Charlie Hickson in 1998 at the site of the Pascagoula abduction. (image credit: AP Photo/Mississippi Press, William Colgin)

Charles E. Hickson, Sr., better known as Charlie Hickson, passed away in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, last Friday September 9 at the age of 80. A foreman at the now closed Walker Shipyard in Pascagoula, which built U.S. Navy ships, Hickson is best remembered as the key protagonist of a famous UFO abduction incident in Pascagoula on the early night of October 11, 1973. He was then 42 years old and on that fateful night was fishing on the Pascagoula River with his buddy Calvin Parker, a 19-year old welder at the yard. Little they knew that what they were about to experience would make them world famous.

The Pascagoula case quickly became one of the three classic alien abductions (together the Betty and Barney Hill case of 1961 and the Travis Walton case of 1975) in the era before this subject gained a wider public exposure thanks to the works of Budd Hopkins, Whitley Strieber, David Jacobs, Dr. John Mack and others. Included below is a rare transcript from a lecture given by Charlie in Mississippi in 1991.

The Ingalls Shipyard in 1985 with several U.S. Navy ships in Pascagoula, Mississippi. (image credit: U.S. Navy)

As Hickson and Parker went about the normal pastime of fishing off a pier at Shaupeter Shipyard, they heard a buzzing noise behind them. When they turned their heads they could see an egg-shaped craft hovering about 40 feet above the Pascagoula River and about 30 feet long and 8 feet high, with blue lights on its front. A door opened in the craft and three creatures emerged and floated towards them. Charlie was a decorated Korean War veteran who fought in five major battles, but this was something else. The beings didn’t look human at all! Nor did they look like the so-called gray humanoids which have become associated with so many alien abductions. If anything, they looked like a wrinkled Egyptian mummy.

Sketch of one of the Pascagoula aliens made by Jim Flynt a week after the incident. (image credit: UFO contact at Pascagoula)

In one of the first articles about the case published in The Mississippi Press, Hickson said “the beings had legs but did not use them. They were about 5-feet-tall, had bullet-shaped heads without necks, slits for mouths, and where their noses or ears would be, they had thin, conical objects sticking out, like carrots from a snowman’s head. They had no eyes, grey, wrinkled skin, round feet, and claw-like hands.” No wonder Charlie was paralyzed in fear and Parker just passed out.

Both shipyard workers were captured by the entities and taken inside the craft. Charlie remembers being alone in a room where he was examined by some kind of “mechanical eye.” They were otherwise not harmed and some 20 minutes later found themselves back in the pier. After deliberating for a while, they decided to report the incident to Jackson County Sheriff Fred Diamond. The sheriff listened to their story but was initially skeptical (there was very little exposure to alien abduction stories back in 1973), so he put them in a room with a hidden recording device. Parker and Hickson didn’t know they were being recorded and the sheriff thought he might catch them lying, but instead the transcript of the recording released later showed the two men were really bewildered and totally disoriented by the experience. Here are a couple of samples:

Parker: My damn arms, my arms, I remember they just froze up and I couldn’t move. Just like I stepped on a damn rattlesnake.

Hickson: They didn’t do me that way.

Parker: I passed out. I expect I never passed out in my whole life.

Hickson: I’ve never seen nothing like that before in my life. You can’t make people believe.

Parker: I don’t want to keep sitting here. I want to see a doctor.

Hickson: They better wake up and start believing. They better start believing.

It’s not totally clear how the story got out to the press, but by the next day a real media frenzy descended over Pascagoula. The Mississippi Press published so many articles in one week that they even put out a special booklet of all their coverage for $1. The shipyard hired a local attorney, Joe Colingo, to deal with the unending media requests. More importantly, two prominent researchers, Dr. James Harder of APRO and Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the former Project Blue Book consultant who had just established the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in Chicago, showed up in Pascagoula to investigate the case when it was really fresh. Harder did hypnotic regression with both Hickson and Parker, and the scientists were quoted in the press saying “there was definitely something here that was not terrestrial.”

One of the more interesting documents about Pascagoula in my files is a 17-page transcript of the “Official Keesler [Air Force Base] Field UFO Interrogation of Hickson and Parker” of 12 October 1973, conducted by Lt. Colonel Derrington of the Security Police, Colonel Amdall, Chairman of the Department of Medicine, and several other health and security officers. Detective T. E. Huntley of the Sheriff’s Office and attorney Colingo were also present. This document—I received a signed copy from Charlie himself as you can see from the cover page—is of particular interest for at least two reasons: 1) It was done in late 1973, almost three years after Project Blue Book was closed and the USAF was officially out of the UFO business; and 2) It seems to be the only known government document showing an official investigation of a UFO abduction case. (There is an interesting 1967 FBI memo about an abduction in Chesapeake, Virginia, but it’s just one page without any indication that there was a subsequent investigation.) The Keesler Interrogation also establishes the fact that there were additional witnesses who saw a UFO on the night of October 11, 1973, including a Probation and Parole Officer called Raymond Broadus. Other witnesses emerged later on, including retired Navy chief petty officer Mike Cataldo. You can read a good interview with Cataldo made in 2001 by seasoned UFO investigator Kenny Young here.

