'll buy it for him.
	Literally out of the blue.
	I haven't spoken to this guy.
	In fact, I only ever spoke to him once, you know, and that was to make the initial contact about his own sighting.
	And I thought, well, you know, there's some lovely people out there, Howard.
	That's the kind of connection and empathy that this man, who impressed me enormously.
	And I'm going to play the whole first interview with him after we finish speaking here.
	But that's what impressed me and impacted me most about him.
	How is Waynette?
	Well, obviously, you know, she was upset when I spoke to her, you know, the day after he passed away.
	And I don't know if it makes it any easier or not, but we all knew this day was coming.
	So it wasn't any great surprise to her, but nonetheless, this is the man she'd been married to since 1973.
	She loved him.
	She loved him unconditionally.
	I mean, she had to love him unconditionally because some of the things he got up to, Howard, you know, she has my utmost respect.
	She really does.
	And I think I told you that we're making a documentary.
	It's all done.
	It's in the editing stage.
	I've seen a little clip from it.
	And Calvin says on that clip, I'm dying.
	You know, and I want to know what the hell's happened to me before I die.
	And Wayne is interviewed for it.
	And she just says, I don't know what I'll do without him.
	I just don't.
	And I fully understand.
	And, you know, I just say, God bless Calvin.
	And, you know, we're going to miss you.
	So it really does behove all of us to keep his memory alive, to keep the story alive, and to reference back as often as we can what this man was all about.
	Because you know that stories often survive, but the people behind the stories, the detail of who they were and what they were, are sometimes diluted or lost.
	So I guess it's for all of us to carry on the legacy and the inheritance, if there is such a thing, of Calvin Parker and that event 50 years ago on October the 11th, 1973.
	Philip, thank you very much for talking with me about this.
	It's a terribly sad piece of news.
	Even when a piece of news like this is inevitable and you know it's coming sometime, it's still a shock, isn't it?
	It is.
	It is.
	You know, it was bad news, but it's, you know, we knew it was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier when it finally arrives.
	Philip Mantle from Flying Disc Press, thank you very much indeed.
	I know you're a very busy man these days.
	And we'll talk again about all of the projects that you're involved in.
	And now here on the unexplained, something that I've never done before and probably will never do again.
	But it's important that I do it this time.
	Here from one of my previous podcasts from, I think, six years ago, Calvin Parker's story in his own words.
	You are a bit of a celebrity now, Calvin.
	I know that everybody wants to interview you.
	There's a bit of a waiting list to talk with you.
	The book is doing very well.
	You're getting a lot of coverage.
	How does that feel?
	Well, actually, I don't like the coverage myself.
	But, you know, I wrote the book to get the story out there because it was 45 years of silence this coming November.
	And I felt like it needed to be out because I've never talked about it, not to family, not to friends, not to anyone.
	So in this way, it feels good.
	But in another way, you know, it's interrupted my whole life again.
	And it seemed like this story always comes back to, you know, change things in my life.
	I went from not wanting any media attention to getting more media attention than I wanted.
	And that's good.
	Then we got the book out there.
	Well, it is good, especially as the fact of the matter is it's better to hear the story from the person, him or herself involved in this, rather than some future researcher, maybe in 30 years from now.
	Try to look back at this incident, go back through newspaper archives, you know, try and find out something about it and simply not being able to get a first-hand account.
	So even though it may be painful at times to be pursued by the media and, you know, constantly being asked the same questions over and over again, hopefully in a different way, you know, it's better that you tell it, isn't it?
	It is a lot better.
	And who else knows the story any better than what I do?
	It's an extraordinary story.
	I know and have interviewed people like Travis Walton before.
	And the first thing that I thought, and we'll get into the specifics of the case, of course we will, but the first thing I thought is that, you know, in some ways, you have an awful lot in common with Travis Walton if you know him.
	Yes, sir, I've met Travis one time, and this was a long time ago.
	This is right when his experience first happened.
	But, you know, we hadn't stayed in touch or anything.
	The only thing I know is from Snowflake, Arizona, and he goes to all the conferences here, which is something that you haven't over these 40-odd years done.
	All right.
	Well, I think we have to get into the story.
	It is, in some ways, a classic alien abduction story, and in other ways, it certainly ain't.
	So talk to me about what happened on October the 11th, 1973, when you were 19.
	Yes, sir.
	I had made it to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and actually it was my first day at work at the Shaw Peter's shipyard.
	So after getting off, a friend of mine, Charles Hickson, and myself decided to go fishing because it was really hot down here that day, and we wanted to kind of cool down, fish a little bit before we went home eating, took a shower.
	So we got our fishing equipment, and we went to an old abandoned shipyard where it used to be a grain elevator where they unloaded these ships.
	And the grain would fall off, and the fish would come up inside, and they would eat the grain, and there was plenty of fish there.
	What he said, no, I'd never fished there.
	So we went, we drove to the old Shaw Peters shipyard, which was an abandoned shipyard.
	And when we drove up, I noticed there was no trespassing sign, but it was a lot of debris laying out on the ground that had floated up.
	And he explained to me, I thought there was just messy people there, but the river gets up and it brought in all this old debris that floated in and it wouldn't go out when the water went down.
	So we parked, and that made us have to park a pretty good way from where we fished, probably the length of a football field.
	And we wrestled to get down to where the pier was, where we was going to fish.
	And it was an old steel pier, and it was on the water.
	And the shipyard was abandoned then.
	So we got ready and we got our stuff out, got to fishing.
	And I was looking across the river, and I noticed some blue hazy lights coming in from behind me that was reflected on the water and the bank across the river.
	And I thought, well, what's wrong now?
	And the first thing that came to my mind, we was on private property, no trespassing sign.
	And the local authorities, the police down here, have blue hazy lights on their cars.
	And I figured they was down there to make us move.
	Right, so you thought the cops had got onto you and they just come to tell you to go.
	Right.
	And that's really what I thought.
	I didn't expect nothing else.
	So I was facing the river and the lights was coming behind me.
	So that means that this was all happening on the land about where we was parked.
	I turned around and looked and instantly, by the time I got turned around, there was a bright light.
	It was so bright, it was blinding.
	I mean, you just have to close your eyes for a second to keep from so you can see.
