HOW could a teenager completely vanish into thin air?

The chilling mystery of Alex Cleghorn’s disappearance in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1966, has never been solved.

Now, author Andy Owens – who is writing a book called The British X-Files – is determined to uncover the truth.

“Alex was first footing on Govan Road with his two brothers, who later said that suddenly Alex simply ‘wasn’t there’,” explains Andy.

“There are very sketchy details about this case in books and on websites, but I wondered if any Glasgow Times readers knew of anyone else who could provide me with further information on the case.”

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On January 1, 1966, Alex, of Penilee, was walking along Govan Road with his older brothers William and David. The brothers claimed he was standing close to them when all of a sudden, he simply wasn’t there.

Six years later, the Scottish Daily Express reported that William and David would retrace their steps “in the vain hope that somehow he may return.”

The newspaper said: “In Govan police station, Alex is still listed as a missing person. And at their home, Alex’s family still have hope that some day he will turn up.

“Said Mr David Cleghorn, the missing man’s father: ‘It will probably be useless. But as long as we still have hope we will try anything to find Alex. There are thoughts he might have staggered onto a shop on the Clyde under the influence of drink.

“‘But if this had been the case Alex would somehow have got in touch with us.’”

In the mid-2010s, a surviving cousin of the Cleghorns appeared television discussing how the story had divided the family, with some believing Alex had simply fallen into the Clyde and some believing something more supernatural to be afoot.

Andy, who is a hospital porter who writes books, articles and a blog as a hobby, says he is an “open-minded skeptic” who has always been fascinated by unsolved mysteries.

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“My main interest is reports of strange phenomena, and I have also written for the websites Spooky Isles and The Skeptic, and the magazine Fortean Times,” he says.

“I first read about the Alex Cleghorn mystery in a 1987 book called Modern Mysteries of Britain, by Janet and Colin Bord, and the details are repeated on various websites, but no-one knows much more…hopefully your readers might be able to help.”

The Govan Road mystery is one of several spooky stories in Glasgow’s history.

Glasgow Times:

In Partick, according to the then Glasgow Herald on November 14, 1979, an elderly couple were so terrified by a whole family of ghosts in their flat that they had to move. Located close to an old Quaker burial ground on Keith Street – which is still there - the flat was rumoured to be haunted by a doctor, his wife and three children who had died in mysterious circumstances.

The Western Infirmary, now demolished, was also rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of an artist, suffering from chronic migraines, who threw himself down the stairs of the hospital after surgeons refused to operate on him. His ghost was spotted by staff standing outside the hospital's operating theatres.

Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre is rumoured to be haunted by a dancer who died when her dress caught fire, while staff at the former Arches venue on Argyle Street reported seeing a little girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes wandering the hallways. Rumour has it she was so lifelike that some employees even approached her to ask if she was lost – only for her to vanish in front of their eyes…

And most people know the tale of the Gorbals Vampire, a strange figure spotted flitting through the gravestones of the Southern Necropolis in 1954. Rumours that a seven-foot-tall monster with iron teeth had killed and eaten two young boys swept through the neighbourhood like wildfire and gangs of youngsters, armed with stakes and knives and accompanied by angry dogs, pitched up at the South Side cemetery in the hope of catching the strange creature. Glasgow’s Mitchell Library has some of the newspaper articles which covered the story at the time, and images of the Gorbals Vampire, in its occult collection.

Was Alex Cleghorn simply the victim of a tragic accident? Or was something more ghostly at play?

Andy can be contacted by email at andyowens333@gmail.com, by post at 65 Woodlands Avenue, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX3 6HJ, or by phone on 07393 520679.