Cover page of the Oct. 12, 1973 “Official Keesler Field Interrogation of Hickson and Parker,” inscribed by Charlie Hickson. (Image credit: Huneeus Collection)

Cover of UFO contact at Pascagoula by Charles Hickson and William Mendez (image credit: Wendelle Stevens)

In 1983, Charlie Hickson wrote with college professor William Mendez a complete account of the case, UFO contact at Pascagoula, published by Wendelle Stevens in Tucson. It contains tons of information, including many photos, transcripts of interviews and regressive hypnosis, and a description of far lesser known contacts experienced later by Charlie in a wooded area near his home in Gautier. Out of the many websites describing the Pascagoula case, we found the one published in the excellent French website ufology.net one of the best (don’t worry, the link here is to the English version); it contains too all the main newspaper stories at the time and a transcript of the third interrogation of the witnesses three hours after the event done by sheriff Diamond and Captain Ryder. The Keesler Interrogation transcript was published many years ago in the MUFON UFO Journal Number 195 (May-June 1984), which can be downloaded from The Black Vault Internet Archive here. Many excerpts of Charlie Hickson’s various TV interviews are also available on YouTube.

I got to know Charlie Hickson fairly well and interacted with him often particularly in the period between 1987 and 1992. I was even involved briefly (as a potential writer/researcher) in a movie project with Midge Soderbergh, the mother of the famous Hollywood movie director Steven Soderbergh, who had a strong interest in the paranormal. Unfortunately, the project never took off but it gave me at least the opportunity of seeing the sites in Mississippi and to spend some time with Charlie. I went twice to Mississippi, the first time to lecture at a conference in Biloxi on March 23, 1991, which was organized by Charlie himself. The other speakers (besides Charlie and me) were Stanton Friedman and Budd Hopkins, who also passed away recently and who thought highly of the Pascagoula case. We are publishing below as an exclusive for Open Minds an edited transcript of Charlie’s 1991 Biloxi lecture, which you won’t find anywhere else. It describes the original incident, his visit to Keesler AFB, how the experience affected his life, his Baptist upbringing, and some additional contacts he had as well as his “predictions” for some kind of “open contact” in 1992. True, events didn’t happen as he predicted, but I have no doubt that Charlie was totally sincere about this. Besides, there is a long history in ufology of failed predictions allegedly given by aliens to contactees which don’t come true or happen only partially or open to ambiguous interpretations. The best portrayal of this phenomenon was given by the late John Keel in his famous book—later turned into a movie with Richard Gere—The Mothman Prophecies.

Charlie Hickson showing a painting of the 1973 Pascagoula abduction. (image credit: Pat Sullivan, The Mississippi Press)

Here, then, is the partial transcript of Charlie Hickson’s 1991 Biloxi lecture. Other than correcting a few spelling mistakes, I left the document just as it was transcribed and edited 20 years ago.

EXCERPTS OF LECTURE BY CHARLES HICKSON

Biloxi, Mississippi, March 23, 1991

(Transcription & Editing by Antonio Huneeus)

Charlie Hickson lecturing at the first Ozark UFO Symposium in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in 1988, co-sponsored by MUFON. (Image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

CHARLES HICKSON: (After describing his original incident in Pascagoula)… (we went) to the Sheriff’s Department and give a full report of what happened to us, so we did, we followed them back to the Sheriff’s Dept. and then they placed me in one room, they placed Calvin in another room, and they must have talked with us for a few hours–I am not sure how long it did go along–but we didn’t know at that time, he (Sheriff) promised me at that time that there wouldn’t be any publicity about it, that he would try to relay what we had told him to the proper authorities if he could find out who the proper authorities were; but I went home that morning, it was probably after midnight, I couldn’t sleep but I felt I had an obligation to the company that I worked for, I was a foreman there in the shipyard, so after having my coffee I went on to work and Calvin went on to work, but when I got my people to work out on the shipyard I went back to the office and my telephone was ringing and it was some newsman from Jackson, Mississippi, was asking me what had happened to Calvin and myself the night prior, then my phone started ringing again and it was the Sheriff’s Dept. and he asked me if we could go over there, that they had reporters all over the place around the Sheriff’s Dept., that they couldn’t function well… (The Sheriff) assured me he didn’t release the information, that somehow it leaked…

We talked to some reporters there, someone called Dr. James Harder and Dr. Allen Hynek from Chicago, they were coming in to determine what had happened, Dr. Harder placed us under hypnosis and they come to the conclusion that something happened to us there on the Pascagoula River… What dawned on me was that we could it possibly maybe caught some radiation from this object or from these things, and I mentioned this fact, and they decided to carry us to the Singer River Hospital to see if there were any traces of radiation, but after arriving at the Singer River Hospital, they told us that they didn’t have the facilities or what have you for checking us for radiation, that they should carry us to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, well one of the detectives on the Sheriff’s Dept. called Keesler AFB and they asked him to bring us. Well, when we arrived on Keesler, on the main gate that went on the airbase, they had MPs waiting on a jeep to escort us in, they had evacuated the entire area around there, they were quite concerned, we found out later, and they carried us down to an area where they had a tane (?) with protective clothing on where they come out and they checked us thoroughly for radiation, and they told us they thought they found some traces on Calvin but they told me they didn’t found any on me; but anyhow after that we went in to a meeting with several different officials there at Keesler and they were quite interested in what the story we had to tell them–it appeared to me that they had been through these things before–but they wouldn’t let us have a copy of the report of what the information that we had given them, but later on I obtained that information, 17 pages on the interrogation that they gave us…