	And it take just a minute for your eyes to adjust.
	Well, the time my eyes was adjusting, well, Charlie had done turning around then, we seen something, three bulky figures coming toward us.
	And we still at this time, or I still didn't know what it was, but it was kind of scary.
	But they was moving so fast, you knew it wasn't humanly possible for them to move across.
	And the reason I talked about the debris, because of the debris that you had to come across to get in, it was humanly impossible for them to move that fast across all that marsh grass and debris that was in place.
	And you said three bulky figures.
	Describe them.
	Were they tall?
	Were they short and wide?
	You know, how were they bulky?
	Well, from the time that we seen them, you know, you couldn't really make out any details.
	But when they got on us, and two of them got a hold of Charlie, one got a hold of myself, they was probably four, four and a half, maybe five foot tall at the most.
	They had kind of grayish skin, and it was wrinkled kind of like an elephant or maybe a manatee if you've seen a manatee before.
	But it was kind of that color.
	And now I don't know the texture of the skin because I never really felt the skin.
	But it scared us so bad.
	You know, I was thinking about running, but it was so fast there was nowhere to run.
	And were they, obviously you said they grabbed you.
	It was a violent act.
	Were they strong?
	This one that got a hold of me was strong because, you know, he grabbed me by the arm and I instantly, well, I got relaxed when he grabbed me because I felt like a little puncture in my arm.
	So I'm assuming they might have gave me some kind of tranquilaser or something to settle me down.
	I'm not for sure about that, but I assume that.
	But we automatically come up a couple of foot off the ground.
	So yes, sir, they had to be pretty strong or they had something in their favor making them strong.
	Okay, so in the space of seconds, literally, these things had appeared, they grabbed hold of you and lifted you off the ground.
	And you were starting to feel because of their appearance, because of the look of their skin and everything else, that these things were in some way not human.
	Had anything in your experience up to that date prepared you for that?
	No, sir.
	No, sir.
	Not a thing.
	And at the moment, you know, you're so scared and everything, you don't realize really what's going on.
	All you know is something violently is coming after you.
	You don't know what it is.
	And you have no clue of what's fixing to happen.
	And you kind of get worried.
	But then immediately when they pick you up, you know, you kind of felt that little injection.
	And the fear is gone.
	You just, but you can't move.
	You're just laying in one position and you're looking straight ahead.
	Now, I couldn't turn my head left or right.
	I couldn't move nothing.
	And what was happening to Charlie Hickson?
	I don't know.
	I didn't see him no more after that.
	I tried to look out of the corners of my eyes, you know, roll my eyes to each side and look because I was conscious, conscious, and I could move my eyes, but I couldn't turn my head to look to see what happened to him.
	I'm assuming that he went on, you know, went in the same direction I did, that he went inside that craft.
	And they took us to the, when this one picked me up, he floated this toward that bright light.
	And still at this time, I couldn't tell what the bright light consists of.
	I just knew it was a bright light there.
	And it didn't take, but just shortly, we was at that light.
	And I could see then it was like a door or a passage open inside this craft.
	Did you feel you've been like levitated?
	I'm sorry to interrupt because it's such a compelling story, but did you feel, Calvin, that you've been sort of levitated upwards?
	Is that what happened?
	That's exactly what happened.
	And we floated across the top of that marsh grass and debris, so we didn't have to walk through it.
	And they was also floating with us.
	So we was actually levitated right along up with them and floated to the craft.
	And that's what made it real quick, you know, to get back to it instead of having to walk through all that mess.
	So you were taken up to a door?
	The door to what?
	What were you being taken up to?
	It looked like a door, and you could see on the inside.
	And the first thing I was trying to figure out is where all these lights was coming from.
	But when I looked on the inside, I didn't see any lights.
	It looked like the walls was illuminating the lights out.
	And when we went inside, you know, they were still just real bright, but my eyes was getting kind of used to it then.
	And they kind of made a little left turn and then a right turn, and they took me into a, I call it an examination room.
	I guess that's what it was.
	They were carrying you at that time, or were you floating through this craft?
	I was just kind of floating through the craft still.
	And when I went into this examination room, they laid me on my back.
	So I don't know if I was laying on a table or maybe air or just what I was laying on, but it had to be something there.
	And they kind of laid me at a 45-degree angle, and I was looking up at the ceiling.
	And out of the ceiling came about the size of a deck of cards, and it come down about two feet in front of my eyes, a foot and a half, two foot.
	And you could hear it click.
	It went click when it got between my eyes.
	On the side of my head, it clicked again.
	Then on the back, it did that four times, and then it went straight back up into the ceiling.
	So today, obviously, I mean, this was 45 years ago, but today we've got technology a little like that.
	It does dental scans and all sorts of things.
	So were you, you know, look, this is all before that technology existed.
	You say that you were tranquilized, but you must have been thinking because you were taking it in.
	Did you think that you were being scanned?
	Did you think, geez, they're going to kill me?
	What were you thinking?
	Well, see, being from the being young and from the country and never really being to a doctor or a hospital and having much done, you really didn't know.
	But if I could think back, you know, I would think it was like an MRI because I've had one since then.
	And you could hear it, the noise was the same.
	And when I did that, it made me remember.
	I kind of had a flashback to then.
	I said, you know, they had this, probably had this technology, a lot better technology because it's not as big.
	And they probably doing the same thing back then that's happening to me now.
	And, you know, they hadn't been out too long with MMRI deals.
	So you're lying there at 45-degree angle.
	You're looking up at the ceiling.
	What about the creatures?
	Are you seeing them?
	And if you are, are they communicating with you?
	Well, the one that brought me into the craft, he was moved kind of mechanically and all.
	You know, and I don't think, I think it was more like a soldier to them or a robot because you could tell by the way that he moved that it wasn't like human-like movements.
	And he had backed away.
	And then when this scan got through with me, there's a different creature come in.
	It was more of a human-looking creature, except, you know, without the same features that we have.
	And I call it a female because it was feminine looking.
	Now, she come in with kind of the human features.
	And you could tell she had hands and fingers and facial features, kind of like a human in a way, but just a different type of skin.
	And I thought, well, that's strange.
	But if you think about it on earth here today, you know, we got people that has different color skins and different types and different hair and things like that.
