West / Rainford, Eng being encounter — January 2, 1978

On 2 January 1978, four men in their early twenties were returning toward Liverpool from Rainford. Jenny Randles's contemporary investigation names driver Geoff Hales and passengers Stephen Simpson, Glynn Mathews and Keith Thomas. Around 23:15, they took a wrong turn on the Old Coach Road near Kirkby Moss. Hales braked on the greasy surface and the car skidded partly into a muddy ditch. The account describes an ordinary braking skid, not an unexplained engine failure. Their headlights revealed a broad figure roughly 25 feet away, estimated at 6½–7 feet tall. It appeared enclosed in a luminous white one-piece covering with a rounded, featureless helmet, short boots and unusually short arms. A raised chest box carried two rapidly alternating red lights. The men could not resolve the dark hands well enough to establish the claws sometimes added in retellings. After several hesitant steps by the figure, the frightened men fled to Brown Birch Farm and obtained help. Police returned with a witness and searched without finding the figure. Randles reported that officers considered the men frightened and not intoxicated; later site checks yielded no meaningful radiation anomaly. No craft was seen during this encounter. Nearby UFO reports discussed separately in the article should not be inserted into its scene. The investigation left the incident unexplained without establishing an extraterrestrial visitor or a demonstrated hoax.