Reply to this article

1 Message

• Vampire fans out for blood at art gallery (buffy mention)

  12 August 2006 14:14, by Vampire Research Society

  "Ever since I became aware that Highgate Cemetery was the reputed haunt of a vampire, the investigations and activities of Seán Manchester commanded my attention. I became convinced that, more than anyone else, the president of the Vampire Research Society knew the full story of the Highgate Vampire which is probably the most remarkable contemporary account of vampiric activity and infestation and cure. Can such things as vampires really exist? The evidence seems to be overwhelming and the author [of The Highgate Vampire book] is to be congratulated on his knowledgeable and lucid account of the case which is likely to become one of the classic works on this interesting and mystifying subject.”

   Peter Underwood, President of the Ghost Club Society; Life-Member of the Vampire Research Society; and author of over fifty books on the paranormal.

  Two seemingly unconnected incidents occurred within weeks of one another in early 1967. The first involved two 16-year-old convent girls who were walking home at night after having visited friends in Highgate Village. Their return journey took them down Swains Lane past the cemetery. They could not believe their eyes as they passed the graveyard’s north gate at the top of the lane, for in front of them bodies appeared to be emerging from their tombs. One of these schoolgirls later suffered nightly visitations and blood loss. The second incident, some weeks later, involved an engaged couple who were walking down the same lane. Suddenly the female shrieked as she glimpsed something hideous hovering behind the gate’s iron railings. Then her fiancé saw it. They both stood frozen to the ground as the spectre held them in thrall. Its face bore an expression of basilisk horror. Soon others sighted the same phenomenon as it hovered along the path behind the gate where gravestones are visible either side until consumed in darkness. Before long people were talking in hushed tones about the rumoured haunting in local pubs. Some who actually witnessed the spectral figure wrote to their local newspaper to share their experience. Discovery was made of animal carcasses drained of blood. They had been so exsanguinated that a forensic sample could not be found. It was only a matter of time before a person was found in the cemetery in a pool of blood. This victim died of wounds to the throat. The police made every attempt to cover-up the vampiristic nature of the death.

  Seán Manchester informed the public on 27 February 1970 that the cause was most probably a vampire. He appeared on television on 13 March 1970 and repeated his theory. The VRS, whose specialist unit within a larger investigatory organisation (now defunct) had opened the case twelve months earlier, established a history of similar hauntings that went back to before the graveyard existed. A suspected tomb was located and a spoken exorcism performed. This proved to be ineffective.

  The hauntings and animal deaths continued. Indeed, they multiplied. By now all sorts of people were jumping on the vampire bandwagon; including film-makers and rock musicians. Most were frightened off. Some who interloped became fascinated by the black arts with disastrous consequences. Meanwhile, serious researchers considered the possibility that a nest of vampires might be active in the area. Yet there seemed to be one principal source which the media had already dubbed a "King Vampire of the Undead.”

  Seán Manchester led the thirteen year investigation from beginning to end. There was indeed more than one vampire for him and the Vampire Research Society to confront. However, in early 1974 he tracked the principal source of the contamination, known as the Highgate Vampire, to a derelict neo-Gothic mansion on the Highgate borders. Here he employed the ancient and approved remedy. No vampire has been sighted in or near Highgate Cemetery and its environs since that time. The exorcised remains of the Highgate Vampire appear on page 144 of his bestselling book The Highgate Vampire. This is a full account with photographs from the case file in a quality hardcover edition with illustrations throughout. Updates on the Highgate Vampire and other cases can be found in The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook written by the same author.

  No member of the Vampire Research Society, least of all its founding president, has been "banned" from Highgate Cemetery, as some people have erroneously claimed. Indeed, Seán Manchester has enjoys a good relationship with the Friends of Highgate Cemetery (FoHC) with whose chairperson he has been on excellent terms for many years.

  Forums where the Highgate Vampire case is discussed:

  http://groups.msn.com/TheCrossandTheStake

  http://groups.msn.com/HighgateVampire

  http://highgatevampire.proboards22.com

  http://groups.msn.com/VampireResearchSociety

  http://groups.msn.com/BritishOccultSociety

  The Highgate Vampire on CD (archive audio recordings):

  http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/CD.htm

  Books by the VRS president about the Highgate Vampire:

  The Highgate Vampire: The World of the Undead Unearthed at London’s Highgate Cemetery

  http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Highgate%20Vampire%20Book.htm

  The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook: A Concise Vampirological Guide

  http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Handbook.htm

  Vampire Research Society URL: http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Vampire%20Research%20Society.htm

  Reply to this message