Myths and Legends

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Story 1.

America's Vampires

Over the decades, successive literary and cinematic offerings have gradually bastardized the original interpretation of the vampire from that of a terrifying and murderous monster into a somewhat romanticized and almost comedic caricature.

But the reality behind the concept of vampirism is far removed from the fantasy, born out of a flurry of brutal and truly horrifying murders.

We meet America's vampires.

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The earliest references to vampirism can be found in the folklore of Eastern European and Baltic cultures.

These stories told of nocturnal creatures endowed with supernatural powers, which had the ability to bewitch and enthrall in order to drain the blood of those unlucky enough to encounter them.

All of that changed with the publication of a novel written by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897.

The story achieved international success and acclaim and introduced the world to the most iconic portrayal of the vampire legend, the enigmatic Count Dracula.

Almost overnight, the vampire ceased to be a cannibalistic forest-dwelling entity and morphed into a charming yet sinister European nobleman.

Successive interpretations of the vampire legend have almost universally utilised Stoker's source material as the blueprint to work from.

Audiences have been invited to fear this creature, in some cases to sympathise, and in others to ridicule it.

But the central message has always been that vampires are easy to detect when you look for the telltale signs, and equally as easy to defeat using appropriate techniques.

Whilst the medical ailment of vampirism itself is a work of pure fiction, it does bear striking similarities to some existing diseases.

The maddening psychological effects of rabies on the human body, and the need for sufferers of porphyria to ingest large amounts of hem into their bloodstream have both been identified as being similar to the core concepts of the vampiric condition.

Incidents involving alleged vampirism in Western society do exist, predating Stoker's novel and conceivably having influenced his writings.

But the antagonists in these stories were a far cry from the moustache-twirling Cape Sporting dandy that would eventually become the accepted face of the vampire.

They were seemingly ordinary members of society, with very dark secrets that they sought to keep hidden from the rest of their communities.

In May of 1866, a whaling bark named the Atlantic set sail from the port of Boston on a two-year hunt amidst the Indian Ocean.

She was a vessel of significant size and tonnage and carried a crew of 38 sailors.

The majority of those aboard were migrant workers, who had joined the crew at various stages of her previous voyages, including a 25-year-old Guyanan national named James Brown.

Brown had enlisted aboard the Atlantic as a cook, and had acquired something of a reputation for being quick to temper.

He had been repeatedly warned about his extreme behaviour by the ship's captain, Benjamin Wing, as his constant quarrelling and fighting with fellow crew members proved difficult to defuse on such lengthy voyages.

Not long into the journey, Brown came to blows with a 19-year-old mate by the name of James Foster.

As he was being physically restrained by the rest of the crew, Brown raged that Foster had used a racial slur against him, an allegation that Foster fervently denied.

Eventually, Brown seemed to calm and reluctantly resumed his duties in the galley.

The following morning, Foster did not report for his watch, which necessitated a search of the vessel.

A short time later, another ship's mate named James Gardner found Brown crouched behind some crates in the smothering darkness of one of the vessel's holds.

Underneath him were the mutilated remains of James Foster.

The dead man's body was covered in deep and bloody lacerations, apparently inflicted by a whaling knife wielded by Brown.

The cook was crouched down on all fours when he was discovered, lapping up blood that had pooled on the deck.

Gardner immediately cried out in horror, bringing more of the crew down to the bloody scene, who were able to incapacitate and restrain the murderer.

A cursory check of Foster's corpse found it had been completely exanguinated by the deep and vicious knife wounds that had been inflicted upon it.

Worse still, the body of a second young crew member lay hidden a short distance away, similarly drained of blood.

Hissing and lashing out at anybody who tried to communicate with him, seemingly possessed by the devil himself, Brown was clapped in irons and thrown into the brig until a vessel could return him and the witnesses back to Boston for his trial.

On November the 13th, he was found guilty of the two murders and sentenced to death.

In a bizarre quirk of fate, Brown would be saved from the gallows by none other than the President of the United States himself.

Andrew Johnson had assumed the presidency following the death of Abraham Lincoln and was notorious for his sympathy and clemency towards those who had been given the death penalty.

Brown's execution was rescinded and he was instead sentenced to life imprisonment.

The sailor was transferred to the Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts, quickly becoming one of the most problematic inmates.

It was rumoured that the murder of two other prisoners by Brown was kept quiet by the prison authorities, to prevent undue interest from the press.

But in 1873, Brown was dragged off a fellow inmate having stabbed the victim seven times, in an apparent attempt to drain him of his blood.

The attack resulted in Brown being transferred to solitary confinement, but prison records show that he still managed to perpetrate a further 26 attacks on guards and other inmates, despite apparently being held in segregation.

The jailers were at a loss as to how the prisoner repeatedly escaped from his confinement, possessing almost supernatural levels of strength and stealth.

In 1892, Brown was found hunched over the lifeless corpse of one of his guards.

He had apparently murdered the jailer with a broken chair leg and was repeatedly tearing away with his teeth at a jagged wound he had inflicted to the dead man's throat.

In the aftermath of this third murder, he was declared criminally insane and was transferred to St.

