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

In this latest tale, Tom explores Wirral's werewolves...

No rational system of explanation can currently throw any light on the werewolf phenomenon.

How can a person change into an animal and afterwards revert to a human being again?

Our DNA contains the DNA of many ‘lower’ animals, and believe it or not, when the human genome was finally sequenced in 2003, it was discovered that humans, dogs and wolves share 84% of the same DNA.

In theory, a werewolf could be created by genetically modifying a human with lupine DNA, but this would take time, whereas the bona fide werewolf undergoes metamorphosis within the minute.

The scientist in me says such a transfiguration is impossible, but the occultist side of me knows otherwise – that through some supernatural force, a person really can change into a hideous wolf-like being, and the reports of werewolves are not only mentioned by such ancient Roman writers as Ovid and Petronius, they are even referred to in the Bible.

In the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel, for example we are told that the handsome black Mesopotamian King Nebuchadnezzar suffered a type of mental breakdown for turning against God, and after stripping naked and walking on all fours, he sprouted claws, a feathery type of hair upon all of his skin, ate grass, turned into a beast, and lived in a forest for seven years.

Reports of werewolves down the centuries have been very persistent, and even today, occasional accounts of the mysterious shapeshifters come my way.

Between Eastham Rake and Hooton, close to the place where the M53 runs over the track, scores of people – myself included amongst them – have seen a large unidentified animal roaming a field.

I saw it from a train in 2004 and it struck me as a classic prowling “Big Cat” – a cryptozoological felid of the same ilk as the Surrey Puma, the Beast of Bodmin and the Beast of Exmoor – but others who have seen this creature at closer quarters have claimed that it was not a cat – but more like an unusually large wolf.

The animal always seems to go to ground within seconds when it is chased, and some have remarked on its phantom-like vanishing acts when it is confronted.

There simply aren’t enough rabbits, pigeons and other sources of food to feed the mysterious ‘wolf’ – and this adds to the air of mystery surrounding the unidentified animal.

Could it possibly be a werewolf?

In 2002 at BBC Radio Merseyside I interviewed a former security guard who worked at a certain hospital in Wirral, and he told a chilling story that was later backed up by a porter, a policeman, and several nurses.

The guard, Craig (not his real name), said that a heavily-pregnant New Age traveller, aged about 25, was brought into the Wirral Hospital after going into labour.

She seemed delirious, and wanted to have her baby in a tipi – but an older man, possibly the woman’s partner, brought her to the hospital, then quickly left.

It was a warm summer night and a full moon was out, and the woman belonged to a community of hippies who had camped down in bender tents and yurts on a tract of land close to the hospital.

As the woman went into the throes of labour, the midwife and nurses attending to her saw the patient undergo a startling and very frightening transformation.

The grimacing face of the young woman turned slowly into the face of some animal.

The tip of her nose darkened, the skin became hairy and turned a strange greyish-pink colour, and long pointed teeth protruded from the mouth.

The midwife and nurses backed away from the bed in terror as the woman began to make snarling noises, and a security guard – Craig - was called.

When Craig reached the ward he saw the nurses run past him into the corridor, and then he saw a figure in hospital clothes which looked humanoid, only the face was that of an animal with a snout.

This entity ran to the plate-glass second-floor window and smashed it with its fists, before jumping through the frame into the garden.

Craig reached the smashed window within seconds and caught a fleeting glimpse of the woman running off into the moonlit nightscape.

Fearing the adverse publicity from this unearthly occurrence, the hospital managers advised the staff to say nothing about the incident, but some told their families and partners, and the story got out, but most who heard it classed the account as some urban legend.

I mentioned the incident on a radio station and was besieged with calls from people, including the security guard Craig, nurses, a porter, and even a policeman who told me about a sighting of the apparently metamorphosed woman at a park near to the hospital.

Enquiries were made at the travellers’ encampment, but the police met a wall of silence – no one would admit to even knowing who the pregnant woman was.

Days later the travellers were moved on.

The whole affair continues to tantalize me; was that pregnant lady a shapeshifting werewolf, and furthermore - what became of her and her child?

I think it will be a long time before we know the answers.

Over the forthcoming weeks Tom will tell you more tales of the mysterious and the uncanny in the Globe.

Haunted Liverpool 28 is another dazzling collection of supernatural fact by Tom Slemen, England’s greatest writer on the paranormal.