The Highgate Vampire

In a letter of 6 February 1970, David Farrant told a London paper he had seen a grey figure at Highgate Cemetery. Reports of a vampire there followed in the press.

On 6 February 1970, David Farrant wrote to the Hampstead and Highgate Express. He said that on 24 December 1969, going by Highgate Cemetery, he caught sight of a grey figure that he considered supernatural, and he asked whether others had seen something similar. A week later, several readers wrote back with a range of ghosts said to walk the cemetery or Swain's Lane next to it.

National Geographic says papers had by then run sightings of a tall, burning-eyed figure and other sights in the cemetery. Journalists quickly took up Seán Manchester's theory that an eastern European vampire was behind them. National Geographic adds that papers embellished his claims, labelling it a king vampire and saying it had dabbled in black magic in Romania and then come to London in a coffin.

Atlas Obscura says the story started from accounts about a creature inside the cemetery, and suggests Manchester or Farrant likely generated it. It reports that both men vowed to hunt the vampire down, and that each called the other a charlatan.