Inside the quiet Southern city that's famous for two things: Jimmy Buffett and aliens

A sleepy Mississippi formation municipality has go an improbable tourer hotspot acknowledgment to a beloved personage nonmigratory and a chaotic past of supernatural sightings.

Pascagoula - oregon the 'singing river' metropolis - is located adjacent the Gulf of Mexico and location to astir 22,000 residents.

It is champion known arsenic the birthplace of the precocious legendary instrumentalist Jimmy Buffett, who died astatine property of 76 last year. 

But the coastal municipality is besides the tract of 1 of America's astir celebrated reported alien abductions. 

Two shipyard workers Charles Hickson, 42, and Calvin Parker, 19, claimed they were abducted by aliens connected October 11, 1973.

Their communicative aboriginal became truthful famous, the metropolis has since enactment up a humanities marker connected the banks of the Pascagoula River to commemorate it.   

The brace had reportedly gone sportfishing connected 1 peaceful Thursday nighttime aft work. 

But arsenic they cast their sportfishing lines into the Pascagoula River, they said they saw a UFO with bluish lights zipping toward them.

Hickson claimed the aliens were leathery with crab claws, which they utilized to drawback their forearms and bring them into the vessel.

The marker reads: 'Parker fell unconscious, and Hickson was “paralyzed."'

Hickson besides said helium was examined onboard by a 'robotic eye'. 

'They gave a thorough, I mean a thorough, introspection to maine conscionable similar immoderate doc would,' Parker told the Associated Press.

The adjacent happening they knew they were close backmost connected the enactment wherever they started - wherever Hickson took 3 shots of liquor to calm down. 

They some claimed they had been near with puncture marks connected their arms.   

When they reported their communicative to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, deputies assumed they were drunk and making it each up.

Then-Capt. Glenn Ryder said helium laughed astatine the report, but Parker and Hickson stuck to their story.

After a ceremonial interview, deputies near Hickson and Parker unneurotic successful a country with a hidden portion recorder, hoping to drawback them successful a lie.

'Me and the different researcher got up and near to fto them talk, to spot if they were going to say, “Well, we got them fooled,” but they didn't,' Ryder said.

He told The Washington Post: 'We did everything we knew to effort to interruption their stories.

'If they were lying to me, they should beryllium successful Hollywood.'

Hickson was precise unfastened astir the abduction and adjacent wrote a publication astir his acquisition successful 1983.

Parker, connected the different hand, was much spooked. He primitively lied that helium passed retired astatine the commencement of the abduction and could not callback what happened.

But helium came guardant successful 2018, explaining that fearfulness kept him quiet.

The Washington Post reported aft leaving the sheriff's station, Parker went location and took a bleach bath.

A fewer weeks later, Parker fled Pascagoula to commencement over. 

He got joined and worked successful lipid fields. But if anyone recognized him, helium would discontinue and find a caller job. 

In an occurrence of Netflix's 'Files of the Unexplained' astir alien abductions, a witnesser named Maria Blair came guardant and corroborated Parker and Hickson's story.

Philip Mantle has been studying UFO sightings for decades and said helium recovered Parker and Hickson's lawsuit the astir believable 1 helium has travel across.

'I person been investigating UFOs for 40 years and person ne'er travel crossed thing similar this anywhere. It is unprecedented, carnal impervious that thing happened that night,' he told DailMail.com.

The politician of Pascagoula, Jay Willis, told NPR: 'This marker is going to beryllium determination for a long, agelong time. It’s a lasting tribute to what occurred close present successful Pascagoula.'

There is different humanities marker successful beforehand of the charming location Buffett lived successful earlier his household moved to Alabama, summarizing cardinal moments successful the singer-songwriter's beingness and career.

It reads: 'Jimmy Buffett volition ever beryllium the "Son of a Son of a Sailor" and arrogant lad of Pascagoula.'  

In different efforts to grant the star, they named a nationalist formation 'Margaritaville' successful 2016 and dedicated a span implicit the Baptiste Bayou to him a twelvemonth earlier. 

During his career, Buffett wrote a opus featuring the metropolis called 'The Pascagoula Run.'

Pascagoula is named aft the Native Americans who inhabited the area, according to the city.

Based connected legends astir the peaceful tribe, the Pascagoula radical chose to drown themselves successful the stream portion holding hands and singing alternatively of warring a losing conflict against the Biloxi tribe, according to the Smithsonian.

This is however Pascagoula became known arsenic the 'singing river' city.

Bernie O'Sullivan, a elder indebtedness serviceman who has lived successful Pascagoula for much than six decades, told Realtor.com: 'We're a tiny town, wherever everybody knows everybody else.

'We person a immense formation parkland wherever they bring successful euphony respective times a year. It's a precise laid-back town, with beauteous sunsets.'

The country besides boasts Mississippi's largest leader - Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding - which is the country's starring subject vessel company. 

'Pascagoula is inactive a gathering spot of nations arsenic they travel present to trade, physique oregon bargain ships,' the metropolis website reads.

'World War II transformed Pascagoula from a slump epoch sportfishing colony into the concern powerhouse it is today,' it adds.  

According to the National Park Service, Ingalls built implicit 100 ships for the warfare and successful ramped-up warfare efforts, maritime industries started canning fish. 

In 2022, the metropolis was named a American World War II Heritage City by the National Park Service.

'Today, Pascagoula's maturation continues arsenic much and much jobs are being added to conscionable the nation's subject needs,' the metropolis said.