	And that's nothing unusual here.
	So you were kind of getting the thought that there was some kind of hierarchy that you were dealing with.
	I did.
	And I felt like maybe she was like a doctor examining, going to examine me or something.
	And she did do kind of what I call a simple examination.
	She took her fingers and I didn't feel any texture when they touched because I was wondering, you know, you couldn't feel nothing when she grabbed you by the cheeks and mouth.
	And she put her finger down my throat and kind of curved it up into my nasal cavity a little bit because I felt myself gagging.
	And took it out and she looked up my nose and all and just looked.
	And that was kind of scary to me because I didn't know what was fixing to happen.
	So when the fear factor started coming back, her mouth didn't move, but I could hear her talking and it was English just as plain as what it would be if she had said it.
	And she said, don't worry.
	We're not going to harm you.
	Have no fear.
	We're not going to harm you.
	Well, of course, you know, if you watch the movies, sometimes the bad guys in movies, and sometimes if it's science fiction, they say those things and they maybe don't mean it.
	But were you convinced by this supposedly telepathic message that you were getting?
	Did you think that she meant what she said?
	I did.
	For some reason, you know, it calmed me down again.
	And, you know, it's hard to stay calm when you've been abducted.
	And that's the same thing as if you're sitting in your house watching TV or something.
	Somebody kicks a door in and come gets you and takes you out to a van and gives you a physical examination and all.
	That's the same thing.
	That's an evasion.
	That's an abduction.
	And whether it happens on a back street here or whether it happens somewhere above this planet, and we'll get to find out whether You had any idea of where you were, you know, relative to Earth at that point.
	But you would be asking the same questions wherever it happened.
	You would be saying, What are you doing?
	Why am I here?
	Why me?
	Exactly right.
	And it's a scary situation.
	And anybody said it wouldn't scare them, they're lying.
	They, you know, they have to be.
	Either that or they just don't care about life one.
	And me being young and all, you know, it probably put a little extra fear into you.
	And were you able to open your mouth and speak and ask those questions?
	No.
	All I could do was roll my eyes.
	My brain seemed to be working good, you know, because I was thinking and I was kind of looking around and I could hear.
	And when she kind of backed off, she made like a mumble, but her mouth didn't move.
	I rolled my eyes to look.
	And that's when the old big, ugly thing that I call the big, ugly, one, the soldier came back in.
	And it was just kind of four little mumble words that I couldn't make out.
	And he came back in and grabbed me by the arm again.
	And, you know, I guess like the tranquilizer again, it just relaxed me again.
	So this soldier was one of the, was certainly similar to the original creatures that took you away, the five-foot-tall, you know, stocky-build kind of thing?
	Yes, sir.
	I think it was the same one.
	They all looked the same.
	All three of them looked the same when they was coming to us on the outside.
	And in terms of physical features, these creatures, you know, were they recognizable as maybe humanoid in some way, maybe related to us?
	Did they have any similarities to us?
	You talked about the doctor, that you was aware that she was giving you a message, but you didn't see her mouth move.
	Right.
	Now, the big, ugly ones didn't resemble nothing that I've ever seen, but she could possibly or it could possibly be, you know, resemble some kind of human.
	But as I said before, you know, there's different races, there's different color of people, there's different habits, different religions.
	So, you know, it could have possibly been some kind, but it was different than what I was used to.
	It wasn't no redneck doctor.
	And outside science fiction books and obscure ones like that, people weren't really talking about hybrids.
	They were barely talking about alien cases in those days, although it was 1973 and there was more of that stuff about him.
	We'd had TV series like The Invaders, which I loved on television on.
	So people were sort of prepared for these sorts of things.
	Now, you were told, no harm will come to you.
	Relax.
	Which, you know, what else could you do but comply in that situation?
	But they didn't tell you what they wanted you for, it seems.
	They didn't.
	And I feel like today, looking back on it, I feel like maybe I was some kind of experiment to them.
	You know how, which is wrong, but the human race experiments with animals for different reasons, and they call it medical experiments.
	I think that's probably about what was going on back then, except with humans.
	And like I say, it's wrong.
	I don't feel like anybody should experiment with animals or humans or anything.
	So you were scanned.
	The female doctor checked out your masal cavities.
	Was anything else done?
	You know, in previous abduction cases like Betty and Barney Hill, we hear about people being probed in various ways.
	Were you aware that anything was done to you?
	Was anything, you know, pushed into you?
	Were you cut in any way?
	Did anything like that happen, Calvin?
	The only punch remark I remember having, and when I went to the hospital the next day, was on my arm where that one had grabbed me.
	And when they did grab me, I did hear like a puff of air come out, you know, and that was when this first happened.
	So that's the only one I know of.
	But, you know, if it was, they hit it well, you know, it might have been something else.
	Could you give any description of the craft that you felt you were on and what, you know, location that craft may have been in?
	Was it floating above where you left from?
	Was it high above Earth?
	Was it millions of miles away?
	Did you get any sense of any of that?
	Well, when we was approaching it, the lights were so bright it was hard to say.
	But it kind of seemed like it was hoovering a couple of foot off the ground according to the marsh grass that we was looking at.
	And I don't feel like it had no legs or nothing under it.
	I think it was just kind of stable there.
	And there wouldn't have been anybody else if it was happening close relative to the ground in the place you were abducted from.
	There wouldn't have been anybody else, you know, within a mile or two of there who might have seen something?
	Yes, sir.
	It was people that did see something.
	They come forward and it got put into Charlie's book when they came forward and all.
	And I hadn't read it yet.
	They were eyewitness accounts.
	And they still coming forward till today.
	And they're real believable because they described it.
	Now, there was a guy on the bridge.
	They had a bridge there that they would lift to let the big ships in and out or the boats in and out.
	It wasn't a tow bridge, but the sheriff department went to investigate him to see if he'd seen anything.
	And when they got there, he was sitting with his back to the river in a recliner, leaned back asleep.
	And he'd wait on somebody to call on the radio before he opened the bridge.
	So, you know, that kind of done away with the theory he might have seen something.
	Right, so that guy slept through it all.
	Okay, so we've left the story, hadn't we, where you were being observed and prodded and all the rest of it.
