Welcome to Haunted Wirral, a feature series written by world famous psychic researcher Tom Slemen, for the Globe.

In this latest story, Tom explores the mystery behind Highfield Grove's ghostly night maiden...

When a ghost is seen by one person it’s easy to dismiss it as a product of an overtired mind, a trick of the light, and even an overactive imagination, but when a ghost is seen by a number of people, rationalising it becomes more problematic.

When the ghost is seen by a number of people over a wide geographical area, the apparition becomes even harder to comprehend, but sceptics will usually blame that convenient but vague phenomenon of mass hysteria and claim that if a story about a ghost does the rounds, it becomes a type of urban myth which gets embellished along the way.

The mass hysteria angle may be true in some cases, but not in the case of the Ghostly Night Maiden – my term for what I perceive to be a nocturnal entity which is seen all over Wirral and parts of Liverpool and Cheshire this time of year.

In September 1969 a Birkenhead man named Ian Grant went to stay over at his friend Rod’s house on Rock Ferry’s Highfield Grove after the two men – both in their early twenties – had enjoyed a night out drinking and catching up on one another’s lives.

They reached Rod’s house around midnight with three fish and three portions of chips, and they had their ad hoc supper in the kitchen with Rod’s girlfriend Elaine.

Elaine went to bed around 1.30am but Rod and Ian talked until around three in the morning, mostly about old friends of theirs and the usual subjects of politics and sport.

By 3.15am Rod was in bed and Ian was settling down on the sofa under a woollen blanket with a pillow at his head. Ian was soon fast asleep, but he was awakened by the sound of someone shouting for help upstairs.

Ian realised it was Elaine – Rod’s girlfriend. Ian got up, fumbled for the light switch, then went into the hallway and climbed the stairs asking, "What’s wrong?"

When Ian went into the bedroom he saw a young woman of about eighteen sitting at the end of the couple’s bed.

She had long black hair, a very pale face, huge staring eyes, and she wore an old-fashioned night gown that went from her neck down to her bare feet.

The stranger was leaning forward slightly with her hands on her lap. Ian flicked the light switch but the bulb blew.

From beneath the blankets of the bed, Ian heard Elaine’s muffled voice cry out: "Get rid of her!"

Ian somehow knew the girl was something supernatural, but he shouted, "Who is she?"

"She keeps appearing! Make her go away!" Elaine screamed, and she peeped over the blankets and let out a shriek when she saw the weird figure seated at the end of the bed.

Ian could not bring himself to approach the weird figure, never mind touch her and attempt to remove her from the room – and why wasn’t Rod doing anything to send her on her way?

It later transpired that Rod had experienced some sort of seizure after seeing the girl at the end of the bed.

As Ian stood there, ready to make the sign of the cross and say the Lord’s Prayer, the girl with the huge bulging eyes vanished into thin air.

Rod regained consciousness and almost punched Elaine as he fought for air, saying he couldn’t breathe.

He told Ian the ghostly girl had visited twice before a week back.

I mentioned this case on a local radio programme and discovered that a ghostly girl with ‘owl-like’ eyes had been seen in other parts of Rock Ferry and other districts over the years, with the last ‘visitation’ happening in October 2012.

She always appeared in bedroom and sat on the bed, always in the months of September and October, mostly between the hours of 3am and 4am and after being seen in one house, she’d often appear in another dwelling in the same street, sometimes on the same night.

This ghostly night maiden is something of a rarity in the world of the supernatural – she is a ghost that gets about.

Most ghosts haunt a specific place, but this one – and it does seem to be the same entity on each occasion – wanders the night, flitting from street to street, district to district, and her reasons for doing so are as mysterious as her nature.

There’s a good chance you might receive one of her bedside visits soon...

Haunted Liverpool 30 is out now.