HAUNTED WIRRAL: The Moreton UFO mystery

In this latest tale, Tom ponders the Moreton UFO mystery.

THE human race has passed through two stages on the way to discovering the truth about its place in the universe, and is now entering the third stage.

The first stage, which started in ancient times and lasted till the Renaissance, was the belief that the Earth was the centre of everything – the focal point of all creation, with the stars, planets, sun and moon, revolving about it, until a Polish polymath named Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered that the Earth – and every other known planet - circles the sun, and the sun and universe did not circle the Earth.

Copernicus was so afraid of the backlash from The Church (who preached that man was the centre of the universe) he opted to have his landmark book, which expounded his revolutionary theory, published just before his death.

Those literate enough to read the book realised that the human race had now been relegated from the most important beings in existence to life forms living on an average planet that was circling an average star which was just one of countless others.

The second stage was the realisation that life must exist on other worlds, given the mind-boggling high number of planets in the universe.

So what is the third stage?

The third stage – contact with life forms on other worlds - could begin in this century.

On June 25 this year, a momentous event took place which few people understood, possibly because it was overshadowed by the pandemic – and that was the official admission by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the United States that UFOs – possible extraterrestrial craft – really do exist, but no one knows where they are coming from.

It is highly likely that extraterrestrial civilizations visiting us in person or via probes have been coming to this planet even in prehistoric times, and some believe that visitors from other planets may be responsible for reports of angels and chariots of fire in the Bible, as well as those mysterious flying machines of ancient India called Vimanas that are chronicled in Hindu texts and Sanskrit epics.

Strange airborne craft are still being seen the world over, and regular readers of this column will know that Wirral is no stranger to the UFO phenomenon.

Some local reports mention mostly nocturnal lights, such as the following incident, taken from a number of newspapers in 1972.

On February 17, 1972 at 8pm, Michelle Ryan of Birkenhead Road, Meols, and her husband were followed along an unlit Birkenhead Road as they travelled in their car towards Moreton.

The road was pitch-black because of the power cuts, and on this evening there was no other traffic on the road. Michelle’s husband was at the wheel, and he told his wife there was a lorry behind them.

She turned and saw what looked like two headlamps, only they had a dull glow to them.

Mr Ryan accelerated the car, thinking he was holding the lorry up, but then suddenly the lights moved off – and vanished.

Others saw those lights that night flying at treetop level down the dark roads around Moreton.

The most intriguing UFO report in the Moreton area took place on the sunny Thursday afternoon of April 14, 1983.

A 29-year-old off-duty Hoylake busman named George was on his way to his mother’s house with a present for her birthday, and he stopped on the way at Lloyd’s Bank at Moreton Cross to withdraw money from the new cashpoint machine that had just been installed at that branch.

After the withdrawal, George was walking back to his car when he heard a commotion. Traffic at the town centre roundabout started to slow and pedestrians were looking up at something in the clear blue skies.

George glanced up to see what they were looking at – and for a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Moving slowly from the south was a gigantic craft which looked like two soup bowls joined at their rims.

The UFO was that huge, it dwarfed the tower of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church as it passed over it.

Then George noticed a tiny plane which looked like a Cessna light aircraft, flying in front of the gargantuan UFO, and for a moment it looked as if the plane was going to hit the lenticular craft, but it flew underneath it.

A woman standing next to George gasped: "Oh my - what is that?"

George looked at the woman then turned his eyes back to the sky - and there was just a void of blue with the distant droning speck of the Cessna drifting across it; the massive UFO had gone.

George scanned the sky to the north and saw nothing, and when he reached his mother’s home, he told he what he had seen and they listened to the radio and watched the TV, assuming there would be reports of the menacing UFO in the news bulletins, but there were none.

Years later, George called me as I was on air on the Billy Butler Show on Radio Merseyside and asked me about the UFO.

The radio station switchboard went haywire as listeners telephoned and emailed us at the studio to tell how they had also seen the giant UFO, and one man reported something quite curious.

A listener named Robert, who had lived on Upton Road at the time of the UFO sighting, said he had seen the craft pass over his home and he had gone to grab a pair of binoculars.

When he scanned the UFO with the 10x50 binoculars he saw a royal blue oval on the hull of the ship, and a white eight-pointed star which reminded him of the old logo for Southern Television.

To the left of the star was the word "Celtic" in white block letters, and in the same font on the right side of the star was the word "Union".

Robert's wife asked if she could take a look through the binoculars and when she looked up – the UFO had vanished. All she saw was the Cessna plane.

Was the UFO a future spaceship taking off from Wirral for the Moon or Mars?

Was "Celtic Union" the name of the commercial organization that owned the ship?

Could some UFOs be glimpses of future earth-made spaceships? So many questions; we may know more one day.

•Haunted Liverpool 34 is out now.