Concord Monitor Friday November 13, 1987
The Man Who Spied Bigfoot Comes Forward
by: Scot French
Walter Bower Sr., a man of sound mind and sober spirit, swears he saw Bigfoot while hunting pheasant in Salisbury three weeks ago. He told the chief of police, who told the boys at the Crossroads Country Store, who laughed their fool heads off.
Now, ask yourself this. Why would Bowers, a retired caretaker at the New Hampshire Veterans Home, make up such a story? Why would he subject himself to such ridicule? "I don't like to be made a fool of,: he said. "But I know what I saw."
Bowers stepped forward after reading about the uproar his story had
created in Salisbury. He agreed to take me out to the field where he saw
whatever he saw. Maybe we could find some tracks in the snow. "It don't
bother me any to go out with you," he said, " but I'm not going to go unarmed.
Not after I see what that thing is." He grabbed me at his trailer on Pheasant
Street in
Webster with a .357-Magnum strapped to his hip. "I'm not gonna
shoot it," he said, "but I'm not
gonna let it get ahold of me either." Snow squalls darkened the sky
as we scrunched into
my car and headed for Salisbury, talking all the way. Bower, 53, is
a lifelong resident of Webster. He started hunting when he was old enough
to carry a gun. Now retired, he likes to hunt pheasant in a field
known as Bob's Big Interval, next to Mill Brook in Salisbury.
About three weeks ago, a hunter from Warner told Bowers he had seen
two strange beasts walk across the field early one morning. "I didn't pay
much attention," Bowers said. "I just went out bird hunting, two days,
three days afterward." As he crossed the field with his .12-gauge shotgun
shortly after daybreak, he had a strange feeling he was being
watched. He passed between two stands of trees, turned to the right, "and
there he was. Standing right out in the middle of the field." Bigfoot,
Sasquatch. Whatever you want to call it. "This thing was BIG," he said.
"I would day at least 9 feet. Maybe less, maybe more, because I didn't
stick around too long to do any measuring...The whole body was covered
with hair...I would day it was kind of a grayish color, from where I was
standing. Of course the sun was coming up facing me, but it wasn't that
bright...The face, I couldn't make that out too good...The hands
were like yours or mine, only three times bigger, with pads on the front
paws, like a dog...Long legs, long arms. It was just like, I would say,
like a gorilla, but this here wasn't a gorilla...I'm telln' ya, it would
make your hair
stand up." After a few moments, the creature ran off toward the
large swamp behind the field. Bowers hustled back to his car, glancing
over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. A few nights later, he told
Salisbury Police Chief Jody Heath, a family friend, what he had seen and
asked if he could shoot the beast if it attacked him. Heath, biting his
lip, promised to find out. "He sounded like everybody else," Bowers said.
"I don;t think he really believed me."
Bowers tried the game warden next. "He just laughed at me. He said 'There's no such thing.' I said 'Nuts.' He said, 'It was probably a bear or moose.' I said, 'Look, I can tell the difference between a bear and I can tell the difference between a moose. This was neither.' He didn't believe me. He got mad and hung up."
Bowers has shot four bears in his lifetime, so he knows what they
look like. As for moose, has anyone ever seen one standing on its hind
legs and walk like a man? "If a man can't tell the difference between
a moose and a thing like that," Bowers said, "he hadn't ought to be hunting
whatsoever, in my book. He hadn't ought to be in the woods hunting if he
can't tell the difference." Hundreds of people have reported seeing half-human
creatures like Bigfoot, usually in the vast forests of the Pacific Northwest
and Asia, but nobody has ever caught or photographed one clearly. Bowers
figures creatures like the one he saw live and die in swamp caves, where
no man can find them. They probably some out in the morning to look for
apples, corn or whatever it is they eat. "I think there's more people that
see these that are not saying anything 'cause they don't want to be laughed
at," he said. One of these days, he may use his camera and stake out the
area using apples for bait. A clear photo of the animal or its tracks might
convince the skeptics.
Until then he figures people can have a good laugh at his expense.
"Go ahead," he said, shaking his head, "but it's not gonna change
a thing, 'cause I still see what Isee."
Credit given to BFRO researcher: Craig Heinselman <cheinselman@email.msn.com>
Uploaded to the BFRO Database by: Dawn Harrack <Dawn@BFRO.net> and Matt M. <Matt@BFRO.net>