Carl Higdon Abduction, 1974
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In October of 1974, a man named Carl Higdon had a series of bizarre experiences while hunting elk in southern Wyoming. He was taken aboard a strange, transparent craft before being literally dropped back down to earth in a state of utter confusion. Carl’s case is significant not just for its fantastic narrative elements, but for the fact that it appears to have been an aborted disappearance. In this way, it may tell us something not just about UFO abduction experiences, but about a subset of missing persons cases with which they might share a cause.
Abduction
In October of 1974, Carl Higdon was 40 years old and working as an oil driller for AM Well Service in Riverton, Wyoming.(1) On Friday, October 25th, he had an unexpected day off, so he decided to go elk hunting. He packed his new 7mm Magnum rifle and headed south toward McCarty Canyon, which is around 40 miles, or 64 km, south of where he lived in the small city of Rawlins.(2) During his drive, Carl pulled over to help two fellow hunters whose pickup wouldn’t start. Over coffee, the hunters told Carl that he’d have better luck in the woods. Carl took their advice, and headed to the northern edge of Medicine Bow National Forest. He parked his pickup on a hill and had a brief discussion with the Game Warden, who happened to be there.(3)
It was around 4 p.m. when Carl began his hunt. He walked less than a mile into the forest when he arrived at a clearing. He noticed five elk a few hundred feet away, all entirely still. He pointed his rifle at the largest male and pulled the trigger. To his surprise, no sound was made, and the bullet left the barrel in slow-motion. It stopped around 50 feet in front of him, seemingly hitting something invisible before dropping into the snow.(4) Strangely, the elk didn’t flinch, and Carl noticed that the forest was unnaturally silent.(5)
After retrieving the bullet, Carl noticed a large, transparent box on the ground that was five feet high, five feet wide, and seven feet long. It looked to be made of glass, and was empty inside.(6) Sensing something nearby, Carl turned around to find a strange-looking humanoid floating upright before him, wearing a black suit similar to that of a scuba diver. Carl estimated the being to be around 6 ft. 2 in. tall and 180 pounds. Its skin was like that of an east-Asian person, with a face similar to a human’s, but with no chin and a severely receded jaw. It had no eyebrows, no ears, and small, slanted eyes. Its coarse, straw-coloured hair stood straight out from his head like bristles on a broom, grouped into small bunches spaced a half-inch apart. There were two distinct rods coming from the top of its head that looked to be antennas. The entity was wearing black shoes and a wide belt with a six-pointed star where the buckle would be, and a yellow symbol below it on a type of small apron. Its legs were noticeably bowed outward. It had no hands, but there was a cone-shaped appendage or device sticking out of its right sleeve.(7) Higdon referred to the being as a “man,” suggesting that it had some male characteristics.
The entity moved towards Carl by floating overtop of the snow. When it got within a few feet of Higdon, it asked him, “Are you hungry?,” though its lips never moved when it spoke.(8) Carl replied in the positive, then a small “envelope or packet” of four pills floated towards him, and the entity told Carl to take one. Though Carl was normally extremely reluctant to take pills, he promptly swallowed one as if he were being “controlled,” as he put it. The entity then asked Carl if he wanted to go with it, and he replied, “I might as well…” Carl expressed this latter choice was his own: having read about UFO encounters in the past, he had previously resolved to go with the UFOnauts should he ever encounter one himself.(9) The entity pointed its cone-shaped appendage at Carl, then suddenly he found himself elsewhere.
Inside the box
Carl’s next memory was of being inside the transparent rectangular box, itself seemingly within a larger transparent structure, both still resting in the forest. Carl was sitting in a type of bucket seat with his arms and head restrained. In the reflection on the glass above him he could see the five elk standing motionless in a cage. The entity from the forest was in the room, and two more similar beings were also nearby. Carl said, “You’ve got my elk,” and one of the beings shrugged.
The box lifted off the ground, and Higdon looked down to see his truck where he’d left it, but then the main entity waved its hand and the truck disappeared. Carl’s next memory was seeing what he described as a “blue ball” and a “huge marble” - seemingly the Earth - in the distance far below him.(10) The beings told Carl that they were going home, which they said was 163,000 light-miles away. Then they put a helmet on him that had six wires sticking out in all directions, and fastened a strap under his chin.(11)
Next, everything went black before a very bright light came on, causing Carl’s eyes to burn and water. Carl was now standing in front of one of the transparent walls of the outermost structure, looking out into a giant, featureless space, with no visible walls or ceiling. The light was coming from the top of a tower that he likened to the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, with lights rotating around the top. Below the tower he could see several humans, adults and children, in casual discussion. Two entities, one being the one that Carl met in the forest, took him down a long walkway towards the tower - this time, Carl was floating, just like the entities. He was led to a door that lifted up, before he was taken inside a large room. While inside, a 4 x 8 foot “shield” or “wall” dropped down in front of him, then lifted back up again into the ceiling. One of the entities then approached him and said: “You’re not what we want. We’ll take you back.”(12)
Higdon was then floated out of the room, back into the bright light. His eyes burned again, and the entities told him that the sun affected them in the same way when they were on Earth.(13) Higdon was then floated inside of what he called a “craft,” where he encountered the entity from the forest who now identified itself as Auzzo One. Auzzo explained that it, too, was a hunter, and that its kind had been coming to Earth for “many years… in search of fish and animals” to make into food pills. Each pill fed one of its kind for four days. Auzzo went on to say that their ocean had turned yellow, and that all the fish had died.(14) It then showed Hidgon a map of its planet, which was at least partially reproduced in the symbol on Auzzo’s apron. It told him that the nine planets of its solar system “supply the magnetic force” for their power. It also examined Higdon’s rifle, remarking that it would have liked to keep the primitive weapon, but was not allowed to. Auzzo also told Carl that their kind wear black to protect them from our sun.(15)
After the craft passed through a “dark void,” Carl could see that they’d arrived over the forest. Then, Auzzo told Higdon it “will see” him. To his surprise, Carl then found himself floating down to the ground below the craft. Before landing, his foot slipped on a rock, causing him to fall, roll down the hill, and hurt his shoulder.
Carl followed a nearby road until he came upon his pickup truck, but didn’t recognize it as his own. He sat in the truck and heard voices on the CB radio. After figuring out how to use it, he managed to connect with someone, who turned out to be his boss, Roy Fleming. Fleming asked for his name and location, but in his confused state, Carl was not able to give either: “I don’t know. I am so cold.” He simply declared that he was “in a pickup with a funny stick in the middle,” despite having learned how to drive stick shift as a youth.(16)
Rescue
It was around 6:30 p.m. when Fleming first heard from Higdon. Carl’s wife, Margery, returned from work around 4 p.m. with a growing “uneasy feeling,” and an urge to get to her husband, and was soon alerted to Carl’s distress call on the CB.(17) Carbon County Sheriff Charles Ogburn organized a search party consisting of himself, Deputy Sheriff Ed Tierney, and four local hunters. Margery called her friend, Marilyn James, whose husband, Don, took them out in his truck to help the search.(18) Due to the muddy roads, the Sheriff’s team had great difficulty reaching the area where they suspected Carl’s pickup to be. Margery and company were told to stay on the hill and await further command. After a long wait, Marilyn felt the truck moving, before excitedly pointing to a large moving “star” that was changing colors. Everyone in the vehicle then watched for around 20 minutes as the light moved in a large arc while flashing brightly, switching color from red, to green, to white.