	You didn't know where Charlie Hickson was At that point, they told you they didn't want to hurt you.
	What happened then?
	Did they show you the craft?
	Did they explain anything to you, or did they just simply put you straight back from where you came?
	They carried me out the door and put me back at the river, facing the river.
	I remember my arms being stretched out because I could see the end of my fingers from where I was standing on the river.
	And then that's when I heard from Charlie.
	Charlie said, Calvin, Calvin, you okay, son?
	And I come to.
	And the time I turned around and looked, they was headed back to the craft.
	And we was both turned around looking in.
	And the bright lights went out so that I figured they must have closed the door.
	And this thing picked up off the ground just a little bit.
	And then it just like disappeared up into the air like a streak of light.
	And it was just that fast.
	You could hear a little zipping noise and it was gone.
	So the craft shot into space, you think?
	It did, yes, sir.
	Now, look, something like that happening to you and Charlie is traumatic enough.
	God knows how somebody young, but how anybody would handle that.
	But to have that happen to you, and in those minutes after you get put back, not only do you not know quite what's happened, but you've got no idea why.
	That must have left your head in turmoil.
	It did, and I just got to where I couldn't deal with it.
	Charlie and I sat down on that pier afterwards.
	He said, sit down, let's talk about this for a minute.
	Cool down.
	They're gone.
	You know, we lived through it.
	They're gone.
	So we sat down on the pier, and I said, Charlie, let's not tell nobody.
	This didn't happen.
	I don't want to talk to nobody about it.
	I want to get up and go to work in the morning and forget all about this.
	Charlie said, well, how do you not talk to somebody about it?
	He said, I've got to call Keesler.
	He said, the human race might be in danger, and I need to let somebody know.
	I said, Charlie, this didn't happen.
	I didn't see nothing.
	So we had a bit of a little argument there about all of it.
	And who was Charlie wanting to tell?
	Who was he wanting to report it to?
	He wanted to call Keesler Air Force Base.
	The Air Force Base was probably 15 miles from where this happened.
	So he wanted to call Keesler at the time and talk to them.
	And I was totally against all this.
	I just wanted to put it in the back of my mind and forget it and be done with it.
	And did you tell him that if he was going to do that, you would deny it?
	I didn't tell him I denied.
	I just told him I wasn't going to talk about it.
	And he said, well, if you don't have to, we'll make up some story for you where you don't have to talk about it.
	So then he said, you know, that would be it.
	So we did.
	We got back in the car and we drove to a little convenience store.
	At the time, you know, it was no cell phones or computers or anything like that.
	And in the state of Mississippi during this time, they had what they call blue laws.
	So you couldn't really sell anything after a certain time of the day.
	The whole town was shut down.
	So, you know, there wasn't nothing really open.
	So the phones was on the outside of the storage.
	And we just pulled the car up, store.
	We pulled the car up.
	He got out and went and called Keesler on the phone, Keesler Air Force Base.
	And they told him, we don't, he explained to him what happened.
	And they said, we don't deal with things like this anymore, or neither have we ever.
	You need to call your local sheriff department or local authorities.
	So that's when Charlie called the local sheriff department.
	It took the local sheriff department about 10 minutes probably to get out to where we were.
	And they come driving up.
	One got out, come on my side of the car.
	One went on Charlie's side of the car and they just looked in.
	They asked me to step out and they gave me a, what you call a field sobriety test just to check us to see we was drinking.
	Right, so they had to rule out whether you were on something or you'd been on the booth.
	Exactly right.
	And that's the first thing they did.
	So they gave me their little sobriety test.
	We took it.
	Then they told us to follow them to the sheriff department.
	So if we'd been intoxicated or anything or inebriated at the time, we would have rode in the back seat of the patrol car with them.
	So they let us follow them over to the sheriff department.
	And that's when they took us in separate rooms.
	They interrogated Charlie in one room, interrogated myself in another, and I just stayed with the story.
	Look, I don't know what happened.
	I must have passed out or something.
	I don't know what's going on because I didn't want to talk about it.
	Then they put us in the same room in there, and that's where I messed up talking about it to Charlie.
	We was in there together, so we started having a conversation about how scared and all we were.
	And, you know, that's when they knew that we was both there.
	And in a way, by inadvertently having that conversation, you were corroborating your story because you weren't going to talk like that between you if nothing had happened.
	Exactly right.
	You know, so that gave them the collaboration.
	Like you say, I told them that we was together and something had happened.
	They didn't know what at the time.
	So they, when they got us out of that room, when they put us in there together and we talked about it, we didn't know there was a tape recorder in the room.
	And one of the deputies, detectives, come in there and they got the tape recorder out of the drawer.
	We still didn't know what it was.
	And they went in there, all of them together for a while.
	By that time, the sheriff showed up, which was Fred Diamond.
	And they listened to it.
	And he come back and he said, y'all go home.
	And we need you.
	We'll get you.
	They got the address where we live.
	We need you, we'll come see you.
	And I said, Sheriff Diamond, I don't want nobody to know about this.
	Please don't mention it.
	Nobody.
	He said, Well, we're not in that kind of business.
	We're not the media.
	We're here to enforce the law and things.
	So we're not going to tell nobody.
	Don't worry about it.
	So we went home, and I remember on the way home, me being worried about contamination of some kind to diseases or maybe radiation or something, because in the back of my mind, I knew something happened, and I knew it was something to worry about.
	Now, why would you be thinking that way?
	If you were going through the initial trauma of having been abducted, I guess your first feelings would be about, you know, did they hurt me?
	What on earth was this?
	But your mind leapt ahead to possible contamination.
	You know, that was quite a forward-thinking way to be considering this.
	It was.
	And it's like going into any other country or something.
	You know, they worry about you taking a disease to them or them bringing one to you and they vaccinate you and do different things.
	So that, I don't know why it even crossed my mind.
	Did you feel okay?
	I felt good, yeah, because I was out of there alive.
	And that's the reason I felt pretty good about it.
	Now, why I was worried about all that or why I even thought about it, I don't know.
	But I guess in certain circumstances, you start thinking of everything that could happen or did happen that might happen.
	And that was the case here.
	So when we got home, I remember I went and there was a paper bag in my room back in.
	You know, you didn't have real garbage bags or you couldn't afford them.
