The Mini Vampiric Panic That Gripped England in the ‘70s [Guide to the Unknown]

Vampires have been stalking our collective imagination from the dark corners for centuries, and they show no sign of slowing down. Interview with the Vampire is going strong on AMC+, and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is coming out as a creepy Christmas treat. Do I even need to mention The Count on Sesame Street?

So this week on Bloody FM’s Guide to the Unknown, we look back at the history of this category of nocturnal baddie, starting way back in the day when people confused buried, gas-bloated corpses as being disturbingly alive and well – so disturbing that they must be unholy.

We then zoom forward in time to discuss the story of a rumored vampire that whipped the public into a frenzy rivaling Twilight Mania (eh, no, it doesn’t, but still): the story of The Highgate Vampire.

In March 1969, the British Psychic and Occult Society (which I’ll be abbreviating to BPOS) started getting reports about a creepy tall black figure wandering around London’s Highgate Cemetery. Most of these stories were just local gossip, but investigators soon found a guy who said he had a close encounter with what they called “The Highgate Vampire”. He said he felt hypnotized by something lurking in the shadows and got all turned around trying to leave.

As he stumbled around in the dark, he started sensing something behind him. When he spun around, he saw this tall black figure, but it vanished in a flash. Shortly after that, two teenage girls walking home on Swain Lane claimed they saw dead people rising from their graves. An elderly lady also said she got spooked by a “tall dark man” with scary eyes while walking her dog inside the cemetery gates. And then, the weirdest part: foxes in the area started dropping dead.

So this got picked up by local papers, including the Hampstead and Highgate Express, which ran an article titled “Why Do the Foxes Die?” Which is kind of awesome. The article supported the idea of this vampire stalking the cemetery and killing foxes. But it was poopooed by David Tarrant from the BPOS, who, however, didn’t rule out the possibility of the animals being killed by groups entering the cemetery to perform Satanic rituals.

Spurned on by all the reported activity and the media attention it was receiving, Farrant and the BPOS began to conduct a private investigation into just what was going on at Highgate Cemetery, and Farrant wrote into the Hampstead and Highgate Express with an update, as well as appearing on TV to spread the news — they had concluded there was indeed Satanic activity going on there, and his team has seen an apparition.

Farrant was careful not to use the word “vampire,” not wanting to sensationalize the events and the BPOS’ subsequent research. But a rival figure soon emerged who had no such reservations.

Sean Manchester was a self-proclaimed vampire hunter and exorcist who got into the mix, stating in TV interviews that the Highgate Vampire was a very old-school, Bram Stoker-style type and that he would hunt and dispatch him. Not only that, he said, but that David Farrant, whose media tour had preceded Manchester’s, would be joining him. The problem was that David Farrant had never signed off on any such partnership.

This crowd went wild. The day after that interview, hundreds of people with wooden stakes and shovels converged on Highgate Cemetery for a vampire hunt, breaking through police barricades — though some would retreat back across the line upon seeing frightening visions inside. In an interview, an attendee named Anthony Robinson said, “I walked past the place and heard a high-pitched noise, then I saw something grey moving slowly across the road. It terrified me…I’ve never believed in anything like this, now I’m sure there’s something evil lurking in Highgate.”

But going off of vibes isn’t enough to sustain a panic, so things died down over the next few months. That is until two schoolgirls walking through the cemetery come across the 100-year-old corpse of a woman who had been dragged out of her tomb, decapitated, and stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake. This led to a police investigation (which went nowhere) and an uptick in vampire sightings, including one where a woman said, “A pallid figure wearing a black cloak threw her to the ground.”

That was enough to get the BPOS back into the mix. They decided to conduct a seance at the cemetery to get any information of use, and “If successful, a rite of exorcism could then be performed to banish the entity from the earthly pane,” Farrant later wrote.

On August 17th, 1970, Farrant and members from the BPOS went into the Cemetery and headed straight to the first sighting area. They marked a big circle on the ground, putting down protective symbols, salt, and holy water. Then they set up another circle with candles and incense where they thought the demon would show up. But as they began their seance, they heard voices in the distance—it was the cops. They hurried to pack up their stuff, but Farrant didn’t make it out in time and got caught by the police.

Seance incomplete, exorcist unperformed, once again, public interest in The Highgate Vampire began to wane, and there haven’t been any significant enough sightings over the ensuing years to bring it back up to its former fever pitch. But if we know anything about vampires, it’s that they creep up on you, sinking in their teeth when you least expect it. Maybe we shouldn’t count The Highgate Vampire out just yet.

For way more about the history of vampires, why Sesame Street’s Count loves to count, and other vamp facts, join us, Kristen and Will, for this week’s episode of Guide to the Unknown. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to get a new episode every Friday.