The search party announced that they’d found Carl around 11:40 p.m.(19) His truck was found roughly three miles from where he’d originally parked it, stuck in a mud-hole, with no tire tracks leading to the site.(20) While waiting for the searchers to return to the forest gate, the trio noticed that a big, “bright red-orange light” was rising on the eastern horizon, which they took to be the sunrise - they only realized how unusual it was after seeing the real sunrise later that morning.(21)
When the search party returned, Margery immediately noticed that Carl was still in a confused, amnesic state. He had difficulty talking, and didn’t recognize her. Margery tried speaking to him, but he only looked back “as though he was looking through her,” in Margery’s words. Asked if he shot an elk, Carl looked up through the windshield and said, “They took my elk. They took my elk,” in a type of “sing-song” voice, as Margery described it.(22) Carl was visibly cold, so she tried to drape her coat over his shoulders, but he pulled back in fear, crying, “Don’t touch me!”
On the drive to the Carbon County Memorial Hospital in Rawlins, Carl asked Fleming why he wasn’t dressed in black, “Doesn’t the sun burn you?”(23) When Carl arrived at the emergency room at 2 a.m., his eyes were watering “profusely,” - apparently from the hospital lights - his shoulder was in pain, and he repeatedly asked for his pills that float to you. No bruises, bleeding, or broken bones were found. Test results detected no drugs in his system.(24) Dr. R. C. Tongco determined Carl was experiencing amnesic shock. When Margery asked him his name, he replied “They keep calling me Carl. Who is Carl?”
During his time at the hospital, Carl narrated some elements of the experience, but had trouble remembering it all. Margery gave him a pencil and paper and instructed him to write whatever he could recall. He drew a picture of the entity, then wrote the word, “ENDERS.” The deputy sheriff later revealed that another man named Enders was in a different part of the forest that night.(25) Carl also drew a forked road, a rough sketch of the transparent craft, listed two unidentified addresses, and made another note about a truck.
Higdon was released from hospital the morning of Monday, October 28th.
Aftermath
The results of the x-rays performed by Dr. Tongco found nothing of concern, even though Carl had x-rays taken years before the incident that showed scar tissue on his lungs from a past case of tuberculosis.(26) Carl also had several kidney stones before his experience, but none after. Still, days after being rescued, he experienced headaches and a pain in his back.(27)
When Carl spoke to Sue Taylor, a reporter for The Daily Times of Rawlins, he was still very much mystified by his experience, confessing that he “must be crazy.” Taylor’s article - the first on the case - appeared on Tuesday, October 29th. Fleming put Carl in touch with a local rehabilitation counselor, who in turn suggested that he speak with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist at the University of Wyoming who was interested in UFO experiences.(28)
On November 2nd, Dr. Sprinkle drove to Carl’s home for the first of several regressive hypnosis sessions. Hidgon was able to put more pieces of the experience together, and Sprinkle invited a local art teacher make a drawing of Auzzo One.(29) Dr. Sprinkle went on to meet with Marilyn James, Sheriff Ogburn, Dr. Tongco, Carl’s nurse at the hospital, some members of the search party, and several locals. Those who knew Carl said that they considered him honest and hardworking.(30) Psychological and psychiatric tests at the University of Wyoming revealed no signs of mental illness.(31)
One evening, Carl suggested to Margery they go out for a drive with their son. Carl drove a few miles south of town, taking a dirt road up a hill, seemingly knowing where he was going. Over 150 ft in the sky above them, the family saw a bright green light shaped like a “large upside-down ice cream cone,” and smelled a terrible odour of dirty socks and sulphur. Dismayed, Carl then announced, “I am late. I was to be here a few minutes earlier.”(32)
A few nights later, Carl woke Margery and said, “I know it is weird. I am in bed with you; yet, I am out south of town. They are telling me, ‘Look for a Black Box.’” He felt that they were telling him that they could contact him whenever they wanted to. This made Carl quite distressed, and triggered his shoulder pain. Numerous times on Carl’s drive to and from work he was followed by lights in the sky that others saw as well, and both Carl and Margery felt that their phone was tapped.(33)
Carl claims that he still has telepathic communication with Auzzo on rare occasion. For example, Carl once told Auzzo that Rawlins needed some rain. The next day it rained 3 inches, then another 2 inches the following day, before he told Auzzo to stop and the rain ceased.(34)
Higdon speculated that before shooting his rifle on the day of the incident, he had entered some type of “force field” that slowed his bullet down.(35) At one point, Carl, along with Don, Marilyn, and others, returned to the location of the incident to take pictures and scan for metal, seeking, in vain, to find the missing lead of the bullet. At the spot where the transparent box had sat, they noticed that nearby leaves were burnt, and some trees in the area had strange, weathered carvings.(36)
The bullet was examined by investigators led by Dr. Walter Walker, a metallurgy consultant for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, or APRO. Walker could only conclude that it hit something hard to turn it inside out. The bullet was also examined by a metallurgist at the University of Wyoming. Some time after, the bullet disappeared from the university’s safe.(37)
Analysis
The TV crew for the show In Search Of visited Rawlins, as did a Japanese film crew. The National Enquirer also arranged for Carl to take a polygraph test, which he passed - the first of several.(38) Margery said she was compelled to write Carl’s story decades prior to self-publishing the narrative in 2017 under the title Alien Abduction of the Wyoming Hunter.(39)
In 2022, David Paulides made one of several documentaries about people going missing in unusual circumstances. Paulides conducted new interviews with Carl and his wife, and compared the case’s similarities to other disappearances in the same region.(40) Paulides noted the significance of Higdon being dropped at the end of the incident. This is consistent with hundreds of cases of unusual deaths that he investigated where the recovered body appeared to be dropped from above.(41) The fact that there were apparently no tracks leading up to the muddy spot where Carl’s pickup was recovered suggests that it was dropped as well.(42) Researchers such as Linda Moulton Howe have documented that many cases of animal mutilation involve carcasses with broken legs, no surrounding tracks, and impacted soil, suggesting that they, too, were dropped.(43)
Carl believes that some kind of a medical examination occurred when the “shield” or “wall” dropped in front of him, and that he somehow failed the test. While Carl initially speculated that he was rejected due to the effects of the light on his eyes, he later suggested that it was due to his vasectomy.(44)
