by Natalie Main

Created on: August 12, 2009   Last Updated: August 17, 2009

I must admit, all my life I have seen the "vampire" as a mysterious, alluring and sexual creature who comes into your bedroom at night and steals a bloody kiss from you. I used to think all this was just fantasy and make-believe, something you'd dream about at night to escape from the dreary repetitiveness of everyday life, but what if it isn't make believe and what we see in movies and read in books actually has some truth to it?

That gets me to the point of my article, has anyone ever heard of the "Highgate Vampire"? No, you say? That's just as well, because I'm here to tell you all about it. The "Highgate Vampire" began its rein of terror in the early 1960s; 1963 to be precise, in the ever-so-romantic Victorian cemetery aptly named "Highgate Cemetery." A bit cliche, you're starting to think? I'd have to agree there, when two young convent girls walking back from visiting friends that evening took to walking down Swains Lane right opposite the cemetery to their dismay and - pure horror - claimed to see bodies rising from their graves. Where's the proof? To this day, it still hasn't be proved whether it was in fact true or the ramblings of two girls with an highly active imagination. Did they make it all up?

Another incident several weeks later involved a couple walking down the same lane, claiming to have seen a ghostly figure hovering behind the gates of the cemetery. They explained later that it seemed to have a look of pure horror on its face. Soon, more sightings were popping up here and there, all of a spectral figure roaming the eerie walkways of the old cemetery. Some even wrote into the local newspaper and some alleged to have found animal carcasses drained of their lifeblood. Soon, it was being termed a vampire, which of course is only supposed to be in movies, not everyday life, but we'll continue on nevertheless.

All seemed quiet for the next 8 years, until in 1971; a young girl insisted she was actually attacked by the fabled and now-infamous vampire who prowled the cemetery at night. Again, it took place in Swains Lane. She described herself being thrown to the ground with an almighty force, seemingly from the "tall black figure with a deathly white face" (I know - very cliche,) who was now slowly advancing on her. Suddenly, when she thought her luck had run out, a passing car stopped and with the glare of the headlights the unearthly figure was gone. She was immediately taken to a nearby police station in an obvious state of shock,

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