	So I took all my clothes off.
	I went to my room, took all my clothes off, including my shoes and everything, put them in the bag and went into the bathroom.
	And there was some bleach in there.
	And I poured bleach on me.
	And I washed myself with bleach.
	And when I got out, I took my clothes and put them in the inside the garbage bag and took outside to the dumpster.
	So, you know, like I say, I was real worried about contamination.
	And yet, if you'd wanted to, you know, if you wanted to have some evidence there, in case anybody questioned you about this in the future, because you'd kind of let the cat out of the bag when you were with the police and you'd corroborated Charlie's story.
	So you both have the same story.
	Why didn't you keep the clothes?
	If you kept them in a bag, there would have been some evidence.
	Well, if you think back, though, I was still just a kid.
	I wasn't thinking about evidence or nothing because I didn't know how anything like that worked.
	I was a country boy.
	You know, we was brought up plowing gardens, planting, and working hard from daylight to dark, no education.
	I didn't have any education.
	Still don't.
	So, you know, we didn't think ahead in terms like that.
	We didn't think of guilty and innocent and evidence and things.
	You just wanted to get the experience behind you.
	I just wanted to get rid of everything.
	And thinking today, I wish I had a kept one because it could have been some kind of DNA or something on my clothing.
	And of course, we know an awful lot more about those things today.
	But, you know, you were young.
	You've been through something that sounds horrendous.
	And there'd be more questions in your head than answers.
	After that, and it's quite common, did you have what we would call today the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder?
	Were you having nightmares, that kind of thing?
	Well, I've done that for 45 years.
	And I wouldn't call it really post-traumatic stress, but you know, it's not a day that don't go by that you don't think about this and wonder what happened.
	Because it's still, even to this day, even after the book, to me, it's still unknown.
	Why?
	And what did they want?
	Why are they doing it?
	Are they going to even come back one day?
	So it's still a lot of unanswered questions there.
	So how did you, if you did, get on with your normal life after that?
	Well, after that, it was not a normal life.
	We got up the next day and went back to work.
	And of course, it was a media frenzy where we was working.
	They called us into the office.
	They said, look, we got an attorney headed here for a press release.
	But we cannot conduct business in this office because we can't even get on the telephones.
	They're not functional.
	People out where y'all working is going to ask questions when this gets around.
	It's going to take away from work.
	So y'all need to take a few days off and all.
	So they called in their attorney, the shipyard attorney, to handle a press release.
	And he came in and he talked to the press.
	And we still didn't know how this word got out or what they was even talking about.
	But it was big media back in.
	It was press all over the world that had come in.
	How did the media get to know about this?
	That was my question, exactly.
	Because back then, unless somebody called and told them, or they had scanners.
	Back in, everybody had a scanner.
	Yeah, I remember.
	Yeah, because that was the only hobby people had was being nosy.
	And, you know, they would scan the police departments and the fire departments, things like that.
	Right.
	So if there was any traffic going on there, sorry to interrupt, but I guess, you know, newspaper offices, you're reminding me now.
	When I started work in Liverpool, they were illegal here, but we had one and you could listen into the police communications.
	So if there were emergency service communications around that time, maybe somebody in some newspaper office there locally heard it.
	And once that happens, the cat is out of the bag because they start phoning other people and then the whole world's on your doorstep.
	Right.
	And newspaper office was within a city block of the sheriff's department then.
	So, you know, where they pick it up, I'm sure they had reporters run over and talk to them.
	And after it goes out on that scanner, you know, the sheriff's department would have to talk to them and tell them about it or deny it.
	So, you know, that's probably how the story got started.
	I'm not for sure to this day.
	But did I get this right?
	Tell me if I did, Calvin.
	That there you are at work and they say, you know, the whole media is here.
	They all want to know about this weird story.
	We think you guys ought to take a couple of days off.
	And they put a statement out on your behalf.
	Is that right?
	That's correct.
	Yes, sir.
	The shipyard did.
	And the reason for that was to try to get the media to quit calling the shipyard and interfering with their daily activities.
	Well, you know the media, that's not going to stop anybody.
	No, huh?
	And it went on, it still goes on to this day.
	I mean, the best thing you can do if something like that happens is just go to the media and tell them about it.
	If they find out, you know, and talk to them and try to get it over with, maybe it'll last a few minutes and it'll be over with.
	Of course, these days they probably pay you $200,000 for your story, I guess, as well.
	But your employers put out a statement on your behalf.
	Two questions that come from that.
	What did that statement say?
	And yes, you were young, but how did you feel about having somebody else speak for you about something that had happened to you and not them?
	Well, I didn't want to talk to nobody about it because I still had put in my mind that I wasn't going to tell nobody.
	I knew the word was out, and I have no clue what they had, the shipyard had released.
	I let Charlie kind of back up and handle everything.
	He was a little older, and he didn't seem to mind talking about it not then, and not up until the day he died.
	So I pretty much just let him handle the press.
	And even till today, I don't like really talking about it.
	And when I did this book, I didn't want to do the book, but I felt like I owed it to the people, to my family and friends.
	Because up until this book came out, just before the book came out, I never talked to my wife about it.
	You know, so.
	Really?
	She's something I didn't want to talk about.
	Calvin, that's an awful lot to live with, to carry around on your shoulders for an awful lot of years.
	That's been hard to get through then.
	Oh, it was tough.
	I had a good friend.
	I was sitting there talking to him just shortly after the book come out, and he didn't know I was even writing a book.
	And he said, where have you been?
	Because normally, you know, we'd get out and visit and I'd go around, but I locked myself away for a little while just to do this book.
	And I says, well, I've been writing a book.
	Of course, he might have had an idea what I was writing it on because my wife might have let it slip to him, you know, that I was writing a book on this experience here.
	He said, you know, we've sat around and told each other many lies, but you never lied to me about this because you never talked to me about it.
	I said, well, guess what?
	I'm not going to talk to you now about it.
	If you want to hear about it, you buy the book and read about it.
	Or you can't afford it, and he can't afford it.
	I said, I'll buy it for you and you read it.
	But I'm not going to sit down and talk to you about it.
	So that's why in the book, I put it my words.
	I didn't want them changed.
	And, you know, it might not be proper.