The fact that Carl apparently healed from his lung scarring and his kidney stones is also significant. Preston Dennett has compiled over 300 cases involving spontaneous healing connected to a UFO or entity encounter.(45) Dennett concludes that the beings in these encounters are advanced extraterrestrials, neither benevolent nor evil, healing people “for reasons beyond just testing and experimentation.”(46)
There was a disappearance in the same forest that Carl was abducted from almost exactly 35 years later. Mark Anthony Strittmater had 15 years’ experience hunting in the region at the time he disappeared on October 19th, 2019. Similar to Higdon, the spot Mark disappeared from happened to be an area he’d never hunted in before. Interestingly, at the conclusion of a previous hunt, Mark saw a black UFO that followed him for a time. Like Higdon, and many other missing persons, Mark was of German ethnicity, but never had a vasectomy.(47)
Ufologist Jacques Vallée has noted that many historical encounters with fairies, elves, and other mythical creatures involve the experiencer being offered some type of food. In several such cases, people who cooperate with the fairy folk are rewarded with an inexhaustible food supply.(48) At the same time, Irish tradition holds that if you take food from the fairy world, you become a fairy yourself, and never return to the mortal realm.(49)
There are many other UFO-related entity encounters on record that involve the beings floating over the ground, or otherwise moving about in a very unusual way. For example, the creatures that emerged from the craft at Pascagoula, Mississippi, floated out of their craft, and the so-called “goblins” at Kelly-Hopkinsville hovered over the ground by swaying their hips back and forth. Another unusual detail is the fact that Auzzo measured the distance from his planet to Earth in light-miles, rather than light-years.(50) Many UFO abduction experiences contain absurd elements like this. For example, the Italian abductee, Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, claimed that giant, gilled aliens told him that they came from the “third galaxy,” an extremely simplistic and astronomically meaningless description.(51)
Conclusion
Reading Hidgon’s account, it is easy to infer that he was meant to be taken away forever, but was unexpectedly rejected. It may be that some people who have gone missing under unusual circumstances were abducted in a similar manner, and simply not returned again. In other words, the kinds of missing persons cases investigated by David Paulides may be due, in part, to the same phenomenon responsible for many UFO abduction experiences and other anomalous entity encounters. Whatever reason his abductors had for rejecting Carl, it may very well have saved his life.
In October of 1974, a man named Carl Higdon had a series of bizarre experiences while hunting elk in southern Wyoming. He was taken aboard a strange, transparent craft before being literally dropped back down to earth in a state of utter confusion. Carl’s case is significant not just for its fantastic narrative elements, but for the fact that it appears to have been an aborted disappearance. In this way, it may tell us something not just about UFO abduction experiences, but about a subset of missing persons cases with which they might share a cause.
Abduction
In October of 1974, Carl Higdon was 40 years old and working as an oil driller for AM Well Service in Riverton, Wyoming.(1) On Friday, October 25th, he had an unexpected day off, so he decided to go elk hunting. He packed his new 7mm Magnum rifle and headed south toward McCarty Canyon, which is around 40 miles, or 64 km, south of where he lived in the small city of Rawlins.(2) During his drive, Carl pulled over to help two fellow hunters whose pickup wouldn’t start. Over coffee, the hunters told Carl that he’d have better luck in the woods. Carl took their advice, and headed to the northern edge of Medicine Bow National Forest. He parked his pickup on a hill and had a brief discussion with the Game Warden, who happened to be there.(3)
It was around 4 p.m. when Carl began his hunt. He walked less than a mile into the forest when he arrived at a clearing. He noticed five elk a few hundred feet away, all entirely still. He pointed his rifle at the largest male and pulled the trigger. To his surprise, no sound was made, and the bullet left the barrel in slow-motion. It stopped around 50 feet in front of him, seemingly hitting something invisible before dropping into the snow.(4) Strangely, the elk didn’t flinch, and Carl noticed that the forest was unnaturally silent.(5)
After retrieving the bullet, Carl noticed a large, transparent box on the ground that was five feet high, five feet wide, and seven feet long. It looked to be made of glass, and was empty inside.(6) Sensing something nearby, Carl turned around to find a strange-looking humanoid floating upright before him, wearing a black suit similar to that of a scuba diver. Carl estimated the being to be around 6 ft. 2 in. tall and 180 pounds. Its skin was like that of an east-Asian person, with a face similar to a human’s, but with no chin and a severely receded jaw. It had no eyebrows, no ears, and small, slanted eyes. Its coarse, straw-coloured hair stood straight out from his head like bristles on a broom, grouped into small bunches spaced a half-inch apart. There were two distinct rods coming from the top of its head that looked to be antennas. The entity was wearing black shoes and a wide belt with a six-pointed star where the buckle would be, and a yellow symbol below it on a type of small apron. Its legs were noticeably bowed outward. It had no hands, but there was a cone-shaped appendage or device sticking out of its right sleeve.(7) Higdon referred to the being as a “man,” suggesting that it had some male characteristics.
The entity moved towards Carl by floating overtop of the snow. When it got within a few feet of Higdon, it asked him, “Are you hungry?,” though its lips never moved when it spoke.(8) Carl replied in the positive, then a small “envelope or packet” of four pills floated towards him, and the entity told Carl to take one. Though Carl was normally extremely reluctant to take pills, he promptly swallowed one as if he were being “controlled,” as he put it. The entity then asked Carl if he wanted to go with it, and he replied, “I might as well…” Carl expressed this latter choice was his own: having read about UFO encounters in the past, he had previously resolved to go with the UFOnauts should he ever encounter one himself.(9) The entity pointed its cone-shaped appendage at Carl, then suddenly he found himself elsewhere.
Inside the box
Carl’s next memory was of being inside the transparent rectangular box, itself seemingly within a larger transparent structure, both still resting in the forest. Carl was sitting in a type of bucket seat with his arms and head restrained. In the reflection on the glass above him he could see the five elk standing motionless in a cage. The entity from the forest was in the room, and two more similar beings were also nearby. Carl said, “You’ve got my elk,” and one of the beings shrugged.
