Eupora, MS being encounter — October 16, 1973

Early Patterson reported a twilight encounter on U.S. Highway 82 near Eupora, Mississippi, during the October 1973 wave. David Webb's case 25 and Patterson's interview give October 17; the imported ledger gives October 16. Patterson said a roughly fifty-foot object hovered two or three feet over the road, apparently supported by light. His car's engine and lights failed while another car stopped behind him. A second similar object reportedly hovered about sixty feet above the first and illuminated it. Both resembled inverted cups and carried greenish-blue flashing lights. A creature emerged from the top of the lower object and held a handrail without descending to the road. It allegedly had gray fishlike skin, a wide mouth, one glowing eye, flipperlike feet, webbing between its legs and featherlike structures on its back that opened and closed as it moved. The figure returned inside, the craft rose, and the car could be restarted. Webb's catalogue and the surviving Patterson recording preserve the distinctive claim, but do not establish its cause. This must remain separate from John Lane's Gulfport taxi story and its reported hoax confession: a later timeline conflates Lane with the Eupora encounter. No corresponding Patterson confession is established by that source chain. The plate follows the two-craft, creature-on-handrail configuration rather than placing a generic alien on the road.