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

THE first time the mysterious glowing UFO was encountered was in the summer of 1975 – Monday, August 18 to be precise - when Bobby and Tina from Birkenhead (both aged 20) decided to visit the quaint Old Harp Inn on the edge of the Dee estuary marshes at Little Neston.

The centuries-old inn is a popular venue for day trippers from all over Merseyside and Bobby and Tina just wanted a change of scenery on this gloriously hot summer's day – but became a little bit too amorous in a corner of the bar, and there were complaints from the customers of the Old Harp Inn, so the licensee, a no-nonsense man named Harry, had a word with Bobby and Tina.

The couple apologised for their smooching and fondling, and red with embarrassment, left the establishment and resumed their "carrying on" in Bobby's Ford Cortina in the pub car park – until a policeman tapped on the back window and said: "Hey, Casanova - there're families here who can see everything; go to a hotel if you want to do that." 

Bobby drove off in a huff as Tina buttoned herself back up and the couple decided they'd have a bit of uninterrupted privacy down at the Old Quay on the Dee Marshes, as it was practically deserted.

Bobby parked up and Tina twiddled the tuning knob of the car radio until she heard Radio One's "Diddy" David Hamilton introduce 10 CC's I’m Not in Love.

"Look at that view, Tina -" Bobby was remarking as he surveyed the panorama of the Welsh hills, shimmering in the August heat, when Tina grabbed him and soon they were at it again - but not for long.

The ethereal choir-like voices of 10 CC’s soft-rock ballad were suddenly skewered by harsh radio interference which distracted the young lovers.

A shadow fell over the Cortina and the surrounding marshes, and there was a loud humming sound which pounded the eardrums of Bobby and Tina.

Then they saw it: a craft resembling an upturned soup bowl, about 100 feet in diameter, descended from the clear blue sky. 

It had a hypnotic glow, and Tina gripped Bobby’s arm and asked: "What is it?" 

"A flying saucer," he gasped, "they do exist!" 

The 'saucer' landed about two hundred feet away, and remained there, its mesmerising aura of silvery blue light pulsating as Tina repeatedly urged Bobby to drive away – but he couldn't. 

He was utterly entranced by the spectacle of the unearthly craft, and when he made moves to get out of the car, Tina became hysterical.

"Bobby, no! Come back! If you love me, come back!" she yelled and grabbed at Bobby's hand but he wriggled free and said: "Oh will you calm down? I just want to see what it is."

And he walked along the old sandstone blocks of the quay until he was about fifty feet from the landed UFO.

He turned around and saw Tina coming towards him.

"Bobby! Get away from it!" 

"Stay there you soft get!" he replied, waving for her to stay put and he walked around the craft by 180 degrees until he saw something very peculiar.

There was a hatch in the lower hemisphere of the saucer's hull, and a very human-looking man in a beard and a black and blue uniform, was standing in a well-lit compartment with some device in his hand.

He was looking at the device, which was the size of a paperback, and shaking his head.

He was startled to see Bobby, and he smiled at him and said: "Hello there. Could you tell me what year this is?" 

The voice sounded local, possibly a Lancashire dialect.

For a moment, Bobby couldn't recall what year it was, then replied: "Yeah, it's 1975, isn't it?" and now felt confident enough to approach the craft, but the man inside of it shouted: "Don't get too close, there’s a fault." 

Bobby stood there, baffled by the reply, and Tina came rushing to his side. She tried to pull him away but he remained rooted to the spot, engrossed by the strange proceedings.

"Alright! Thank you!" shouted the man in the UFO, and a door slid sideways and fitted perfectly into the hull's curvature.

The low frequency jaw-rattling rumble the couple had heard earlier emanated from the craft, and it started to steadily rise up from the marshes.

It went towards the north-east as it climbed into the clear blue sky, and Bobby was momentarily distracted from watching the circular craft as Tina called him a selfish idiot.

He looked back - and the ship of unknown origin had gone. Bobby told everyone about the encounter but most disbelieved him.

He wrote to me many years ago, in 2001, and I mentioned his story on a local radio programme about UFOs.

I afterwards received an email from a Neston man named David who had seen the same object at the same spot in August 1976.

At the time, David and two friends had been playing on the marshes, and they had noticed the huge lenticular craft – with the same silvery-blue glow around it that Bobby and Tina had observed.

David and his two friends also saw the hatchway in the craft as well as the man with the beard that Bobby had reported seeing the year before, but he never said a word to the spellbound children.

David was on his Chopper bike and felt a faint electric shock sizzle through the bike when he ventured near the craft.

After about ten minutes the UFO took off.

I have a feeling that "UFO" was some commercial spacecraft from the future which had somehow travelled back in time, perhaps as a side-effect of some powerful propulsion system which sent the craft on a retrograde orbit through the space-time continuum – but this is all speculation.

We may know more one day.

• Tom Slemen’s books and audiobooks are on Amazon.