Stories of alien abductions peaked in the Sixties and Seventies, but one case that predates them is said to have taken place in the North-East. Gavin Havery reports. IT is a sunny spring day in 1940.

Picture this: a monster hovers over a defenseless child. It has every ability to tear the child apart, to infect the child, and turn it into something new. Something hideous. But then, just before the ...