The speakers’ panel at the first Ozark UFO Symposium in 1988. Charlie Hickson on the right, Antonio Huneeus in the center and MUFON International Director Walt Andrus on the left. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

But anyhow, after that happened our life was just a nightmare to me, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I was afraid even to go outside, I didn’t want to be alone outside, and Calvin was about the same shape I was… But later in February of next year (1974), I like to be outdoors, I like to fish, the manager was a friend of mine, a tree farm, so I went to a 750 acre tree farm, and I was probably in the middle part, I knew there were squirrels around, and I saw the craft, that same craft that picked me and Calvin up that night, it came down in an open area there and there was just a message that came to me, that they didn’t mean us any harm, that there would be another time and another place, that they were going to stay in contact with me. Well at first it frightened me, I went home (talks about support of his wife, children and some close friends to go through this whole ordeal) but anyway, from that day on, these beings, the beings that were controlling these robots, have been in contact with me, I have no way of communicating with them, they communicate with me. Now, the late Dr. Hynek told me there is a possibility, a very good possibility that I had an implant of some kind that they had placed in me, that they could contact me at will, and that was a terrible fright to be told that, I have been told that by other scientists throughout the country, and they don’t know what to look for and if they found it they wouldn’t know what it was. So I had to learn to live with that and all my fears left me about these things, and also I found out through deep hypnosis that into that craft (?) that that followed me through this object, came out from the wall there was a window there, I couldn’t recall it in my conscious mind, but in my subconscious mind I recall that I saw beings, living beings in that window in another compartment, and they looked almost like we do, if they were out there probably 50 or 60 yards away you couldn’t tell them from a human being, so they are very real. Now, there has to be many worlds out there and there could be many life forms, but the beings that are in contact with me are almost like human beings that walk this Earth.

But anyway, it went on till May of the same year (1974), we had visited my family, we were returning late home that night after midnight and there was a craft that followed our car for a long ways and finally it came around in front of the car, it was trying to land in front of the car, one of my sons-in-law who was driving, I got him to stop, my wife got hysterical, my baby girl was awaken and was screaming, I was trying to get out of the car because I had my chance to meet these beings out of the craft, it had come around to the side and come down almost to the ground in an old field, and it had a row of windows all the way around it, I could see the silhouettes in the window on the board of that craft, and my wife wouldn’t let me out and was screaming for my son-in-law to start the car and leave, which he did, and he wanted to call the authorities, and I told him there was no need… but most of my family saw that and if there was any doubt in their mind in about what happened to me they began to realize that these things were real…

Three famous abductees at the Omega UFO Conference in Connecticut, circa 1990. (Left to right): Charlie Hickson, Betty Andreasson Luca and Richard Price, the first who had an alien implant analyzed by scientists. (image credit: Manuel Fernandez/Huneeus Collection)

(Talks about the terrible threat of nuclear energy and the threat of war with Russia that could have destroyed the world until not long ago; talks also about the free energy that moves the planets)… and they couldn’t sit there in their world and allow us to blow this world up which could cause a chain reaction and could affect their lives on their world, that’s why they were coming down to do something about it. (Talks about how past civilizations have done that, civilizations have been destroyed before and we were on the verge of doing it again). I told people a while ago that communism would be no more, that the nuclear threat would disappear, so most of those threats are gone and we are heading in the right direction… and we’re going to have contact in 1992, there is 30 people that’s gone have open contact with alien beings, and after 1992 there is not going to be any question in anybody’s mind, there is going to be physical evidence, but they are not going to interfere with our problems, we got to solve it our own way, they are not going to meddle in what we’re doing, we have to always remind ourselves that we can’t do anything that’s going to harm their world, they are not going to allow that. Now, they are still in contact with me, a lot of people don’t believe this, but there is something that I have to live with and I will until the day I die, but there is a world out there somewhere with living beings on it that look almost like we do that can contact me at their will, they told me many things that has come to pass, I don’t claim to be a psychic but I do know that I am in contact with something that is not from this world…

(Talks about living with it, how many people don’t believe that there are other worlds, how we all have free will) but after 1992 there won’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind on this Earth that there is other worlds out there with intelligent life that have visited our world; I might add also–you may believe this or you may not–this world out there has been in contact with the leaders of this country, they have been in contact with the leaders in Russia, that’s the only way it could have happened, we hear our president now talk about the New World Order, it has to be that way, we have to have a New World Order, we have to stop the wars, we have to take care of our polluted streams, (talks about storing nuclear waste and how its going to last for thousands of years), and I have been told this by alien beings out there from another world, and I am getting messages pretty often from them now, and its hard to live…

(Talks about making a living and not making money with this, of traveling to talk to different audiences for expenses only but not) making my livelihood and suffering many hardships but its something I am destined to do and I can’t change it and I am going to have to keep bringing these messages, I have no other choice… (talks about his upbringing and growing in Jones County as a devout Baptist, going to church, prayer meetings, etc.) We simply believed in a Heaven and a Hell and we didn’t think about life out there, it wasn’t taught to us… Its hard to tell you these things but its real, I believe in God, I believe in a supreme being but I also believe that in all its greatness he not only created this world but he created also all those other worlds out there in this universe in even the ones beyond this universe, and I believe a supreme being whom I call God created all this… but you’ll find out that in 1992 that we are going to be visited by alien beings from another world, they don’t mean us any harm, they are not going to interfere, they live in a world where are no diseases, there are no wars… (ends by talking about expenditures in building the military for wars while people are starving and how there could be peace on this Earth and eventually it will be that way).

