Weird Wigan - The Bickershaw Dog-Like Creature

Paul Moran is a local chap reached out to me as he was leaving the Wigan area and was moving over the border to Scotland within days of me speaking to him. So I arranged to meet him in the area after we had chatted on the phone about the experience he had. As you know often when I do investigations on mining land, especially in Wigan area the tech always fails. I did 2 mic tests before I recorded myself and Paul at the scene. I also took video of us driving in, all worked perfectly. But the interview is silent. So with Pauls permission I have used the video from that day and part of the audio from our original phone call. 

Paul Moran: "I grew up in Hill Crest Drive in Leigh, which is in the NW of England. The estate was built many decades before when all of the area was very rural. The land is old mining land and many of the old pit sites are now stocked lakes that people fish on. The rest of the land is left to nature and the path me and my friend took that night is now less than a foot across as the weeds and brambles are about 7ft high and not maintained at all. 

Back then it was looked after and we would spend hours out there as kids, just coming home when we were hungry or it got dark. This night was no different, I was out with one of my mates who lived in the same street and we were near the houses at the top of the field as it was so late. We were both around 9 or 10 at the time. It would have 1979 or 80 when this happened. We were playing a game of dare and the challenge was to go as far into the field as possible in the dark.  I lost, so I was first and my friend dared me to walk as far as I could across the fields in the dark. And without thinking I set off.

I wasn't scared of the dark, so I decided I would walk straight down to the bottom of the field. To get there we used a small walking path, where the farm was, at the side of the gate there was a style and a gap in the shrubs where people had just boycotted the style. As I was walking I started to see a small ball of light near the style so I slowed down. There is a small field to the right which was fenced off by barbed wire and that's were the light was. At first I thought it was somebody standing there having a cig and I was seeing the cigarette light up as he smoked. A little orange light, so I slowed right down and I realised there was nobody there. And I remember thinking who ever it was must have been really tall? 

At the point where I was thinking this through I got this feeling to look to my right, I did and I saw this pitch black figure in the shadows standing next to the style. I turned to it and just looking at it but it looked like a dog standing up. It wasn't huge or big and it was the same height as me. And then I got a proper look at its face, and as that happened I didn't know what I was looking at. I just legged it. Its one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me. It just felt weird. 

It put its hand or its paw, whatever it was on top of the style. And we were literally around 5 feet from each other. It didn't snarl or growl, we just stood looking at each other for what felt like forever but in reality was probably only a few seconds. Its face was very Hyena or Coyote like. I would say it was around my height at the time, and as I said, I was 9 or 10 at the time. And I know it was not just a dog. 

I'm not sure how long after, but I did see something in a magazine that resembled that creature. My brother used to get the Unexplained Magazine, and some time after this happened I was reading one of them and an article stood out to me. It was a feature on four different kinds of Alien Beings, featuring a typical small Grey Alien, a robotic Type, a Nordic type and the final one looked exactly like the creature I saw, I remember thinking Wow now way! Iv seen an Alien then. But I cant say that it was exactly correct, but it was a very close resemblance. 

And to this day I do not know what that small orange light was? I was expecting to see the silhouette of a figure standing there but I couldn't. I could see the backdrop around the light. I didn't feel any fear, but it was such a strange event and I didn't know what I was looking at, so I ran. 

When I met up with Paul that day and we stood in the spot where the creature was standing, it wasn't lost on me that you could see the back of Pauls family home from that spot. Total speculation on my part, but had Paul been watched as he played out on the fields, as most of us kids that live adjacent to NCB mining land do? Was he meant to see it that night? Was it waiting specifically for Paul? This raises the question of what was its motive and what was the orange ball of light, was it energy? Did Paul see a creature that was in one form and then it changed to became the dog like creature, or was it two completely separate events? 

I wanted to give you some information on the NCB land around Wigan and Bolton as you have sone so much work in investigating them Deb, a few years ago I remember you worked a case called 'Perchy' down at Deep Pit where a couple of young lads saw a tree shaking and they thought it was 'Perchy.'  Well just across the field from where I saw the creature is a spot called Fir Tree flash. I used to do a lot of night fishing over there and there have two incidents that have happened that I think may be connected. 

One night I was with three friends and we went to Fir Tree Flash, as soon as we got there, two of the lads went off to get wood for a fire and me and the other lad got our fishing gear set up. The is an island in the middle of the flash and it is covered with trees. As we were getting set up one of the trees started shaking violently. We were sat there, thinking, what's happening, what's going on? I listened closely for someone running off or dropping down from the tree, I didn't hear any footsteps or laughing. If it was someone out to scare us, how did he know we would be there? It was late when we got there as it was dark when we were setting off. We never got to the bottom of that. 

The second time, I was on my own and I was on the Island when this happened. It was the early hours of the morning, somewhere between 2 & 3am. It was really quiet and no one else was out that night. As I'm standing there I heard a twig snap right behind me. I swung round quickly and there was nothing there at all. That freaked me out, as it was right behind me, Id say within 6 feet and I should have seen what snapped the twig. You can tell when something heavy has stepped on a twig and whatever did that must have been of some weight. 

As a kid we spent hours over on the flashes, even in the middle of the night and it never scared or bothered me. Even after experiencing all this. But there is one part of the flashes I don't like, its across the fields is a place we call Green Hill, I always feel uneasy, even in the daytime. Even now, it just feels 'off' somehow. Its a hard place to get too, its really marshy and swampy and its where the old slag heaps for the mines were dumped. Iv never seen anything there or nothing has happened to me but I always feel really uneasy on that part of the fields. 

I spoke with Paul over the week as we both tried to find the article from the Unexplained magazine that showed a Being very similar to the creature Paul encountered. I know many of you may also have collected the mags or have access to them online, and we would love your help in tracking down that picture if at all possible.

I had my dog Roy with me when I met Paul, my husband took him for a walk as we were chatting. Paul started to tell me about a dog they had when he was younger that reacted really strangely one day. Everything was normal until the dog suddenly reacted and he began to stare at the back door. He had his heckles up and was growling looking at the back two doors in the house, as it burst open with a thunderous noise. Pauls father witnessed this event, they considered wind as the culprit, but the dog was used to that, living so close to the fields, and one of the doors had a mortice lock as well as the latch, so would have been impossible to push it open.

Paul saw a figure he described as looking like "The Michelin Man" when he was a very young boy of 5 inside the house, it walked passed his bedroom door. On one of my lives another person mentioned the same figure, doing the same thing, in their home when they were younger and its one of the reasons Paul I finally got in touch. He had planned to contact me for a long time now and this comment was like a prompt to finally do so. So I would like to thank that person as Paul has been a wealth of information for me, not only on the strange activity but also the area as a whole.

On two occasions lightening happened inside the home and went through the house windows without leaving a mark or burning any surface. One home a few houses further down was hit by lighting on a different occasion and it took the whole gable end off. But in Pauls home there was no visible effect.

Paul is now Scotland bound, and once he has settled in I will be chatting with him again as I know he has had several experiences growing up, inside his family home that he wants to share with me and an account when he was close to Hadrian's wall in Scotland where they both heard a loud bassy call, that was not a stag as Paul looked online to match the sound. I know he has had a couple of UFO sightings and I would love to document them and add them to the every growing mystery of Weird Things In Wigan.