	I didn't have a major in literature or nothing, but I have to give Philip credit for one thing.
	He ain't changed nothing in the book, not the way I talk, not the things I say, not even much as my spelling, but that was part of the deal we had.
	This is Philip Mantle, UK UFO investigator.
	Yes, sir, Philip Mantle.
	And he has been great to work with.
	Yeah, he's a friend of this show and a good guy.
	If you were going to work with anybody, I can't think of anybody better.
	Oh, I can't either.
	Philip Mantle has been a great person to work with.
	And he did just exactly what he said.
	Matter of fact, I wouldn't have even wrote the book if it hadn't been for him.
	My wife and I was at a wake, and at this wake, I signed a register, you know, just, I don't know why, but it was there, and I just signed that book.
	So people started recognizing the signature.
	Now, who had ever thought that people would have recognized this?
	But this is people that came in from Texas and everywhere, and they started asking me questions.
	I didn't want to take away from this family's grieving or anything.
	So I told my wife, I said, let's go.
	We got in the car and we was driving off.
	She said, you know, everybody wants to hear about this.
	You need to write a book.
	You need to tell people.
	I said, look, I'm not educated.
	I don't have a major in literature or anything.
	I have no idea how to write a book or what to say in one.
	I said, I don't even know where to put the periods at the end of a sentence.
	And I said, if I get a ghostwriter one day that knows how to write, I might let them do it.
	And I figured it'd be dropped in.
	But in the meantime, over the years, if I've got this right, Charlie was telling the story.
	Now, what we know about traumas, when people die, sometimes families split up, there are divisions.
	Sometimes people who go through accidents or terrorist incidents and things like that, it changes them.
	It changes them irrevocably.
	And sometimes friends get distant and stuff like that.
	How have you got on with Charlie?
	And how, if at all, does his account of this differ from yours?
	Are you both telling exactly the same tale?
	You know, I don't know because after this happened, a few days After this happened, I left the coast down here and I would periodically see Charlie.
	He would come back home to Sandersville or Laurel and I'd see him, but we never talked about this.
	I had a copy of his book.
	Matter of fact, Philip Mantle sent me a copy of his book.
	I never read his book, didn't care to know, didn't want to know.
	And I completely separated him from myself.
	Do you still count him as a friend, or is he not that now?
	No, he never was a friend.
	He was a friend of my father's.
	Charlie was a good deal older than I was.
	Now I was friends with his kids, with his children, was raised with them.
	But when I went to work for Charlie, he was a friend of my father's and I was needing a job.
	So I called him up and he told me to come and go to work.
	Now, I liked Charlie and Charlie was a good man.
	But, you know, as far as friendship, we never were friends.
	And to be honest with you, when Charlie passed away a few years ago, I never even knew he died up until I wrote the book.
	And Phillips said, well, you know, Charlie died here.
	I said, well, no, I really didn't know Charlie had died.
	And did that help you make the decision to get your story out?
	Not at all.
	What made me get my story out was at the funeral, my wife talked to me.
	She said, I never heard, you never told us, we never talked about it.
	And then, why don't you write a book and tell your friends and your family?
	Well, when I got home two or three days later, Philip had been hunting me on a project that he had going on about Charlie's book.
	And I said, well, you know, I'm really not interested.
	I signed an agreement with Charlie to get a certain percentage of his book when it was written, but I've never seen a penny out of it.
	You know, he breached the contract there, but I didn't want one out of it.
	And he says, well, I said, I don't give interviews to the press and all because they change the story.
	He said, look, Calvin, he said, why don't you write your own book?
	You get it in writing.
	You document it.
	He said, that's your legacy.
	And then nobody can change it.
	It's all black and white.
	It's right there.
	And that sounded good to me.
	So that's when I decided, I thought about it.
	You can ask Philip, it took me probably three weeks to decide to go with it.
	Some people who get abducted, they have ongoing experiences.
	But by the sounds of this, you wanted to put this behind you and nothing else happened after that.
	So all you've had is this period of 45 years where you've had to come to terms with the one event.
	Am I right?
	Yes, sir.
	Now, I did have some missing time in 93, and I did go see Bud Hopkins.
	I'm not for sure you're familiar with Bud Hopkins.
	I'm very familiar with Bud Hopkins, yeah.
	But I went in 93 to see Bud Hopkins.
	I had been fishing one day, and about 11 o'clock that day, I was supposed to be home before dark, and it got dark in about 4 o'clock.
	And the next thing I knew, it was 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning.
	And all that spand of time was missing in there.
	So a friend of mine was down.
	He said, well, I know a guy that wrote a book on missing time.
	And he said, that's what you got is some missing time.
	He said, why don't we go see him?
	So we drove to Florida.
	Bud was doing a conference in Florida.
	And I said, now, I don't want to go in and be seen.
	I don't want nobody to see me because I don't want to hear about UFOs or aliens or talk about them.
	I said, so if I go in there, I could be recognized, you know, because the press still takes pictures and all.
	Would you go in and talk to Bud and tell him I want to see him?
	And I didn't know Bud from anybody then.
	He said, I will.
	So he went in and talked to Bud and Bud told him, well, yeah, I want to see him.
	I'll be through here in about an hour.
	Y'all go to my room and wait on me there.
	So Bud gave us a key to his room.
	And we went all the way to his room, and sure enough, he showed up in about an hour, hour and a half.
	And we sat down and talked, and Bud made me feel real comfortable around him.
	And he said, well, could I, would you give me permission to hypnotize you?
	I said, well, I don't think I can be hypnotized, but if you want to, yeah, I'll go ahead and try it.
	He said, I think I could really help you come to terms with everything if you do.
	So that was the one word that I heard.
	So this friend of mine, I said, do me a favor, you stay in the room and you keep this stuff legitimate.
	And, you know, I've been to shows where they say they hypnotize a whole audience and they get up and make them do stupid stuff.
	I said, I don't want no memories put in my brain that's not already there.
	So that friend of mine said, okay.
	Of course, I didn't think Bud would do it, but, you know, I didn't know Bud then.
	So we underwent a hypnosis session, and it must have been a few hours, several hours of it.
	And I didn't realize I had ever been hypnotized until Philip Mantle got his hands on the original tape that Bud Hopkins made.