A clip from the interview with Budd Hopkins. (image credit: Open Minds/Maurizio Baiata)

The death of prominent New York artist and alien abduction researcher and author Budd Hopkins last Sunday August 21 has been felt deeply throughout the international UFO community. Budd traveled widely around the world, giving lectures at symposiums all over the globe and his books were translated and published in many countries. Below you can watch an exclusive interview with Budd Hopkins from Open Minds done by our former colleague Maurizio Baiata, the well known Italian journalist and editor of several UFO magazines in Italy, which was recorded during the 1997 World UFO Symposium in the Republic of San Marino. The Ministry of Tourism of this tiny and picturesque independent city-state located in central Italy has been officially sponsoring UFO conferences for nearly 20 years, and I remember seeing Budd there again around 1999 or 2000. This exclusive Hopkins-Baiata interview was never broadcast in English and is posted here in full for the first time.

Open Minds posted Monday the obituary of Budd Hopkins containing the basic biographical details of his two parallel careers as an ufologist and author specialized in alien abductions, and as a well known abstract painter and sculptor. Although Budd kept these two endeavors separated from each other, they did come together in his last book, Art, Life and UFOs: A memoir by Budd Hopkins, published in 2010. The New York Times published yesterday a good obituary of Budd, where they mention that his interest in UFOs was sparked by his own sighting of a silvery disc in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1964. Budd owned a house in Truro in the Cape where he used to spent the summers devoted to his artistic creations.

Stonehenge apartment building. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

Budd’s mentor in the UFO field was Ted Bloecher, a seasoned investigator from New York and musician who had worked in one of the first UFO groups, Civilian Saucer Intelligence or CSI. Bloecher published in 1967 the classic Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, with an Introduction by Dr. James McDonald. Bloecher realized that in order to get to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon, one had to go beyond the documentation of just sightings and deal with the then thorny and controversial issue of the UFO occupants and their agenda. Budd’s first significant case was the investigation, with Bloecher, of a UFO landing and humanoid case in 1975 in North Hudson Park, New Jersey, in front of the Stonehenge apartment building, on the Hudson River across Manhattan. His report of this investigation, which included aliens coming out of the craft and scooping soil samples, was published in New York’s Village Voice, launching Budd’s public ufological career. Budd had a real talent of presenting his data to the media, which increased after the publication in 1981 of his first important book, Missing Time, and continued throughout the rest of his life.

I knew Budd for many years, meeting him for the first time around 1979 or 1980 when the French researcher Thierry Pinvidic visited New York and I accompanied him in his rounds of meeting all the prominent NY ufologists. I later remember an occasion when Budd needed a hypnotist—in his early years he didn’t do regressive hypnosis himself but used professionals like Dr. Aphrodite Clamar and others—because he had an abductee coming from out of town and Dr. Clamar was unavailable. He called my friend Pete Mazzola from the Scientific Bureau of Investigation (SBI), an ufologist and police detective who did hypnosis for the NYPD. I accompanied Pete to Budd’s studio in lower Manhattan, where the session took place. In the mid and late eighties I was a regular attendee of Budd’s abductee support group, a concept which he pioneered and which has been replicated around the country. Budd of course was not a licensed therapist, so his meetings were part-social and part discussion of the experiences and feelings by the abductees. Unlike other similar groups that started later elsewhere, Budd always invited researchers like myself and often writers and journalists who were working on stories on the subject. They were a fascinating blend of people of different backgrounds and philosophies and always highly interesting and provocative.

Budd was not really the first one to investigate or publish abduction cases—the Lorenzens and others associated with the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, APRO, had been doing this for a number of years, and high profile cases like those of Betty and Barney Hill, Charlie Hickson, and Travis Walton had all received considerable media attention. But until Budd came into the field, abductions were considered extremely rare experiences and no one was searching for wider patterns. Budd devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy and resources to look precisely for these patterns, which he later pursued through his Intruders Foundations created in 1989. He also became the chief spokesman for the reality of alien abductions, bringing the message that these experiences were real and important through his books, articles, numerous lectures and media appearances. He was also the mentor of Dr. John Mack, the prominent Harvard University psychiatrist and Pulitzer Price winner, who brought this subject closer to the mainstream. Not everybody agreed of course with Budd’s conclusions or his methodology and he had many critics, but his contribution to the field is absolutely beyond dispute. He did more than probably anybody else to bring the complex issue of alien abductions into the forefront and he will be missed by all those interested in that subject.

Recent photo of Budd Hopkins. (image credit: Intruders Foundation)

It has been known amongst his friends that alien abduction pioneer, Budd Hopkins, has been of ill health. Unfortunately, we recently received a note that Budd passed away Sunday. Here is the message from Leslie Kean:

Budd Hopkins

June 15, 1931 – August 21, 2011

I’m very sad to announce that Budd Hopkins died today, August 21, at 1:35 pm. Budd had been under hospice care for about three weeks, at his home in New York. The combination of liver cancer and pneumonia led to his death. His daughter Grace Hopkins-Lisle and I were with him almost continuously during these past weeks. He was not in any pain throughout any of the process, and he received the best possible care and loving support from those closest to him. Today he gradually slipped away, and simply quietly stopped breathing. He died peacefully and without any struggle, with Grace, Grace’s husband Andrew, and me by his side.