The box lifted off the ground, and Higdon looked down to see his truck where he’d left it, but then the main entity waved its hand and the truck disappeared. Carl’s next memory was seeing what he described as a “blue ball” and a “huge marble” - seemingly the Earth - in the distance far below him.(10) The beings told Carl that they were going home, which they said was 163,000 light-miles away. Then they put a helmet on him that had six wires sticking out in all directions, and fastened a strap under his chin.(11)
Next, everything went black before a very bright light came on, causing Carl’s eyes to burn and water. Carl was now standing in front of one of the transparent walls of the outermost structure, looking out into a giant, featureless space, with no visible walls or ceiling. The light was coming from the top of a tower that he likened to the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, with lights rotating around the top. Below the tower he could see several humans, adults and children, in casual discussion. Two entities, one being the one that Carl met in the forest, took him down a long walkway towards the tower - this time, Carl was floating, just like the entities. He was led to a door that lifted up, before he was taken inside a large room. While inside, a 4 x 8 foot “shield” or “wall” dropped down in front of him, then lifted back up again into the ceiling. One of the entities then approached him and said: “You’re not what we want. We’ll take you back.”(12)
Higdon was then floated out of the room, back into the bright light. His eyes burned again, and the entities told him that the sun affected them in the same way when they were on Earth.(13) Higdon was then floated inside of what he called a “craft,” where he encountered the entity from the forest who now identified itself as Auzzo One. Auzzo explained that it, too, was a hunter, and that its kind had been coming to Earth for “many years… in search of fish and animals” to make into food pills. Each pill fed one of its kind for four days. Auzzo went on to say that their ocean had turned yellow, and that all the fish had died.(14) It then showed Hidgon a map of its planet, which was at least partially reproduced in the symbol on Auzzo’s apron. It told him that the nine planets of its solar system “supply the magnetic force” for their power. It also examined Higdon’s rifle, remarking that it would have liked to keep the primitive weapon, but was not allowed to. Auzzo also told Carl that their kind wear black to protect them from our sun.(15)
After the craft passed through a “dark void,” Carl could see that they’d arrived over the forest. Then, Auzzo told Higdon it “will see” him. To his surprise, Carl then found himself floating down to the ground below the craft. Before landing, his foot slipped on a rock, causing him to fall, roll down the hill, and hurt his shoulder.
Carl followed a nearby road until he came upon his pickup truck, but didn’t recognize it as his own. He sat in the truck and heard voices on the CB radio. After figuring out how to use it, he managed to connect with someone, who turned out to be his boss, Roy Fleming. Fleming asked for his name and location, but in his confused state, Carl was not able to give either: “I don’t know. I am so cold.” He simply declared that he was “in a pickup with a funny stick in the middle,” despite having learned how to drive stick shift as a youth.(16)
Rescue
It was around 6:30 p.m. when Fleming first heard from Higdon. Carl’s wife, Margery, returned from work around 4 p.m. with a growing “uneasy feeling,” and an urge to get to her husband, and was soon alerted to Carl’s distress call on the CB.(17) Carbon County Sheriff Charles Ogburn organized a search party consisting of himself, Deputy Sheriff Ed Tierney, and four local hunters. Margery called her friend, Marilyn James, whose husband, Don, took them out in his truck to help the search.(18) Due to the muddy roads, the Sheriff’s team had great difficulty reaching the area where they suspected Carl’s pickup to be. Margery and company were told to stay on the hill and await further command. After a long wait, Marilyn felt the truck moving, before excitedly pointing to a large moving “star” that was changing colors. Everyone in the vehicle then watched for around 20 minutes as the light moved in a large arc while flashing brightly, switching color from red, to green, to white.
The search party announced that they’d found Carl around 11:40 p.m.(19) His truck was found roughly three miles from where he’d originally parked it, stuck in a mud-hole, with no tire tracks leading to the site.(20) While waiting for the searchers to return to the forest gate, the trio noticed that a big, “bright red-orange light” was rising on the eastern horizon, which they took to be the sunrise - they only realized how unusual it was after seeing the real sunrise later that morning.(21)
When the search party returned, Margery immediately noticed that Carl was still in a confused, amnesic state. He had difficulty talking, and didn’t recognize her. Margery tried speaking to him, but he only looked back “as though he was looking through her,” in Margery’s words. Asked if he shot an elk, Carl looked up through the windshield and said, “They took my elk. They took my elk,” in a type of “sing-song” voice, as Margery described it.(22) Carl was visibly cold, so she tried to drape her coat over his shoulders, but he pulled back in fear, crying, “Don’t touch me!”
On the drive to the Carbon County Memorial Hospital in Rawlins, Carl asked Fleming why he wasn’t dressed in black, “Doesn’t the sun burn you?”(23) When Carl arrived at the emergency room at 2 a.m., his eyes were watering “profusely,” - apparently from the hospital lights - his shoulder was in pain, and he repeatedly asked for his pills that float to you. No bruises, bleeding, or broken bones were found. Test results detected no drugs in his system.(24) Dr. R. C. Tongco determined Carl was experiencing amnesic shock. When Margery asked him his name, he replied “They keep calling me Carl. Who is Carl?”
During his time at the hospital, Carl narrated some elements of the experience, but had trouble remembering it all. Margery gave him a pencil and paper and instructed him to write whatever he could recall. He drew a picture of the entity, then wrote the word, “ENDERS.” The deputy sheriff later revealed that another man named Enders was in a different part of the forest that night.(25) Carl also drew a forked road, a rough sketch of the transparent craft, listed two unidentified addresses, and made another note about a truck.
Higdon was released from hospital the morning of Monday, October 28th.