	And the way that he knew it, I said, he had mentioned Bud Hopkins one time because I was telling him I had some missing time and I went to see Bud Hopkins.
	Oh, he said, I know Bud, and Bud's a good friend of mine or was.
	And he said, he passed away.
	Well, I didn't know Bud had passed away.
	He said, well, what happened?
	I said, well, he tried to hypnotize me.
	And that's all I said.
	And the next thing I knew, Philip was calling Dr. Jacobs.
	David Jacobs.
	Is that David Jacobs?
	David Jacobs, right.
	To get a transcript of the tapes.
	And you've never seen the transcript and you've never heard the tapes.
	Never heard them, never seen them.
	Matter of fact, when he got the tapes, he transcribed it on paper and then he made a copy and a CD and sent it to me.
	But when he transcribed it and sent it over the computer, I couldn't believe that was me.
	I had no idea I had been hypnotized, but it was.
	I mean, my voice, it was black and white.
	And then I started remembering what was on there.
	And I'm sorry to interrupt here.
	Forgive me for this, but when you were with Bud Hopkins and you had that session, you really didn't ask afterwards when you came out of it.
	What happened?
	No, sir.
	You didn't?
	I did.
	I didn't want to know, and Bud knew I didn't want to know.
	He put a post-hypnotic suggestion in my head that I could remember this as I could handle it because he didn't feel like I could handle everything that went on at the time.
	So was this specifically about the missing time in 1993, strangely enough, 20 years after the original incident?
	Is that what this was about?
	It was about the missing time, plus it was about what had happened on 1973.
	So both encounters were in there.
	It started out in October 1973, and it was so thorough that there was a car out there that I recognized a car when Charlie and I pulled in.
	You know, I've seen one parked over.
	But you don't think about something like that when you're going fishing because, but it was so thorough that I recognized the tag number and I was able to call the tag number out on the car and we verified the tag number and all just not too long ago.
	Whose car was it?
	Well, I can't say because I promised the people I wouldn't.
	But I went and talked to one of the ladies was still alive.
	It was a couple.
	They was there parking.
	And this couple had got married and he had recently passed away a few years ago.
	And now she is in a nursing home and has a little bit of Alzheimer's, but still remembers.
	But she remembers that and remembers it pretty well.
	So under hypnosis, you were able to recall witnesses to the original event?
	Exactly right.
	And that didn't help nothing but me.
	I mean, I was able to go talk to these people, and they had seen the craft.
	I don't think they seen us when we went aboard, but it scared them so bad they left.
	And she is still in a care home now.
	She is.
	And she don't want to be known or nobody know where she is.
	And I respect her feelings on that because that was the way I felt.
	And like I say, they got buried.
	They was out there.
	People didn't have money for motels and nowhere to go.
	So back in, they just get in their car and do whatever they needed to do.
	That was the case there.
	Okay, so you had some witnesses you didn't even know about.
	Did you recall any more details about the original abduction and the missing time?
	We haven't really talked about the specifics of that.
	The original abduction, I hadn't really read the transcripts or nothing on it, but I started remembering some on the missing time.
	And I remember, and this might be in the original abduction, I'm not for sure.
	I hadn't got into this tape, but I remember them coming, me being on board the ship, and her taking her finger and running it up in my nasal cavity, and I started bleeding.
	And we actually got into a physical confrontation with the female-looking object because I was in such pain and I was really hurting that I grabbed her and I slammed her head against the wall before the big ugly one came back in to get me and I remember blood, my blood and her blood.
	So, you know, and I remember being bloodied, you know, and that might be why I was worried about being contaminated.
	Right.
	And you didn't know any of this when you were returned in 1973 to where you'd started from.
	This all came out under hypnosis.
	It did, yes, sir.
	I remember the duction and all, but, you know, there's a lot more that hypnosis said than what I originally put out.
	Okay, and so did you get a clue as to what they wanted with you, more details about the ship when you'd been hypnotized?
	I didn't.
	Like I say, I've got this book out there, and the whole transcripts are in the book, but I've never sat down and read it.
	I don't want to read it because I don't want to remember that part myself.
	You know something?
	I completely understand you.
	I have a feeling.
	I don't know, really.
	I might look at it if it was me.
	But if it was so traumatic and I really didn't want to go back there, I'm not sure if I would be able to go back.
	So I get what you're saying, Calvin.
	The missing time, though, it must have struck you as being odd that you had missing time.
	And again, we haven't talked about the circumstances of that, where you were, for example.
	But it was 20 years.
	It was a 20-year anniversary almost.
	Yes, sir.
	And it was, I was actually fishing.
	I had got in my boat and left that morning going to a little island to do some fishing.
	And I was supposed to be back before nighttime, or she was going to call the Coast Guard, but I didn't show up before the next morning.
	So everybody was starting to get wary, and she was going to call the Coast Guard the next morning to have them go hunt me.
	And I wish she had caught them at night.
	Maybe they could have found my boat and seen what was going on.
	I don't know.
	And like I say, I did, I hadn't, for some reason, I can't bring myself to read all that.
	And I have a copy off the original tape of the CD here in my voice.
	And I can't bring myself to listen to that.
	It's just something, you know, and if anybody has the book and they want to go back and read it in the Bud Hopkins hypnosis session, they're welcome to do it, but I'm not going to.
	And yet even doing this interview and all the other interviews that you're doing will be having the same effect, won't it?
	It'll be prodding at that hornet's nest again.
	Yes, sir.
	It does.
	And sometimes it's really hard to sit down and talk about it.
	It's harder sometimes than other times.
	And, you know, I find myself choking up a little bit sometimes.
	But, you know, it's getting easier and easier.
	And one of the best things to happen to me is Philip, you know, get me to bring this out.
	And that way maybe I can deal with it a little better.
	Do you have kids?
	Yes, sir.
	I have a daughter.
	Right.
	So you have a daughter.
	You have a wife?
	And I had a son that passed away when he was 22 years old.
	But you have a family.
	Has it changed your relationship with your wife and with your daughter?
	Do they think differently about you now that they know the full strength of all of this?
	Well, I really can't say that it changed anything.
	You know, we're still a tight-knit family, and we all care and love for each other and there for each other.
	But, you know, I don't talk to them anymore.