Thanks to all of you for being such strong supporters of this extraordinary man, who has contributed so much to our lives, in so many different ways.

- Leslie Kean

Open Minds’ Antonio Huneeus has retrieved a number of great original photographs from his archives of Budd throughout his career. We post them here in memory of a colleague and friend.

Budd Hopkins in his living room in 1991. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

You can find an excerpt from Budd’s latest book, Art, Life and UFOs: A memoir by Budd Hopkins, in our August/September 2010 issue.

Here are a couple of biographies on Budd, this first one is from the Intruders Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Budd to help those experiencing alien abduction and to educate the public on the phenomenon.

Intruders Bio:

Budd Hopkins is a world-renowned artist, author, and pioneer UFO abduction researcher. Having investigated well over 700 cases, he now heads the Intruders Foundation, a nonprofit, scientific research and support organization. Budd first became interested in the UFO phenomenon when he and two others had a daylight UFO sighting near Truro, Massachusetts, in 1964. In 1975 he carried out his first major investigation which involved a UFO landing and occupant incident in North Hudson Park, NJ. Shortly thereafter, he began to concentrate on the investigation of the UFO abduction phenomenon, which led to the eventual publication of his findings. Taken together, his three books, Missing Time, 1981, Intruders, 1987, and Witnessed, 1996, are widely regarded by researchers and skeptics alike as comprising the most influential series of books yet published on the abduction phenomenon. These works, Hopkins’ lectures, and his other presentations have been responsible for bringing a number of other noted researchers-David Jacobs, John Carpenter, Yvonne Smith, and John Mack, among others-into this extraordinary area of specialization. His documented discoveries have become the basis of most later abduction investigations and research.

Budd Hopkins (left) in an abductee panel at a conference in NY in 1988. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

Budd Hopkins has long been considered ufology’s most visible figure. He pioneered and continues to lead the investigation into the most controversial aspect of the UFO phenomenon-the systematic abduction of human beings by UFO occupants. As the world’s premier expert on this issue, he has worked with more than one thousand people who have reported abduction experiences over the past twenty years. These individuals come from all walks of life and include physicians, psychiatrists, attorneys, police officers, military personnel, political figures, personalities from the entertainment world, and even a NASA scientist.

A prolific writer and internationally respected painter, Hopkins has delivered hundreds of UFO lectures around this country and around the world. His groundbreaking first book, Missing Time, was the first work to compare a number of UFO abduction cases in order to isolate the patterns they revealed. His second book, Intruders-The Incredible Visitation at Copley Woods, was a New York Times bestseller and the basis for the popular 1992 CBS miniseries, Intruders, which has since been broadcast internationally. His widely acclaimed latest book is Witnessed-The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions.

Hopkins’ goal has always been to bring an objective, dispassionate scientific intelligence to bear on the UFO abduction phenomenon. To this end, he founded the Intruders Foundation (IF) in 1989. IF is a nonprofit organization devoted to research and public education concerning this extraordinary enigma. They publish a respected journal, as well as offer a nationwide referral service for those wishing to explore their own suspected abduction experiences.

Press conference in NY for the release of the Sy-Fy channel/Steven Spielberg series, Taken. From right: John Mack, David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

Despite its extremely controversial nature, Hopkins’ research has received serious commentary in such mainstream publications as Time, Paris Match, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Omni, People, and Cosmopolitan. He has been a guest on hundreds of television and radio programs including Nightline, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tonight Show, Charlie Rose, Larry King Live, The Charles Grodin Show, Sally Jesse Raphael, The Geraldo Rivera Show, 20/20, 48 Hours, Unsolved Mysteries, Encounters, A Current Affair, Nightwatch, The Late Show, The Art Bell Show, Tom Snyder, The Laura Lee Show, Hieronimus & Company, Weekend Edition (National Public Radio), Voice of America, Armed Forces Radio, numerous BBC affiliates, and many other shows and forums.

Budd Hopkins at the MUFON Symposium in Washington DC in 1987. (image credit: Antonio Huneeus)

Artist biography from Langs de Wal:

Budd Hopkins Art, 1961

Budd Hopkins was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1931.  He graduated from Linsly Military Institute (now Linsly School) in 1949 and Oberlin College in 1953.  He first displayed artistic abilities when, as a child recovering from a long-term illness, he began to create sculptures of ships made out of modeling clay.  But it wasn’t until he arrived at Oberlin that Budd Hopkins made a serious study of art.

He settled in New York after obtaining his degree and has had a residence there ever since.  Budd Hopkins and his wife, April Kingsley, and their daughter, Grace, divided their time between their homes in Cape Cod, MA and New York City.

In 1963, Budd Hopkins was selected by the Columbia Broadcasting System as one of the 15 painters featured in the network’s first television special on American art.  In 1958, Art News picked Budd Hopkins as one of 12 Americans for exhibition in the “Festival of Two Worlds” in Spoleto, Italy.

The artist’s brilliance has won him a number of fellowships and awards.  In 1972, Budd Hopkins was awarded the Commission Prize by the West Virginia Arts and Humanities Council.  In 1976, he received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Painting and in 1979 he received a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.  In 1982, Budd Hopkins won a special project grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.  Also, in 1992 this native son of Wheeling, West Virginia was inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame.