Aftermath
The results of the x-rays performed by Dr. Tongco found nothing of concern, even though Carl had x-rays taken years before the incident that showed scar tissue on his lungs from a past case of tuberculosis.(26) Carl also had several kidney stones before his experience, but none after. Still, days after being rescued, he experienced headaches and a pain in his back.(27)
When Carl spoke to Sue Taylor, a reporter for The Daily Times of Rawlins, he was still very much mystified by his experience, confessing that he “must be crazy.” Taylor’s article - the first on the case - appeared on Tuesday, October 29th. Fleming put Carl in touch with a local rehabilitation counselor, who in turn suggested that he speak with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist at the University of Wyoming who was interested in UFO experiences.(28)
On November 2nd, Dr. Sprinkle drove to Carl’s home for the first of several regressive hypnosis sessions. Hidgon was able to put more pieces of the experience together, and Sprinkle invited a local art teacher make a drawing of Auzzo One.(29) Dr. Sprinkle went on to meet with Marilyn James, Sheriff Ogburn, Dr. Tongco, Carl’s nurse at the hospital, some members of the search party, and several locals. Those who knew Carl said that they considered him honest and hardworking.(30) Psychological and psychiatric tests at the University of Wyoming revealed no signs of mental illness.(31)
One evening, Carl suggested to Margery they go out for a drive with their son. Carl drove a few miles south of town, taking a dirt road up a hill, seemingly knowing where he was going. Over 150 ft in the sky above them, the family saw a bright green light shaped like a “large upside-down ice cream cone,” and smelled a terrible odour of dirty socks and sulphur. Dismayed, Carl then announced, “I am late. I was to be here a few minutes earlier.”(32)
A few nights later, Carl woke Margery and said, “I know it is weird. I am in bed with you; yet, I am out south of town. They are telling me, ‘Look for a Black Box.’” He felt that they were telling him that they could contact him whenever they wanted to. This made Carl quite distressed, and triggered his shoulder pain. Numerous times on Carl’s drive to and from work he was followed by lights in the sky that others saw as well, and both Carl and Margery felt that their phone was tapped.(33)
Carl claims that he still has telepathic communication with Auzzo on rare occasion. For example, Carl once told Auzzo that Rawlins needed some rain. The next day it rained 3 inches, then another 2 inches the following day, before he told Auzzo to stop and the rain ceased.(34)
Higdon speculated that before shooting his rifle on the day of the incident, he had entered some type of “force field” that slowed his bullet down.(35) At one point, Carl, along with Don, Marilyn, and others, returned to the location of the incident to take pictures and scan for metal, seeking, in vain, to find the missing lead of the bullet. At the spot where the transparent box had sat, they noticed that nearby leaves were burnt, and some trees in the area had strange, weathered carvings.(36)
The bullet was examined by investigators led by Dr. Walter Walker, a metallurgy consultant for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, or APRO. Walker could only conclude that it hit something hard to turn it inside out. The bullet was also examined by a metallurgist at the University of Wyoming. Some time after, the bullet disappeared from the university’s safe.(37)
Analysis
The TV crew for the show In Search Of visited Rawlins, as did a Japanese film crew. The National Enquirer also arranged for Carl to take a polygraph test, which he passed - the first of several.(38) Margery said she was compelled to write Carl’s story decades prior to self-publishing the narrative in 2017 under the title Alien Abduction of the Wyoming Hunter.(39)
In 2022, David Paulides made one of several documentaries about people going missing in unusual circumstances. Paulides conducted new interviews with Carl and his wife, and compared the case’s similarities to other disappearances in the same region.(40) Paulides noted the significance of Higdon being dropped at the end of the incident. This is consistent with hundreds of cases of unusual deaths that he investigated where the recovered body appeared to be dropped from above.(41) The fact that there were apparently no tracks leading up to the muddy spot where Carl’s pickup was recovered suggests that it was dropped as well.(42) Researchers such as Linda Moulton Howe have documented that many cases of animal mutilation involve carcasses with broken legs, no surrounding tracks, and impacted soil, suggesting that they, too, were dropped.(43)
Carl believes that some kind of a medical examination occurred when the “shield” or “wall” dropped in front of him, and that he somehow failed the test. While Carl initially speculated that he was rejected due to the effects of the light on his eyes, he later suggested that it was due to his vasectomy.(44)
The fact that Carl apparently healed from his lung scarring and his kidney stones is also significant. Preston Dennett has compiled over 300 cases involving spontaneous healing connected to a UFO or entity encounter.(45) Dennett concludes that the beings in these encounters are advanced extraterrestrials, neither benevolent nor evil, healing people “for reasons beyond just testing and experimentation.”(46)
There was a disappearance in the same forest that Carl was abducted from almost exactly 35 years later. Mark Anthony Strittmater had 15 years’ experience hunting in the region at the time he disappeared on October 19th, 2019. Similar to Higdon, the spot Mark disappeared from happened to be an area he’d never hunted in before. Interestingly, at the conclusion of a previous hunt, Mark saw a black UFO that followed him for a time. Like Higdon, and many other missing persons, Mark was of German ethnicity, but never had a vasectomy.(47)
Ufologist Jacques Vallée has noted that many historical encounters with fairies, elves, and other mythical creatures involve the experiencer being offered some type of food. In several such cases, people who cooperate with the fairy folk are rewarded with an inexhaustible food supply.(48) At the same time, Irish tradition holds that if you take food from the fairy world, you become a fairy yourself, and never return to the mortal realm.(49)
There are many other UFO-related entity encounters on record that involve the beings floating over the ground, or otherwise moving about in a very unusual way. For example, the creatures that emerged from the craft at Pascagoula, Mississippi, floated out of their craft, and the so-called “goblins” at Kelly-Hopkinsville hovered over the ground by swaying their hips back and forth. Another unusual detail is the fact that Auzzo measured the distance from his planet to Earth in light-miles, rather than light-years.(50) Many UFO abduction experiences contain absurd elements like this. For example, the Italian abductee, Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, claimed that giant, gilled aliens told him that they came from the “third galaxy,” an extremely simplistic and astronomically meaningless description.(51)
Conclusion
Reading Hidgon’s account, it is easy to infer that he was meant to be taken away forever, but was unexpectedly rejected. It may be that some people who have gone missing under unusual circumstances were abducted in a similar manner, and simply not returned again. In other words, the kinds of missing persons cases investigated by David Paulides may be due, in part, to the same phenomenon responsible for many UFO abduction experiences and other anomalous entity encounters. Whatever reason his abductors had for rejecting Carl, it may very well have saved his life.
Notes:
1) R. Leo Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report on the Investigation of an Alleged UFO Occupant Encounter.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, November, 1975, 3; Sue Taylor, “[article title unknown]”, Rawlins Daily Times (vol. LXXXVII, no. 204), October 29, 1974 [Article reproduced in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5].
2) Margery A. Higdon, Alien Abduction of The Wyoming Hunter: First person story of Carl Higdon, October 25, 1974 (USA, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), 1; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Frank Bourke, “I was kidnapped by a UFO bubble,” Lafayette National Star, March 22, 1975 [Article reproduced in Gordon Creighton, "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon," Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5]; While the population is small, it’s called a city: The City of Rawlins, “Rawlins, WY - Official Website,” The City of Rawlins, Wyoming, https://rawlinswy.gov; Howard Lipstone and Deborah Blum, “UFO Captives,” In Search Of…, Season 3, Episode 1, September 14, 1978, 22 minutes, Alan Landsburg Productions, at 1:00.
3) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 1-2; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon | The Carl Higdon Alien Abduction Story,” Inception Radio Network, YouTube video, 1:13:36, November 2, 2017, at 11:50.
4) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 3; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, directed by David Paulides (Ad Astra Distribution, 2022), 1 hr., 33 min, at 51:40.
5) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4.
6) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 54:05, Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 37:00; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4, just says 7 x 7 ft glass craft.
7) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4, 47-48, 59; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5-6, note in this interview Higdon stated “in place of hands he seemed to have two tapered, rod-like appendages”; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:05, 56:10, Higdon’s wife describes the clothing piece as “kind of an apron” and claims "it shows, kind of, where the land is in his planet," so this suggests it to be the topographical map, or a copy of it, that Carl mentioned, but Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, just says, “He shows me a land mass map of his planet.”
8) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 56:40.
9) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4-5; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5.
10) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6, 64, to clarify, this source doesn’t specify that the blue spherical object was any “distance… far” below him, just that it was below him; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:25, at 57:55, Carl states, “I figured it was the Earth, I didn’t know.”; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 37:00, 47:30.
11) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4-5, Carl says just “163,000 miles”; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6, Carl says “light years”; note this helmet event isn’t mentioned in Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6 and instead on, 8, Auzzo indicates the distance is “light-miles” while taking Carl back; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 46:45, Carl confirms “light-miles” but “we don’t know what light-miles are.”
12) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6-7, 45-46; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:30, note only this source does Higdon specify one was Auzzo who told him “You’re not what we want. We’ll take you back;” Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 38:40.
13) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 7; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 52:25; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5.
14) Note that sources disagree over the pills lasting 3 or 4 days, while Margery Higdon in Alien Abduction, 8, 24, 45-46, said that the pills would last three days, Carl clarified that he was told that they lasted four days, and kept him satiated for three-and-a-half days; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:05; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 45:00, Carl says, “that pill was supposed to last 4 days to them, and it lasted about 3 and a half for me.”
15) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 56:25, Higdon’s wife describes it as “kind of an apron” and claims "it shows, kind of, where the land is in his planet," so this suggests it to be the topographical map, or a copy of it, that Carl mentioned, but Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, just says, “He shows me a land mass map of his planet.”
16) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 9, 45-46; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 58:30.
17) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 11-13, 67-68; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 59:05; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 9:50.
18) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 13-14; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; FindAGrave, “Charles Wesley “Chuck” Ogburn,” FindAGrave.com.
19) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 15-18; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6.
20) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 58; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 48:20.
21) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 19, 26-27; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 16:15.
22) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 19; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 59:45.
23) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 20-23; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6.
24) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 24-25; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Lipstone and Blum, “UFO Captives,” at 3:45.
25) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 29-30; “R. C. Tongco, M.D.” appears in CarbonCountyWyoming.gov, “COMMISSIONER'S PROCEEDINGS,” CarbonCountyWyoming.gov, June 7, 1977, 1; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 59:58.
26) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:10.
27) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 61; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5.
28) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3, note the source incorrectly says “Tuesday, October 25th, 1974,” but that was a Friday and Sprinkle likely didn’t find out until the following Tuesday; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 31-33, note Higdon calls the counselor Rick Nantkse, assuming this to be incorrect name or deliberately changed to protect identity as stated on the copyright page.
29) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 37-40, 44-48; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3-4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 7.
30) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 40-41.
31) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 47-49; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 57:15.
32) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 50; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:00:00.
33) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 51-52, 61; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:01:30.
34) Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 53:50.
35) Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 7; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:03:45; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 53-54, 58-59.
36) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 53-54; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 52:00, for a photo of carvings on trees.
37) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 35-36, 61.
38) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 55, 57; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:01:55; Lipstone and Blum, “UFO Captives.”
39) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 67; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:08:20.
40) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 51:40 onward. To be clear, the documentary was released in 2022 and was the third documentary on the Missing 411 subject made by Paulides across the years.
41) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 58:30.
42) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 58; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 48:20.
43) Evidence of dropped carcass by Linda Moulton Howe, "Scientific Data Supports Theory That Mutilated Montana Cow Dropped from Sky and Bounced,” Earthfiles, November 24, 2006; For two mutilated cows being found with no surrounding tracks see Garrett Andrews, “Detectives perplexed by mysterious Oregon cattle mutilations,” Oregon Live, April 18, 2021, Updated April 23, 2021; For cases with broken legs see Lacey Vilhauer, “Mysterious mutilations: Who or what is killing these cattle?” High Plains Journal, October 28, 2022, and Rachel Monroe, “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations,” The New Yorker,
May 8, 2023; For another case with no tracks see Morgan Winsor, “Texas authorities investigate mysterious cases of dead, mutilated cows,” ABC News, April 24, 2023.
44) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 7, 61; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:30; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 31:50.
45) Preston E. Dennett, The Healing Power of UFOs: 300 True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials (Independently published, 2019).
46) Preston E. Dennett, UFO healings: True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials (Mill Spring, NC, USA: Wildflower Press, 1996), 165, quotation found in this earlier edition of the 2019 book.
47) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:04:25, at 52:10, Higdon’s wife said she otherwise “always" went hunting with Carl, going by himself was “very rare,” and the location the incident began was a new location for Carl to hunt in.
48) Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1969) 2014), 37, 40 - 41.
49) Jacques Vallée, Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact (San Antonio, TX, USA: Anomalist Books, (1988) 2008), 52.
50) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4-5, Carl says just “163,000 miles”; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6, Carl says “light years”; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, Auzzo indicates the distance is “light-miles” while taking Carl back; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 46:45, Carl confirms “light-miles” but “we don’t know what light-miles are.”; for info on entities giving false information to contactees see Jacques Vallée, Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1979) 2008).
51) For information, see our video covering the Zanfretta case and its sources here: https://thinkanomalous.com/zanfretta-abductions.html.
Sources:
Bourke, Frank. “I was kidnapped by a UFO bubble.” Lafayette National Star. March 22, 1975. [Article reproduced in Creighton, "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon." Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5-7.]
CarbonCountyWyoming.gov. “COMMISSIONER'S PROCEEDINGS.” CarbonCountyWyoming.gov. June 7, 1977. https://carboncountywy.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4688.
The City of Rawlins. “Rawlins, WY - Official Website.” The City of Rawlins, Wyoming. https://rawlinswy.gov.
Creighton, Gordon. "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon." Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5-7. http://noufors.com/Documents/Books,%20Manuals%20and%20Published%20Papers/Specialty%20UFO%20Publications/Flying%20Saucer%20Review/FSR,1975,V%2021,N%203-4.pdf.
Dennett, Preston E. UFO healings: True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials. Mill Spring, NC, USA: Wildflower Press, 1996. https://archive.org/details/ufohealingstruea00denn/mode/2up.
Dennett, Preston E. The Healing Power of UFOs: 300 True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials. USA: Independently published, 2019.
FindAGrave. “Charles Wesley “Chuck” Ogburn.” FindAGrave.com. https://findagrave.com/memorial/133144811/charles-wesley-ogburn.
Higdon, Margery A. Alien Abduction of The Wyoming Hunter: First person story of Carl Higdon, October 25, 1974. USA, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2017.
Lipstone, Howard, and Deborah Blum. “UFO Captives.” In Search Of… . Season 3, Episode 1. September 14, 1978. 22 minutes, Alan Landsburg Productions. https://imdb.com/title/tt0894236. https://youtu.be/7ItdeRBpElc. https://youtu.be/ZJ6vG0CqykM.
Paulides, David, director. Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection. Ad Astra Distribution, 2022. 1 hr., 33 min. https://imdb.com/title/tt22080556.
Sprinkle, R. Leo. “A Preliminary Report on the Investigation of an Alleged UFO Occupant Encounter.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 3 - 5. November, 1975. http://noufors.com/Documents/Books,%20Manuals%20and%20Published%20Papers/Specialty%20UFO%20Publications/Flying%20Saucer%20Review/FSR,1975,V%2021,N%203-4.pdf.
