Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral: A spaceman came calling

EVEN today, at the age of 66, Judy can remember the fear she felt that day in August 1971 when two unearthly entities called at her uncle's secluded cottage off Telegraph Road in Thurstaston.

Her Uncle Patrick had gone to see a sick relative up in Aberdeen and 18-year-old nephew Robert was supposed to mind the cottage while he was away for a week, but Robert had met a girl and she had taken over his life and at the last minute he had let Patrick down.

Judy, who was just 15, said she would look after the cottage each day for a few hours and as there was an Alsatian to also guard the cottage, the girl felt more than capable of doing the job.

On top of that, should the need arise, there was a telephone in the cottage and the girl could call her mum and dad who lived on Fishers Lane just over a mile away.

Well, Judy was loving this first day at her uncle’s cottage; he had left her a copy of the Bunty comic, lemonade, a sandwich cake in the larder and a plate of salmon paste sandwiches (a treat in 1971), and the girl fed most of these sandwiches to Sabre, a lovely Alsatian dog who kept her company.

Judy turned on the TV, relishing the newfound freedom to watch her preferred programs without the usual disputes with her parents over what to watch.

She watched Jackanory and Thunderbirds and Boss Cat, and then sat reading the Bunty comic as she sipped lemonade and occasionally looked at the telly, which was now showing Roger Moore as The Saint.

The time was now 6:30pm. At 7:30pm the girl was due to lock up the place, leave Sabre with a bowl of Pal dog food and a bowl of fresh water.

She would then pedal her bike home and her father would check on the cottage around 11pm for a few minutes and turn the lights on before driving home.

But at 6:45pm something very strange took place. The TV set exploded into a cacophony of hissing static and the screen showed rolling fuzzy lines.

Judy switched the set off.

Sabre ran to the window in the living room and growled at something and Judy asked him what was wrong.

The dog could see, or perhaps hear something, and its behaviour was making Judy nervous.

The dog stopped growling and sat on the sofa, gazing at the window and would not take its eyes of something beyond the panes.

Judy decided to call her mum and dad to tell them the way Sabre was behaving – but the telephone line was dead.

The girl replaced the handset of the green telephone, picked it up again and pressed her ear to the earpiece – silence – no purring tone.

She then jumped with fright as Sabre started to bark furiously and then throw back his head and let out a bloodcurdling howl.

The animal ran into the kitchen and Judy followed it, and she saw something at the kitchen window, and at first she thought it was a snake – a snake made of metal though, and it had a bright white light at the end, and the thing squirmed about and shone its light through the kitchen window.

The girl thought – or rather, hoped – that it was someone messing about – perhaps one of her male school friends playing a prank – until that metal ‘snake’ slid slowly up the window, and the girl saw the other end of it – it had tiny wriggling legs, also metallic, and the thing was soon out of sight.

Judy could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

She went upstairs and called Sabre but the dog would not go with her. When Judy went into her uncle's bedroom upstairs she caught a sight of that snake entity again going upwards across the windowpanes until it was on the roof.

She immediately thought that now might be the time to flee from the cottage.

She went downstairs and saw something that terrified her.

With it being August, the fireplace was empty, as there had been no fires in it for a while, but soot was falling down the chimney and a cloud of black dust was forming in the grate – because there was something in the chimney; it had to be that metal snake thing.

The dog started barking again and ran into the kitchen, and then it ran out again, fled to the hallway and hid under the stairs, where it whined.

Then Judy went into the kitchen and that is when she saw him.

A huge man, possibly about eight feet or more in height, and he wore a large helmet – it looked like a space helmet – and he was crouching to look through the kitchen window at Judy, and what unnerved the girl right away, besides the size of the strange figure, was his eyes – they had luminous irises and were fixed on her.

The teenager backed away out of the kitchen, and as she did saw that snake-like entity also at the kitchen window now, and it was shining a powerful beam of light at her.

The girl ran to the telephone in the hallway and tried to call her home again but the line was still dead.

Judy heard the letterbox flap open and for a moment she thought someone was calling but she screamed when she saw it was the light of that snake poking through the letterbox, and now it was making a loud buzzing noise.

Sabre looked at the thing squirming about in the letterbox and barked, and then the serpentine probe withdrew and the letterbox closed.

Judy poked her head around the doorway of the kitchen and saw the man had gone and she went to tiptoe to the window to see where he had gone when he suddenly lunged at the window again and the girl screamed and the dog started barking again.

The helmeted 'spaceman' smiled at Judy and pointed at her with a huge square-tipped index finger.

He then pointed to himself with the same finger but the girl could not understand what this gesture meant.

She panicked and ran out of the kitchen, through the hallway and into the living room – and there was that sinister metallic snake, covered in soot after its descent down the chimney.

It was coming towards her across the carpet in a wave-like motion, propelling itself along the ground.

Its head rose and now Judy screamed when she saw it had silvery jaws that opened and closed with a snapping sound as its bright cyclopean eye shone its light at her, causing her to see afterimages of blue and purple.

There came a sound of an approaching car, of tyres on gravel, and that snake turned its light towards the source of the noise – the window, and then it retreated without turning around, going towards the fireplace and up the chimney.

Judy ran to the kitchen and saw the helmeted giant had gone.

There were footsteps coming along the path, and then there was a heavy knocking at the door. Was this a trick of the spaceman to gain entry?

"Judy! Are you there, love?" came the familiar voice of her father. Judy, in tears, ran to the door and let him in, and the dog Sabre jumped up at him, wagging its tail and whining.

Through her sobs, Judy recounted the events that had transpired.

Her father explained that he had come round because he received no answer when he called the cottage earlier.

When Judy mentioned the giant spaceman, her father dismissed it as someone’s silly prank that had been meant to scare her.

However, Judy insisted that the helmeted figure and the robotic, snake-like probe were ”from outer space”.

Although UFO sightings had been reported in that part of Wirral, there were none on that particular day, leaving the nature of the giant entity in the helmet and the metallic snakelike object unknown.

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