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The Highgate Vampire
One of the strangest events to occur in the modern era is the tale of the Highgate Vampire. All of it started in 1963. One evening, a couple was wandering through London’s renowned Highgate Cemetery (the final resting place of Karl Marx). As they passed the North Gate, the lovers claimed to have observed a tall, dark form floating above the cemetery’s walls. Another witness would state that the shape resembled a “black treacle.”
After reading the various eyewitness accounts, the British Occult Society members decided to explore the cemetery six years later. Sean Manchester and David Farrant were in charge of the widely renowned vampire hunt inside of Highgate.
Farrant claims that in December 1969, while spending the night inside the cemetery with Manchester, he first encountered the vampire. Farrant reported seeing a big, black figure with “hypnotic” eyes. Farrant also suggested that the creature could control the weather because the graveyard became substantially cooler when Farrant saw him.
Following the publication of this story in the neighborhood newspapers, rumors about Satanists who frequently offered animal sacrifices in the cemetery started to spread. This raised the possibility that the monster wasn’t a vampire but a demon.
When Manchester told the Hampstead & Highgate Express in February 1970 that the cemetery was…