According to Budd Hopkins, “My paintings and sculptures, at first glance, may appear to be purely aesthetic; closer up, they are not.  They hold a feeling of tentativeness, combined with a sense of arrival.”

During his career, the artist has won wide acclaim in the field of abstract art.  Budd Hopkins has established an international reputation as an artist and sculptor.  His work is on display in many of the most prestigious art galleries and museums, not only in the United States, but in Europe as well.  Budd Hopkins artwork has been exhibited in England, Finland, Italy and Switzerland.

The artist’s work has appeared in many exhibitions across the country and he is represented in many important private and corporate collections around the nation.  Budd Hopkins paintings and sculpture have been featured in the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Queens Museum, Public Library of New York and Whitney Museum.

Across the United States, Budd Hopkins’ art has been seen in the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC; the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum, among others.  In addition, Universities and Colleges which have shown Budd Hopkins paintings and sculpture include his alma mater Oberlin, Princeton, Yale, Denison, Drew, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), DePauw, Williams, Brandeis, Middlebury, North Carolina, Michigan State, Reed, Bradford, Connecticut, Alabama, Bennington and the City College of New York.

Recently, Budd Hopkins has been recognized for his research into the matter of UFO’s and one of his books, “The Intruders”, printed by Random House, was on the New York Times best-seller list and was the basis for a television show on CBS.

Betty and Barney Hill holding a newspaper featuring a story about their abduction experience.

Many states might shy away from immortalizing its UFO history. But the State of New Hampshire is known for its fiercely independent people and its “live free or die” motto.  On July 20, 2011, it erected a historical marker to commemorate the September 19-20, 1961 close encounter and “lost” time of Portsmouth residents Betty and Barney Hill. The marker is located next to the highway in front of Cabin # 20 at the Indian Head Resort in North Lincoln and across the street from the granite stone face called Indian Head.

Several years ago, Mike Stevens, a Farmington, NH, man circulated a petition to request a marker to commemorate Betty and Barney Hills’ UFO experience. The State of NH Division of Historical Resources, Department of Cultural Resources advised him that a formal request would be required. I, as the Hills’ niece and trustee of Betty’s estate, then worked with the state over the next 3-4 years to complete the process. Employees at the Department of Cultural Resources called upon me to suggest appropriate text for the marker—a challenge in and of itself. Every statement had to be footnoted and supported by ample evidence that it was true and accurate.  In all, the wording for the 12 line plague had 20 footnotes and 28 sources listed in its bibliography.

The new Betty and Barney Hill marker. (image credit: Indian Head Resort's owner Peter Spanos)

The final wording approved by the state agency reads as follows:

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, Portsmouth, NH couple Betty and Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with an unidentified flying object and two hours of “lost” time while driving south on Rte 3 near Lincoln. They filed an official Air Force Project Blue Book report of a brightly-lit cigar-shaped craft the next day, but were not public with their story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler in 1965. This was the first widely-reported UFO abduction report in the United States.

They didn’t accept my first draft. I had stated that the Hills were prominent members of the community and supported it with evidence that Betty and Barney were active in community affairs. They helped organize the Rockingham County Community Action Program and Barney was chairman of the Board of Directors. In 1965, Barney was appointed to the NH State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Barney was legal redress officer for the local chapter of the NAACP and served on the regional board. They promoted literacy throughout the state and worked on Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign. I accompanied Betty and Barney to his inauguration in January 1965. We were invited guests.

I had also added that the Hills’ experience generated interest in the scientific community because   J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Carl Sagan, David Saunders, Leo Sprinkle, Stanton Friedman and others looked into the case. But that text didn’t make the final cut either. I am, however, very pleased with the text that the D.O.C.R. eventually approved. The marker is beautiful.

The decision to place the marker by Indian Head was a difficult one to make. Five locations were initially considered. The Mt. Cleveland picnic area, south of the Town of Twin Mountain was the Hills’ first stop. It gave Betty the opportunity to view through binoculars the star like object that had sparked her curiosity fifteen miles north. She watched as it traveled across the face of the moon flashing multi-colored lights. By the time she handed the binoculars to Barney, the object had changed course, and shortly thereafter, rapidly descended in their direction.

My next suggestion was the Old Man of the Mountain historical site in Franconia Notch, the Hills’ second stop. The Hills stated that as they motored past the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway just north of the Old Man, Betty noticed that the lights on a structure at the top of the mountain blinked out as the craft passed over it. It then rounded the mountain and hovered motionless in the sky, except for its rotation, beside the Old Man’s 48 foot profile. It was at least 1 ½ times the length of the natural granite formation from chin to forehead. It appeared cigar shaped because they were observing a lighted row of windows. Within moments, the silent craft rapidly changed direction and ascended and descended in a stair step pattern.

Indian Head was my next suggestion. Located near Franconia Notch’s the south entrance, the resort offers ample parking space and was a prominent landmark along the Hills’ journey south.

Indian Head Resort (image credit: indianheadresort.com)

In regressive hypnosis with Dr. Benjamin Simon, Betty stated, “We went past the Flume, somewhere between the Flume and Indian Head or……..it was just beyond the Flume or just beyond Indian Head.  There was a motel and it was like cabins, these small neat looking cabins.  The sign itself wasn’t lighted, but there was one cabin on the end that had a light on, and there was a man standing in the door.  And I saw this and I thought, “If I want to I can get out of this whole situation right now.  All we’ve got to do is drive in here and this object will go away, and that will be the end of it.” But they didn’t stop.

