Rawlins abduction report — October 25, 1974

On Friday, October 25, 1974, Carl Higdon drove into the Medicine Bow National Forest west of Rawlins, Wyoming, intending to hunt elk. Higdon was an oil-well driller in his early forties, familiar with the region and carrying an ordinary hunting rifle. In the late afternoon he left his truck and followed game into rough timber. The published story begins when he came upon a small group of elk in a clearing and chose one as his target. Higdon said he fired, but the shot behaved impossibly: the bullet seemed to leave the rifle in slow motion, traveled only a short distance, and fell to the ground. When it was later recovered, according to investigators who publicized the case, it appeared flattened or deformed. That physical claim is frequently repeated but lacks a publicly documented chain of custody sufficient to treat the bullet as verified evidence. The important point is that Higdon described the failed shot as the moment his normal hunting trip became an encounter. He then noticed a tall, extremely thin humanlike figure nearby. In Higdon's account the figure had straight dark hair, a very pale face, little or no visible chin, long limbs and bowed legs. It wore a close-fitting black garment with a heavy belt. Higdon later called the being Ausso One. Accounts differ in some anatomical detail, including whether each hand ended in a single rodlike appendage or whether the figure merely appeared to have unusually long arms and hands. The Atlas therefore presents the figure as reported rather than resolving those discrepancies. The visitor reportedly asked whether Higdon was hungry and offered him a small tablet. Higdon said he swallowed it. He next found himself inside or associated with a transparent, boxlike vehicle. Several elk—the animals he had been stalking—were said to be confined there as well. The small craft then transported them to a much larger structure or vessel. Under later questioning Higdon described a brief examination and a journey to an unfamiliar place, followed by rejection for some unspecified physical reason and a rapid return. These extraordinary sequences emerged chiefly through his later recollection and hypnotic sessions; they were not independently observed. By evening Higdon had not returned home. His wife and others began searching, and local law enforcement became involved. Higdon was eventually found confused and physically distressed in or near his pickup, which was no longer where searchers expected it to be and was reportedly positioned in difficult country. He could not initially give a coherent account of the missing hours. He was taken for medical attention, and the encounter narrative developed during subsequent interviews. The case acquired unusual supporting texture. Higdon's wife and the search party could establish that he was overdue and disoriented. His truck's location and the recovered bullet were treated by investigators as possible physical clues. Reports also circulated of unusual lights in the wider region. None of those facts, however, independently demonstrates the transparent craft, the transported elk or the larger vessel. The search confirms a real missing-person episode; it does not by itself confirm the cause Higdon later described. Skeptical interpretations include injury, exposure, disorientation, a fugue state or memory formation under hypnosis. Supporters point to Higdon's apparent distress, the search circumstances and the persistence of his account. The surviving public record does not permit a definitive choice. The Atlas therefore separates the documented frame—a hunter went missing and was recovered confused—from the reported encounter sequence. The case portrait follows that same boundary. It reconstructs the Wyoming clearing, Higdon with his lowered rifle, the thin black-clad figure and the transparent boxlike craft with elk nearby. It is an illustration of Higdon's account, not a photograph or proof that the reported events occurred.