	I still haven't talked to them about this.
	They asked me a question, and if I can answer it, an easy answer for them.
	Now, my wife started reading this book, and she can't get through it, especially the hypnosis session with Bud Hopkins.
	She starts crying.
	She just throws a book down.
	And I'm not sure if my daughter's ever tried to read any of the book or not.
	She has one, but I'm not for sure how much of it she's read.
	And when stuff comes on the TV, when you start seeing dramas on the TV about We Are Not Alone and the latest reports from Mars suggesting there might be life on Mars, has what you've been through and now what you know fully what you've been through, you think, has that affected the way you consider those things now?
	Yeah, because I got a genuine interest in them.
	You know, I want to learn.
	I want to watch everything I can.
	And I want to see just what turns up in the future.
	Who knows what the future holds for anybody?
	And it's got to hold something.
	Because all the way through this, we've sort of assumed, because people do, that these are space aliens.
	We don't actually know that, do we?
	We don't know where they came from, whether it was another dimension, whether it was something that's here already but is being kept secret, or whether it's from Alpha Centauri.
	Yeah, nobody can say for sure because nobody knows.
	If it ever happens to me again, I'm going to try my best to catch one of them and, you know, maybe ask a few questions.
	But I've got a feeling that that's not going to happen, that nobody's ever going to catch one because they seem to be a little smarter than we are.
	But I think they come from travel interdimensional.
	And I just can't help but believe that.
	I've been sitting in rooms sometime and out of the corner of my eye, I see something like it's passed by.
	And, you know, you start, you let your mind wander sometime about different things like that.
	But that would be a way they could travel and get around.
	So whatever it is, it's possibly here with us all the time.
	We just simply, most of the time, don't see it.
	That's what I think.
	That's the way that I really believe.
	Now, you know, it's kind of like believing in God.
	You know God's there, or I do.
	And I believe in God, and there's no doubt in my mind about it.
	But as far as physically seeing him, you know, I don't think you could physically see him, but you could see what he does all over the world.
	You know, you could see the change of the seasons.
	You can see the stars.
	You can see the trees.
	You can see everything.
	And in my sense, that is God, you know.
	Everything that he has done for us and all.
	And it's kind of the same way with them.
	Somebody said, well, do you believe in aliens?
	No, I don't believe in aliens.
	I believe there's a God.
	But I believe that there could be aliens or something from other worlds.
	I said, you'd have to be foolish to go.
	You walk outside on a clear night, look up, look at the stars, and all these stars probably have planets around them.
	You'd have to be foolish.
	It's not other life out there.
	And do you believe that God created them and us?
	I do.
	Every religion on earth has their own God or the same God.
	Everybody needs something to believe in.
	And we just happen to believe in my household that Jesus and God in that form.
	Every Bible that you got written has something to believe in.
	And, you know, so it's just hard to say who's right or who's wrong, but I know what I believe.
	Okay, so here you are in the middle of all the publicity for the book, and this is part of that.
	Do you feel any differently about the whole experience?
	It was something that you wanted to put behind you.
	I mean, God, you can't even read part of the transcripts.
	You don't want to go there.
	Are you feeling any calmer about it in yourself?
	Or do you still feel the same?
	No, actually, I try to convince myself that it's easier and I do feel a little calmer and all.
	But it's all about the same.
	You know, there's times that it's fine and, you know, everything's okay.
	But my whole life has changed again.
	This event has changed my life several different times.
	You know, I come from a country boy, a hardworking, wanting just to have a job, to buy a house and a car and pay for it all my life, to going out and having to take several different jobs and working like that and hiding from the press.
	Now I'm back to being part of the, You know, looking for the press, I guess, or not looking, but answering to the press where I wasn't before and not avoiding them.
	So, you know, my life has been like a yo-yo.
	It's up and down.
	Who knows what's going to come out of it?
	Understood.
	Do you fear in the dead of the night when you're thinking that they might come back for you sometime?
	No, you know, I'm too old to think about that now.
	You get a certain age and you don't worry about dying.
	You don't worry about living.
	You don't worry about nothing.
	And that's where I am at the stage in my life.
	That's like I told somebody the other day.
	You know, it's an expiration date on your head.
	And the older you get, the more you realize that.
	So you don't, I guess I could say I really don't care if they come back or not.
	It's like this book.
	And somebody said, well, does it bother you that some people don't believe you?
	I said, no, I don't care.
	They believe it or not.
	I said, the book is pretty well documented.
	If it went to a court of law, it would stand up in a court of law because you have eyewitness testimonies, you have polygraphs, you have voice stress tests, you have a little bit of everything to prove a point.
	And I said, it says where two, in the Bible, it says where two witnesses come together.
	There's been people executed over there.
	So, you know, the book pretty well would stand up in a court of law.
	And you say that it speaks for itself.
	I've discovered doing this.
	And anybody who speaks about anything or does anything realizes that there are some people, not many of them, but there are some people, and they're vocal now in this world because they've got social media and everything else, who delight in reading bad intentions into people's good motives.
	That's just one of those things.
	And you must have heard from people, I guess, who claim that you're making it all up or you're crazy or you're whatever.
	I'm wondering how you ride that up.
	Yeah, and my response to, you know, I don't care, buy the book, read it, convince yourself, or not convince yourself, because you're going to have people that really believe that you couldn't convince them that it's not.
	To some, it's open-minded, and to ones that will never believe, and that's the closed-minded people that will never believe, you know.
	But it don't matter to me if they believe me or not.
	Anything we haven't said we should have?
	Not that I could think of.
	Okay, Calvin.
	I've enjoyed this conversation, and I'm glad we finally got to do it.
	I know you're busy doing interviews with various people now.
	And I wish you well with the book, and I'm glad that you teamed up with Philip Mantle.
	There is nobody better.
	And I wish you and your wife and your daughter well.
	Thank you very much.
	And I've enjoyed it also.
	Remembering Calvin Parker, who died a week ago.
	And may the story and the legacy of Pascagoula, 1973, ring down the generations.
	And hopefully, in 100 years from now, we'll still be talking about this man and this story.
	Thank you very much for listening to this.
	My name is Howard Hughes in London.
	This has been a special edition of The Unexplained.
	Take care.

▲