Some of the things we see aren't what they appear to be.

Heather Bowie and her cousins learned that lesson back in 1989.

She was 11 at the time, and according to her mother Karen, it was a bright winter day.

The sort of day where the sun reflects off every inch of snow, which always has a way of

making dark objects like houses and trees stand out.

Heather and her cousins were walking along a small country road that ran between their

town and the next when they saw a dog sitting in a stream near the roadside.

Well, stream might be too strong of a term.

It was just a bunch of run-off, the sort that passes beneath roads through those big

metal tunnels.

It was a drainage ditch, basically.

But kids loved dogs, so Heather and the others veered off the roadside and into the snow

to walk toward it.

They assumed it was a local pet that had wandered a bit too far from home, so they planned

to check its collar and see what they could do.

But even from a distance, it looked a bit odd.

To be specific, it looked too big to be a dog.

They took one more step toward it and then stopped.

They stopped because that's when the dog turned to look at them.

And as it did so, it did something they weren't expecting.

It stood up on its hind legs like a human.

Obviously frightened, the girls ran home as fast as they could.

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