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

In this latest story, Tom reveals the tale behind the nightmare from the depths...

Seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is water, and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 95 percent of the world’s oceans and 99 percent of the ocean floor remain unexplored, and, as Sir David Attenborough states in his documentary series Blue Planet II: "Hidden beneath the waves, there are creatures beyond our imagination."

Many new marine species are discovered every year and aquatic creatures long believed to have become extinct in prehistoric times have been found alive and well in the ocean depths.

A case in point is the coelacanth, a six-and-a-half foot long fish. It was believed to have died out 66 million years ago in the Cretaceous period – until one was caught in 1938. It was dubbed a 'living fossil.'

Could there be larger prehistoric creatures at large in the unchartered abyss of the deep sea? One thinks of the fabled Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, the Ogopogo sea monster of Canada and the many reports of sea serpents that litter the logbook records of the world’s navies.

Even in modern times the sensitive sonar systems of nuclear subs have tracked giant creatures moving along the seabed that do not fit the profiles of whales.

You don’t have to sail the Seven Seas to encounter these unknown creatures either; locally there have been some very strange and terrifying seagoing entities seen in Wirral’s waters over the years.

The tidal islands of Hilbre, situated at the mouth of the River Dee, have been the scene of many a maritime mystery, and what follows is just one of them.

It all started in December 1988 – one of the mildest Decembers on record – when three teenagers from Moreton decided to try and sail to Hilbre Island in a dinghy.

The foolhardy teens were Roy, aged 15, his sister Debbie, aged 14, and her boyfriend Patrick, aged 15.

They carried the tiny inflatable dinghy and a pair of inadequately sized oars to the sands of West Kirby.

They had no lifejackets and no anchor, and as the naïve trio debated how to paddle to Hilbre, they heard a distant voice crying out “Help!” Debbie had the best eyesight and she could see what she perceived to be a woman wearing rollers thrashing her arms in the air as she fought to stay afloat.

The woman was about 150 yards away.

Debbie had won swimming medals for her school and she was soon running out into the waters, intending to save the drowning woman. Roy and Patrick followed her, carrying the dinghy.

Minutes later there were screams – from Debbie. She had discovered it was not a woman in distress at all – but some ghastly nightmare of a creature that was shaped like a human, but it had huge teeth and leathery grey and green skin.

The 'hair rollers' Debbie thought she had seen on the drowning woman were some sort of barnacles attached to the head of the terrifying creature, which was gigantic.

The thing in the water had huge dead-looking fish eyes, and it moaned, “Help!”

The thing produced this word over and over in parrot fashion, and the sound seemed to come from a long conic hornlike protuberance at the back of the creature’s head.

Debbie tried to swim away from the unidentified monstrosity, but she felt an immense clawed hand grab her left knee and she was pulled towards the freakish giant.

Its mouth opened to reveal rows of sharp teeth, but then something took place which resulted in Debbie fainting from fear.

Four pink shelled insect-like beings with quivering antennae crawled from behind the humanoid monster and made a chattering sound as they opened and closed their small fanged mouths.

Debbie felt weak from the terror of the situation and fainted. She floated on her back.

Roy and Patrick bravely rowed the Dinghy towards the unearthly fiend, and the latter jumped into the icy waters and dragged the unconscious Debbie towards the dinghy but the hideous goliath lunged at him with a massive clawed hand. Roy swung the oar at the thing’s head and the creature cried out.

Patrick tried to get Debbie into the dinghy but it was impossible, and the thing followed the dinghy, along with the four twelve-inch-long pink shelled creatures which swum at a steady speed.

Roy could feel the beach with the oar below the water line and he jumped out and began to push the dinghy.

Debbie regained consciousness and seemed disoriented.

"It’s gone!" cried Patrick, and Roy looked back and saw nothing but the sea – the loathsome beast had gone.

Patrick and Roy dragged Debbie onto the beach and noticed the bruising on her left shin.

The girl burst into tears and staggered and fell as she tried to run.

All three of them heard the thing impersonating a person in distress again with shouts of 'Help!' but they couldn’t see it.

No one believed the story of the teens but Patrick’s father said he had heard stories years ago of a huge crablike creature which had been seen in Lady’s Cave on Hilbre Island.

Other people who heard of the account of the giant aquatic humanoid said it had been nothing more than a large Grey Seal, but Debbie, Roy and Patrick always insisted it was some unidentified monster they had encountered that day, and Debbie suffered terrible nightmares about her ordeals for many years.

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