Supernatural Girlz. “Carl & Margery Higdon | The Carl Higdon Alien Abduction Story.” Inception Radio Network. YouTube video, 1:13:36. November 2, 2017. https://youtu.be/789LVh-GF1Y.
Taylor, Sue. “[article title unknown]”. Rawlins Daily Times (vol. LXXXVII, No. 204). October 29, 1974. Article reproduced in Sprinkle. “A Preliminary Report.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 4-5.
Vallée, Jacques. Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact. San Antonio, TX, USA: Anomalist Books, (1988) 2008.
https://archive.org/details/dimensionscasebo00jacq.
Vallée, Jacques. Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults. Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1979) 2008. https://archive.org/details/MessengersOfDeceptionUFOContactsAndCultsJacquesValle1979.
Vallée, Jacques. Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers. Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1969) 2014. https://archive.org/details/passporttomagoni0000vall_m8g5.
Animal Mutilation Sources:
Andrews, Garrett. “Detectives perplexed by mysterious Oregon cattle mutilations.” Oregon Live. April 18, 2021, Updated, April 23, 2021. https://oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2021/04/detectives-perplexed-by-mysterious-oregon-cattle-mutilations.html.
Howe, Linda Moulton. “Scientific Data Supports Theory That Mutilated Montana Cow Dropped from Sky and Bounced.” Earthfiles. November 24, 2006. https://earthfiles.com/2006/11/24/scientific-data-supports-theory-that-mutilated-montana-cow-dropped-from-sky-and-bounced.
Monroe, Rachel. “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations.” The New Yorker. May 8, 2023. https://newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-enduring-panic-about-cow-mutilations.
Vilhauer, Lacey. “Mysterious mutilations: Who or what is killing these cattle?” High Plains Journal. October 28, 2022.
https://hpj.com/2022/10/28/mysterious-mutilations-who-or-what-is-killing-these-cattle.
Winsor, Morgan. “Texas authorities investigate mysterious cases of dead, mutilated cows.” ABC News. April 24, 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-authorities-investigate-mysterious-cases-dead-mutilated-cows/story?id=98794152.
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Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research and draft writing by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
1) R. Leo Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report on the Investigation of an Alleged UFO Occupant Encounter.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, November, 1975, 3; Sue Taylor, “[article title unknown]”, Rawlins Daily Times (vol. LXXXVII, no. 204), October 29, 1974 [Article reproduced in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5].
2) Margery A. Higdon, Alien Abduction of The Wyoming Hunter: First person story of Carl Higdon, October 25, 1974 (USA, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), 1; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Frank Bourke, “I was kidnapped by a UFO bubble,” Lafayette National Star, March 22, 1975 [Article reproduced in Gordon Creighton, "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon," Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5]; While the population is small, it’s called a city: The City of Rawlins, “Rawlins, WY - Official Website,” The City of Rawlins, Wyoming, https://rawlinswy.gov; Howard Lipstone and Deborah Blum, “UFO Captives,” In Search Of…, Season 3, Episode 1, September 14, 1978, 22 minutes, Alan Landsburg Productions, at 1:00.
3) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 1-2; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon | The Carl Higdon Alien Abduction Story,” Inception Radio Network, YouTube video, 1:13:36, November 2, 2017, at 11:50.
4) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 3; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, directed by David Paulides (Ad Astra Distribution, 2022), 1 hr., 33 min, at 51:40.
5) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4.
6) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 54:05, Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 37:00; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4, just says 7 x 7 ft glass craft.
7) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4, 47-48, 59; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5-6, note in this interview Higdon stated “in place of hands he seemed to have two tapered, rod-like appendages”; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:05, 56:10, Higdon’s wife describes the clothing piece as “kind of an apron” and claims "it shows, kind of, where the land is in his planet," so this suggests it to be the topographical map, or a copy of it, that Carl mentioned, but Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, just says, “He shows me a land mass map of his planet.”
8) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 56:40.
9) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 4-5; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 5.
10) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6, 64, to clarify, this source doesn’t specify that the blue spherical object was any “distance… far” below him, just that it was below him; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:25, at 57:55, Carl states, “I figured it was the Earth, I didn’t know.”; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 37:00, 47:30.
11) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4-5, Carl says just “163,000 miles”; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6, Carl says “light years”; note this helmet event isn’t mentioned in Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6 and instead on, 8, Auzzo indicates the distance is “light-miles” while taking Carl back; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 46:45, Carl confirms “light-miles” but “we don’t know what light-miles are.”
12) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 6-7, 45-46; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:30, note only this source does Higdon specify one was Auzzo who told him “You’re not what we want. We’ll take you back;” Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 38:40.
13) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 7; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 52:25; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5.
14) Note that sources disagree over the pills lasting 3 or 4 days, while Margery Higdon in Alien Abduction, 8, 24, 45-46, said that the pills would last three days, Carl clarified that he was told that they lasted four days, and kept him satiated for three-and-a-half days; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 55:05; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 45:00, Carl says, “that pill was supposed to last 4 days to them, and it lasted about 3 and a half for me.”
15) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 56:25, Higdon’s wife describes it as “kind of an apron” and claims "it shows, kind of, where the land is in his planet," so this suggests it to be the topographical map, or a copy of it, that Carl mentioned, but Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, just says, “He shows me a land mass map of his planet.”
16) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 9, 45-46; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 58:30.
17) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 11-13, 67-68; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, 59:05; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 9:50.
18) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 13-14; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; FindAGrave, “Charles Wesley “Chuck” Ogburn,” FindAGrave.com.
19) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 15-18; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6.
20) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 58; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 48:20.
21) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 19, 26-27; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 16:15.
22) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 19; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 59:45.
23) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 20-23; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6.
24) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 24-25; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Lipstone and Blum, “UFO Captives,” at 3:45.
25) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 29-30; “R. C. Tongco, M.D.” appears in CarbonCountyWyoming.gov, “COMMISSIONER'S PROCEEDINGS,” CarbonCountyWyoming.gov, June 7, 1977, 1; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 59:58.
26) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:10.
27) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 61; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5.
28) Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3, note the source incorrectly says “Tuesday, October 25th, 1974,” but that was a Friday and Sprinkle likely didn’t find out until the following Tuesday; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 31-33, note Higdon calls the counselor Rick Nantkse, assuming this to be incorrect name or deliberately changed to protect identity as stated on the copyright page.
29) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 37-40, 44-48; Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 3-4; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 7.
30) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 40-41.
31) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 47-49; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 57:15.
32) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 50; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:00:00.
33) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 51-52, 61; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:01:30.
34) Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 53:50.
35) Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 7; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:03:45; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 53-54, 58-59.
36) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 53-54; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 52:00, for a photo of carvings on trees.
37) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 35-36, 61.
38) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 55, 57; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:01:55; Lipstone and Blum, “UFO Captives.”
39) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 67; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 1:08:20.
40) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 51:40 onward. To be clear, the documentary was released in 2022 and was the third documentary on the Missing 411 subject made by Paulides across the years.
41) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 58:30.
42) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 58; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 48:20.
43) Evidence of dropped carcass by Linda Moulton Howe, "Scientific Data Supports Theory That Mutilated Montana Cow Dropped from Sky and Bounced,” Earthfiles, November 24, 2006; For two mutilated cows being found with no surrounding tracks see Garrett Andrews, “Detectives perplexed by mysterious Oregon cattle mutilations,” Oregon Live, April 18, 2021, Updated April 23, 2021; For cases with broken legs see Lacey Vilhauer, “Mysterious mutilations: Who or what is killing these cattle?” High Plains Journal, October 28, 2022, and Rachel Monroe, “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations,” The New Yorker,
May 8, 2023; For another case with no tracks see Morgan Winsor, “Texas authorities investigate mysterious cases of dead, mutilated cows,” ABC News, April 24, 2023.
44) Higdon, Alien Abduction, 7, 61; Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 5; Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:00:30; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 31:50.
45) Preston E. Dennett, The Healing Power of UFOs: 300 True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials (Independently published, 2019).
46) Preston E. Dennett, UFO healings: True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials (Mill Spring, NC, USA: Wildflower Press, 1996), 165, quotation found in this earlier edition of the 2019 book.
47) Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection, at 1:04:25, at 52:10, Higdon’s wife said she otherwise “always" went hunting with Carl, going by himself was “very rare,” and the location the incident began was a new location for Carl to hunt in.
48) Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1969) 2014), 37, 40 - 41.
49) Jacques Vallée, Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact (San Antonio, TX, USA: Anomalist Books, (1988) 2008), 52.
50) Taylor, Rawlins Daily Times, in Sprinkle, “A Preliminary Report,” 4-5, Carl says just “163,000 miles”; Bourke, “I was kidnapped,” in Creighton, "Appendix to the," 6, Carl says “light years”; Higdon, Alien Abduction, 8, Auzzo indicates the distance is “light-miles” while taking Carl back; Supernatural Girlz, “Carl & Margery Higdon,” at 46:45, Carl confirms “light-miles” but “we don’t know what light-miles are.”; for info on entities giving false information to contactees see Jacques Vallée, Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1979) 2008).
51) For information, see our video covering the Zanfretta case and its sources here: https://thinkanomalous.com/zanfretta-abductions.html.
Sources:
Bourke, Frank. “I was kidnapped by a UFO bubble.” Lafayette National Star. March 22, 1975. [Article reproduced in Creighton, "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon." Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5-7.]
CarbonCountyWyoming.gov. “COMMISSIONER'S PROCEEDINGS.” CarbonCountyWyoming.gov. June 7, 1977. https://carboncountywy.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4688.
The City of Rawlins. “Rawlins, WY - Official Website.” The City of Rawlins, Wyoming. https://rawlinswy.gov.
Creighton, Gordon. "Appendix to the Preliminary Report on Carl Higdon." Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 5-7. http://noufors.com/Documents/Books,%20Manuals%20and%20Published%20Papers/Specialty%20UFO%20Publications/Flying%20Saucer%20Review/FSR,1975,V%2021,N%203-4.pdf.
Dennett, Preston E. UFO healings: True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials. Mill Spring, NC, USA: Wildflower Press, 1996. https://archive.org/details/ufohealingstruea00denn/mode/2up.
Dennett, Preston E. The Healing Power of UFOs: 300 True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials. USA: Independently published, 2019.
FindAGrave. “Charles Wesley “Chuck” Ogburn.” FindAGrave.com. https://findagrave.com/memorial/133144811/charles-wesley-ogburn.
Higdon, Margery A. Alien Abduction of The Wyoming Hunter: First person story of Carl Higdon, October 25, 1974. USA, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2017.
Lipstone, Howard, and Deborah Blum. “UFO Captives.” In Search Of… . Season 3, Episode 1. September 14, 1978. 22 minutes, Alan Landsburg Productions. https://imdb.com/title/tt0894236. https://youtu.be/7ItdeRBpElc. https://youtu.be/ZJ6vG0CqykM.
Paulides, David, director. Missing 411: The U.F.O. Connection. Ad Astra Distribution, 2022. 1 hr., 33 min. https://imdb.com/title/tt22080556.
Sprinkle, R. Leo. “A Preliminary Report on the Investigation of an Alleged UFO Occupant Encounter.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 3 - 5. November, 1975. http://noufors.com/Documents/Books,%20Manuals%20and%20Published%20Papers/Specialty%20UFO%20Publications/Flying%20Saucer%20Review/FSR,1975,V%2021,N%203-4.pdf.
Supernatural Girlz. “Carl & Margery Higdon | The Carl Higdon Alien Abduction Story.” Inception Radio Network. YouTube video, 1:13:36. November 2, 2017. https://youtu.be/789LVh-GF1Y.
Taylor, Sue. “[article title unknown]”. Rawlins Daily Times (vol. LXXXVII, No. 204). October 29, 1974. Article reproduced in Sprinkle. “A Preliminary Report.” Flying Saucer Review 21, no. 3, 4-5.
Vallée, Jacques. Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact. San Antonio, TX, USA: Anomalist Books, (1988) 2008.
https://archive.org/details/dimensionscasebo00jacq.
Vallée, Jacques. Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults. Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1979) 2008. https://archive.org/details/MessengersOfDeceptionUFOContactsAndCultsJacquesValle1979.
Vallée, Jacques. Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers. Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, (1969) 2014. https://archive.org/details/passporttomagoni0000vall_m8g5.
Animal Mutilation Sources:
Andrews, Garrett. “Detectives perplexed by mysterious Oregon cattle mutilations.” Oregon Live. April 18, 2021, Updated, April 23, 2021. https://oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2021/04/detectives-perplexed-by-mysterious-oregon-cattle-mutilations.html.
Howe, Linda Moulton. “Scientific Data Supports Theory That Mutilated Montana Cow Dropped from Sky and Bounced.” Earthfiles. November 24, 2006. https://earthfiles.com/2006/11/24/scientific-data-supports-theory-that-mutilated-montana-cow-dropped-from-sky-and-bounced.
Monroe, Rachel. “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations.” The New Yorker. May 8, 2023. https://newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-enduring-panic-about-cow-mutilations.
Vilhauer, Lacey. “Mysterious mutilations: Who or what is killing these cattle?” High Plains Journal. October 28, 2022.
https://hpj.com/2022/10/28/mysterious-mutilations-who-or-what-is-killing-these-cattle.
Winsor, Morgan. “Texas authorities investigate mysterious cases of dead, mutilated cows.” ABC News. April 24, 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-authorities-investigate-mysterious-cases-dead-mutilated-cows/story?id=98794152.
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Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research and draft writing by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
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