Robots & Androids
Also known as: Automatons
- First known report
- The Flatwoods 'monster' (1952) is arguably a machine misread as a creature (see its own entry); Pascagoula, Mississippi (October 11, 1973) is the definitive robotic-entity case. The Cisco Grove, California case (1964) featured a robot alongside humanoids.
- Relative frequency
- occasional — clustered heavily in the 1973 U.S. wave
Physical description
Entities that move mechanically or appear artificial: metallic surfaces, stiff or gliding motion, absent facial features. The archetype is the Pascagoula being — 1.5 m, grey wrinkled 'elephant skin', carrot-like protrusions for nose and ears, lobster-claw hands, legs fused into a column, floating rather than walking.
Skeptical reading
Robotic entities peak precisely during the 1973 flap, when occupant reports of all kinds surged with saturation media coverage. Skeptics note Hickson and Parker's account survived a secretly recorded private conversation (often cited the other way, as evidence of sincerity) but attribute the experience to hypnagogic states after night fishing and subsequent narrative hardening. Sincerity and accuracy are separate questions — Pascagoula is the field's great case study in that distinction.
Famous cases
- pascagoula-1973
- cisco-grove-1964
- falkville-metal-man-1973