The Hunter Who Became the Hunted | Carl Higdon Abduction

On a cold October afternoon in 1974, Carl Higdon aimed his rifle at a bull elk and pulled the trigger. The gun didn't kick. The bullet slid out of the barrel, floated about 50 feet, and dropped to the ground. Carl bent down to pick it up. Then a twig snapped behind him. He felt a tingle in the air, like the static before a thunderstorm. He turned around and found himself face to face with a creature that smiled at him, showing a mouthful of square teeth like two rows of dice. The creature had no chin, no neck, yellow skin, stiff straw-like hair, and two short antenna growing from its forehead. Where a hand should have been, a thin metal rod extended from its sleeve like a drill. It spoke in scrambled sounds that Carl somehow understood. It called itself Ausso.

Carl Higdon was a 41-year-old oil rig foreman from Rawlins, Wyoming. He had taken the day off when a crew member called in sick, borrowed the company truck, and drove south to hunt elk. On the way in, he stopped to help two stranded men fix their truck. They thanked him by pointing him toward a good hunting spot deep in the Medicine Bow National Forest. That good deed sent him straight to Ausso.

The Abduction and the Examination