HAUNTED WIRRAL: The Caldy abduction

In this latest tale, a Close Encounter of the Third Kind that brought Martin and Penny together.

IN June 1974, Wirral was being visited by strange unidentified craft carrying unearthly beings.

Whether these vehicles were from the infinite depths of space or perhaps from our own future remains unknown, but people definitely saw things - things that cannot be explained.

Alerted by the UFO activity that summer in 1974, the Wirral UFO Society, based at Wirral Grammar School for Boys in Bebington, kept a watch on the skies with binoculars and telescopes.

The society, founded in 1942 as the Union of Northern Observers, catalogued some fascinating encounters over Wirral. It was noticed the visiting craft appeared to come in waves from their unknown origin and seemed to concentrate on specific areas at certain times.

A year before, Liverpool and West Lancashire seemed to be the focus of the ultraterrestrials’ surveillance programme, but by the summer of 1974, it was clear to ufologists all over the UK that some higher intelligence had turned its attention to Wirral.

I haven't the space to detail the forty-five reported close encounters which occurred from New Brighton and West Kirby to Neston and Eastham Rake, but I will tell you of a fascinating Close Encounter of the Third Kind; the story was told to me some years ago when I was on BBC Radio Merseyside, talking about the UFO phenomenon. I've changed the names for legal reasons.

Early one morning in June 1974, a 35-year-old former criminal from Birkenhead named Martin loaded his Browning automatic and set out on a 20-minute eight-mile drive to kneecap a man who had destroyed his marriage.

The man was named Harris, a rich swindler who had bought a palatial house off Caldy Village's Croft Drive.

The time was nearly 3am, and Martin parked his old Hillman Imp in the shadows of a spreading elm, away from the glare of the full moon.

To his left, Martin saw the black iron gates of the sweeping drive which led to the house of Harris.

He hesitated for a moment in a brown study, weighing up what he was about to do; if he was caught it would be prison – again – but Martin was rarely unnerved by risk; he had held up banks and service stations in his younger days and gone about his business as if he was making a cup of tea; there was no worry involved.

Then he had met a beautiful club singer named Simone and just for her, he had given up his life of crime.

Then Harris came on the scene and he had taken Simone away before dumping her after he'd had his bit of fun.

Martin took her back but Simone seemed changed, and the beautiful love they had shared could not be recovered, and Simone left.

Martin took the ski mask from under his seat, ready to put it on.

He'd done a little reccy around the house up the drive and knew exactly how to get in. Martin was about to put the mask on when he heard a squeak and froze.

A blonde woman was pushing one of the gates to the driveway open.

She ran out, in bare feet, and was holding her shoes in her left hand.

She looked down Croft Drive but didn’t see Martin in the car.

She looked afraid of something, or someone, and ran off.

Martin was unsure what to do, but he decided to cancel his act of revenge, as he felt some domestic incident was brewing and the police would soon be here.

He drove slowly towards the young blonde and wondered if the despicable Harris had abused her.

Martin got out, trotted after the girl, who was about to run down a cul-de-sac known as The Green, when something incredible, and terrifying took place.

An enormous circular craft, spanning about 50 feet in diameter, came down out of the moonlit sky and hovered silently about 20 feet above the running girl.

She looked up, and a purple bolt of light, or perhaps it was a bolt of electricity, struck the lady, and she fell on her back in the road and was out cold.

The underside of the gravity-defying vehicle then lit up with a burst of bright green light, and a bizarre-looking entity with long skinny spidery arms and legs of metal, emerged out of the blinding light, and floated down onto the road.

It had a globular silvery head with lights on, and seemed to be looking at the inert girl lying on her back.

The thing started to stoop over her, and it reached out with huge hands of grey metal with lights at the fingertips, as if it intended to pick her up.

In one zen-like movement, Martin took out the Browning and began to fire at the robotic figure. He heard one of the rounds shatter something in the head of the entity and it seemed startled.

It flashed a light at Martin and he received an electric shock from the Browning and the firearm fell from his hand.

Martin went into the front garden of a nearby house, picked up a chunk of sandstone from a rockery and threw it at the weird spindly figure, but the rock shattered in mid-air, as if it had struck an invisible diamond-hard wall.

The mechanical monstrosity then floated up into the underside of the UFO, and that craft and its freakish occupant flew upwards until it was a point of light which headed west, travelling across the Dee.

The lady who had been the intended victim of an uncanny abduction by something not of this earth regained consciousness, and told Martin her name was Penny.

She gave a garbled explanation of how she had been trying to escape from Harris after he'd assaulted her.

Martin drove her away to safety, mindful of the Browning gunshots that had probably awakened the neighbourhood.

Martin eventually abandoned his revenge plan and settled down with Penny.

The couple still often talk about the way they met under the strangest of circumstances.

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