Only a mile south of Indian Head and almost directly in their path, the couple encountered a huge flattened circular disc with a row of intense blue-white lighted windows along its forward edge. Barney rapidly brought the car to a halt in the middle of the road and grabbed his binoculars for a closer look, opening the car door for a less encumbered view. The silent hovering object descended to an estimated eighty to a hundred feet above their vehicle. It had ceased rotating. Rapidly, in an arc like movement, it shifted from its location directly ahead, and rested above the tree tops in an adjacent field. Barney pocketed his handgun and walked toward it. The silent enigmatic craft was huge; maybe sixty to eighty feet in diameter. As he approached it, two red lights at the end of fin-like structures parted from the sides of the craft, and it tilted toward Barney.

Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, he spied a group of “strangely not human” figures moving about with what he described as “the precision of German officers.” As the craft tilted downward and began to descend toward him, one of these strange creatures, who remained at the window, communicated a frightening message. Barney had the immediate impression that he was in danger of being plucked from the field. Overcome with fear and with all of the courage that he could muster, he tore the binoculars from his eyes and raced back to the car. Breathless, trembling, and in near hysterics, he told Betty that they needed to get out of there or they were going to be captured.

Kathllen Marden with her two books: Captured! and Science was Wrong. (image credit: Alejandro Rojas)

The close encounter field would have been my number one choice for the marker but Interstate Highway 93 now passes through it, with entrance and exit ramps to Route 3. At the height of the tourist season, it would have presented a traffic flow problem. The Notch Express, a convenience store and gas station near the ramp is a place of interest. Its walls are lined with UFO photos and memorabilia and UFO related video is constantly playing on a monitor by the checkout counter.

The fifth location that we considered was the abduction site on Mill Brook Road in Thornton. We almost immediately rejected that notion because it is located off the highway in a new housing development. In 1961, Betty and Barney found themselves on the then deserted logging road where they encountered a roadblock by non-human entities. They reported that they were forced aboard a landed disk and subjected to unearthly physical examinations before they were released. After years of searching, they located the landing site on Labor Day Weekend in 1965.

We made the final decision that Indian Head was the best overall location for the historical marker. Over the past 50 years, the Indian Head Resort has grown into a large modern facility with motel rooms, a function hall, business center, restaurant and lounge, and swimming pools.  This year it will host a 50^th anniversary celebration of the Hills’ UFO experience on September 23-25. There will be a memorial marker dedication and many additional activities. I will be on hand to give a guided tour along the close encounter route and a new presentation about the Hills’ close encounter and abduction.  For additional information, see my website at www.kathleen-marden.com and my 2007 book with Stanton Friedman, Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Encounter.

Note: the Hills’ archival collection is housed at the Milne Archival Collection Department at the University of New Hampshire Library, 18 Library Way, Durham, NH 03824.  The collection consists of 87 folders, arranged in 9 series. These contain correspondence, personal journals and essays, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, slides, and films and audio tapes of the Hills’ radio and television appearances. I compiled the collection in 2005 at Betty’s request.

Watch the meeting between Ilyumzhinov and Gaddafi:

Click the image to go to the files.

One of the many interesting items in the Wendelle Stevens UFO collection acquired by Open Minds was a nearly complete set of The APRO Bulletin, the official publication of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. Founded in Wisconsin in 1952 by Coral Lorenzen and ran jointly with her husband Jim Lorenzen into the mid-80s, APRO played a key role in the history and development of both American and international ufology. To paraphrase Star Trek, APRO went where others had not dared to go—the rich and uncharted territory of humanoid cases, close encounters of the third kind (CE-III) and eventually abductions. These subjects were mostly ignored back then by the official Air Force Project Blue Book, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), the other big UFO organization of the time, and most mainstream researchers and scientists. The mindset back then was to concentrate mostly on UFO sightings and stay as far away as possible from the colorful claims of ET contact paraded in the media by George Adamski, Howard Menger and other popular contactees.

APRO started in 1952, the year of the great American UFO wave, as a small, dues paying membership organization with a mimeographed periodical, the APRO Bulletin, edited by Coral Lorenzen. In 1954, the Lorenzen family moved from Wisconsin to Alamogordo, New Mexico, as both Jim and Coral were hired to work as civilian employees at Holloman Air Force Base. In 1960 Jim was hired as senior technical associate with the Kitt Peak National Observatory and so the Lorenzens moved to Tucson, Arizona, where they lived till the end of their lives in the 1980s. In 1964 Jim became the director of APRO and Coral served as secretary-treasurer and editor of the Bulletin. Lt. Col. Wendelle Stevens moved to Tucson when he retired from the USAF, where he had the opportunity of working closely with the Lorenzens for many years. His collection of the Bulletin spans decades, from 1954 into the early1980s, providing an invaluable record of that ufological era.

An important legacy

Coral and Jim Lorenzen in a photo from an APRO brochure in the late 1960s. (image credit: APRO)

The Lorenzens’ legacy in the development of American ufology should not be underestimated. For starters, they created a professionally-run organization willing to investigate all aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Its emphasis was the scientific documentation of the cases themselves instead of all the idle speculation, theorizing and conspiracy rumors which unfortunately consume much of this field. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), currently the largest and best known organization in the USA, started as an offshoot of APRO in 1969 and follows most of its guiding principles.

