The Return of the Highgate Vampire
Dave Milner is a B.P.O.S. affiliate, and because of this he has been labelled a ‘fugitive from justice’ by a certain individual; hence his camera shyness – he’s still on the run! But he wasn’t ‘running’ when he wrote this interesting article about the Highgate Vampire in 2005, for Paranormal magazine.
Legends of bloodsucking vampires have haunted our imaginations for centuries, but in the leafy village of Highgate north London it is said that the infamous Highgate vampire still lurks.
Highgate cemetery famous for being the burial place of Karl Marx is the backdrop for the many reports and sightings of a vampire like apparition that has been seen by many a person in and around Swains Lane which leads up to the north gate of the old cemetery. This case has been ongoing since the late 1960s, chief investigator David Farrant, of the British Psychic and Occult Society, believes he has the answer.
David has interviewed many of the witnesses who say they have seen this apparition and all of them seem to describe the same thing, a tall dark man with glowing red eyes and skeletal type face wearing a black hat and a dark coat of 18th century appearance. David himself visited the cemetery on one cold and dank night in December, he didn’t have long to wait before he felt that he was being observed by something or someone he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end and as he turned to face the north gate of Highgate cemetery he saw a sinister apparition that seemed to be about eight feet tall with glowing red eyes, David says that this apparition seemed to be draining him of his energy so he recited a cabalistic incantation and the psychic attack stopped.
He then fled to his home in Highgate where it took him some time for to recover from the traumatic shock of what he had experienced and seen. He launched a full-scale investigation, as this investigation started to gather pace it attracted a great deal of media interest and attention, both national and international, other groups also became interested in this case, some of who’s findings were rather far fetched and bordering on the ridiculous, with talk of giant spiders and cat like creatures, one group even alleged that the ‘vampire’ was tracked down to a deserted Gothic Mansion not far from Highgate Cemetery where it was ‘staked through the heart’ and gave out an ‘almighty roar’ before ‘descending into the bowels of hell’!
With the exception of Farrant’s investigation the whole episode took on a Hammer Horror kind of twist, in fact they even filmed a version of Dracula on location in Highgate starring Louis Jordan. Of course all of this was taking place during the late 1960s to the late 1970s and Farrant’s investigation appears to be the only one holding any water, so far due to its consistency and scientific approach, as seen in some of the many videos and TV programs that David has made over this entire investigation ie The Case of the Highgate Vampire and In Search of the Highgate Vampire. All of which brings us to the more recent events from the early 1990s to the present day. Over this past decade reports of this apparition have been seen again and David Farrant has reopened this investigation as a cold case, in an attempt to once again try to reach a satisfactory conclusion and to finally find out who or what the Highgate Vampire is. However talking to some of the locals in the area fact or fantasy they say they will still keep away from Highgate Cemetery.