Healed and Hunted | Campfire Stories with MrBallen

On October 25, 1974, Carl Higdon, a 41-year-old oil rig worker with scarred lungs from past tuberculosis, set out elk hunting in Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest. What began as a routine trip into McMurtry Canyon ended in disorientation, physical anomalies, and memories recovered only through hypnosis—details that researchers later called among the most credible for an alien abduction.

The Failed Shot and Blackout

Higdon hiked into the canyon after parking his company truck to avoid damage on the rough trail. His breathing struggled due to lung damage, but he spotted five elk grazing across the flat, bowl-like area ringed by hills. He aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger. No sound or recoil came. Instead, Higdon saw the bullet exit in slow motion, strike an invisible barrier, flatten and invert like a disc, then drop. A wave of vertigo hit; he blacked out.

He awoke around midnight in his truck, now inexplicably three miles from the main road, mired in a bog with no tire tracks leading to it—like it had been placed there. Two sheriff's deputies shook him awake; his speech was garbled. They rushed him to Carbon County Memorial Hospital in Rawlins, Wyoming. His wife, Marjorie, arrived to find him hooked to an IV, eyes open but unfocused, recognizing neither her nor his name.