Another area pioneered by APRO was to incorporate capable foreign representatives to investigate the best cases in their respective countries. This trend started with Horacio González in Venezuela, who documented a highly interesting humanoid wave in that country in 1954. Then came the Brazilian medical doctor Olavo Fontes, a pioneer ufologist not only in Brazil but worldwide, who investigated many fascinating—now classic—cases like the Antonio Villas Boas sexual abduction case, the Trindade Island UFO photos and countless others. There was also the Swedish writer K. Gosta Rehn and the Japanese journalist Junichi Takanashi. All these foreign contributors made APRO a truly cutting-edge organization with a global reach. The Lorenzens themselves visited several South American countries in the 1960s, collecting a trove of rich material published later in the Bulletin and in their books.

Yet another important factor was the recruitment of scientists and technical consultants, a policy later followed by MUFON. These included chemist Dr. Allen Utke, space expert Dr. Rene Hardy, biologist Dr. Frank Salisbury, engineer Dr. James Harder and psychologist Dr. Leo Sprinkle, who became a pioneer in the study of abductions. Finally, there was the public education aspect of conveying the real facts behind the UFO phenomenon, done mostly through their books and occasional media appearances and lectures.

The Lorenzens’ books have been out of print for years, the once voluminous APRO files are unfortunately lost and practically none of their material is available on the web. For all these reasons, Open Minds is proud to post our extensive collection of The APRO Bulletin, so the legacy of this pioneering organization can be used by current and future generations of ufologists. You can now freely download the bulletins by year and issue. Go to the APRO page in the Resources section here.

For further biographical information on Coral and Jim Lorenzen, see the Researcher Profile section on the newly released April/May issue of Open Minds magazine.

The APRO Bulletin collection is a part of the UFO Files section of the Open Minds Resources page. Additional bulletins will be added in the future, so be sure to periodically revisit the UFO Files section of the Resources page.

Huggins painting his experiences (credit: Pamela Suchy / The Jersey Journal)

Huggins claims that extraterrestrial beings began interacting with him at the young age of eight-years-old, and contact has continued throughout his life. In his painting titled “The Packaged Gray,” a Gray alien woman is depicted holding an alien-human hybrid baby inside a container. According to Huggins, this baby is just one of more than 60 hybrid children he fathered with the depicted alien woman.

The artist draws upon his training from the Art Students League and Hunter College in New York City to share his experiences with the world. His art show, UFO Abductee Experiences Exhibition, takes place tonight in Jersey City.

Stan Romanek and his book Messages.

Nothing should surprise me when it comes to Stan Romanek and his case, but what happened on my radio show today was a first for my program.   Apparently some sort of computer like voice came through his phone line and threatened him.

Romanek has been having strange experiences for years.  It started with UFO sightings, and then moved on to apparent abduction events, and got even stranger from there.  He made international news when a still from a video he took, that appears to be a grey alien, was circulated throughout the media.  Although a picture alone is hardly evidence, most people don’t know that Stan has an abundance of evidence that supports that he has been abducted by something or someone, including video footage of UFOs, Balls of light, and possible ETs.

I began investigating this case several years ago.  Right off the bat I got a strange phone call from a computer sounding voice.  It said something about how I should feel honored to be working on Stan’s case.  According to my phone records the call came from a blocked number.

A few days later, I had the chance to spend the day with Stan and his wife, and I found that they and others involved with the case had also received several strange phone calls like mine.  Eventually I received another when Stan was stressed out and having a hard time dealing with this experiences.  This call came on my cell phone, and asked me to support him.  This time the records showed that the call had came from my number.

I began investigating the calls further and eventually found the computer voice that was apparently being used.  It was a text to speech program, and the name of the voice we were hearing was Audrey.  It was a female British sounding voice made by a company called Natural Voices.  This demonstrated that it wouldn’t be too difficult for someone to accomplish.

This wasn’t the only evidence of people messing with Romanek.  He has police records, videos and pictures of people breaking into his house.  He has received strange messages in his email, and they have also appeared on his computer.  Is it the government investigating his alien abduction case?  Is it the government making him believe it is an alien abduction case?  Is it some other strange group of people perpetrating a hoax?  We can’t be sure yet.

One thing I did find is that Romanek is not hoaxing all of this material.  I have personally witnessed paranormal activity in his presence, and so have many others.  I have talked about my experiences, and devoted a radio show to the many Romanek witnesses, listen to it here.

So when we got a weird voice today on my radio show during an interview with Romanek, saying “You need to learn to keep your mouth shut”, and then his phone got disconnected, I wasn’t too surprised.  In fact, I have been expecting it to happen on one of Stan’s many radio interviews, I was just hoping it would not be mine.  Listen to the clip of the show here, and the entire show here.

Some people may be excited for something like this to happen on their show, but I am not looking for sensationalistic attention, I am looking for credible evidence.  A voice like this could have easily been done by Stan and gives the impression of being faked.  It can cause people to question his honesty, and perhaps that’s the goal of whoever would do such a thing.

I do not believe Stan faked this event.  I have known him for too long to believe that he would do something like this.  I have no idea how it happened.  I just hope that Stan’s life can get back to normal at some point.

As Stan announced on the show, he is in the process of having a documentary made.  It sounds like it should be done within the year.  Check out his website for the latest on its progress.

Stan Romanek’s site