Elizabeth's Mental Institution in Washington, D.C.

The former sailor would remain there until his death three years later.

The majority of his crewmates had already perished when the Atlantic was wrecked off the coast of San Francisco during an almighty storm, which some commentators have noted may have served as inspiration for the arrival of Dracula in Bramstoker's novel.

But whilst Brown is one of America's most notorious vampiric killers, he was by no means the first.

The remote community of Dillsborough in North Carolina sits halfway between the cities of Charlotte and Atlanta, nestling at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains.

It would not be officially recognised as a town until the early 1880s, with the arrival of the Murphy Branch Railroad, but the settlement would first come to national attention over a century before this, following a series of brutal slayings.

In the spring of 1788, a doctor by the name of Alfort moved into the settlement with his wife and son, building a large residence on the banks of the nearby Tucasagi River.

A surgery and apothecary were installed in two of the upstairs rooms, and a steady flow of townsfolk were soon visiting the family in search of treatment for a variety of mundane illnesses and ailments.

After a few months, two local labourers who had recently been treated by Dr.

Alfort both died suddenly.

Their passing had been completely unexpected, and when no obvious cause of death could be identified, accusations against the good doctor began to circulate.

It would take the intervention of the local minister to calm the more hot-headed members of his congregation before things eventually settled down again.

But several weeks later, the minister's wife was about to retire to bed for the evening when she noticed the door to their young daughter's bedroom was ajar.

On entering the room, she saw the silhouette of a dark figure standing over the girl's bed and screamed for assistance.

As the intruder fled via the open bedroom window, the minister came running.

his lantern illuminating the body of their dead daughter and the two fresh gaping wounds to her throat.

Over the next few evenings, the population was gripped with fear as reports of a giant flying creature circling above the town spread like wildfire.

Doors and windows that would previously have been left open at night were now tightly secured and bolted, with families huddled together overnight in one bedroom for safety.

One evening, A pair of elderly residents were awoken by an almighty hammering on their front door.

They found their young grandson outside, breathless and terrified, claiming that a monster had attacked his mother and father.

Once a sufficient number of able-bodied men had been gathered, they set off for the family's home.

Upon their arrival they discovered the bodies of both his parents and two young sisters, all killed as a result of blood loss, from horrific injuries to their necks.

An extensive search of the settlement and surrounding areas by detectives, paid for by a town hall collection, uncovered no clue as to the identity of the family's killer.

And as the next six months passed without further incident, the townsfolk gradually began to lower their guard.

But in February 1789, death once again came to the streets of Dillsborough.

Two brothers were awoken by screaming from the house of their neighbours, and having armed themselves with their labouring tools, they quickly ran next door to investigate.

As they burst in through the front entrance, they saw a dark shape fleeing through an open window, leaving behind the lifeless bodies of the young couple who resided in the house.

Consumed by anger, the brothers gave chase, following the fleeing figure a short distance to the Al Fort residence.

Within minutes the alarm had been sounded, and a posse of enraged and vengeful townsfolk had surrounded the doctor's home.

The decision was made to stand guard around the premises until morning, and to send for help from neighbouring settlements.

At the break of dawn, several hundred men armed with a variety of tools and weapons were ready, and the front doors to the premises were smashed in.

The house appeared empty, with all the beds freshly made as if they had not been slept in the night before.

The mob refused to be sated, surging once again through the household until they finally uncovered a trapdoor leading down into the cellar.

With no small amount of foreboding, the vigilantes cautiously made their way down into the darkness.

By the light of their lanterns, they found the cellar completely bare, save for three elongated wooden crates.

Dr.

Alfort and his wife were fast asleep in two of these, whilst the third remained unoccupied.

Of their 15-year-old son, there was no trace.

As the couple were hauled from their slumber by angry and vengeful hands, Mrs.

Alfort began to hiss and spit, clawing at the faces of her attackers with cold, undead hands.

For his part, the Doctor remained silent as he was manhandled out into the sunlight.

He refused to answer any of the questions put to him, sitting in stony silence as his wife howled and struggled alongside him.

After a short conference, the decision was made to execute the couple and then leave their corpses inside the house they had built whilst it was burned to the ground.

With the deaths of the Alforts, the murders in Dillsborough immediately ceased.

For a few months afterwards, there were fleeting reports of a lone shadowy figure moving through the town's streets at night, but these quickly died down.

It was never fully ascertained if the doctor's son had been complicit or if he was another target of the evil that possessed his parents.

Sadly, this would not be the first time that members of the same family would be accused of killing and feasting on the blood of their victims.

Whilst allegedly vampiric incidents have been documented all over North America, An overwhelming number of these reports herald from the southern United States, with the location of New Orleans emerging as an apparent focal point for the phenomenon.

This is perhaps unsurprising, given its rich and diverse history, with the city housing several notorious residents who were suspected of being vampires.

During the late 18th century, a European nobleman named the Comte de Saint-Germain arrived in New Orleans.

In possession of a small personal fortune and an aptitude for a variety of different musical instruments, he soon cemented his position within the city's upper social echelons.

One evening, a young lady was found to have fallen from a balcony at his home, claiming that the Count had attacked her and tried to bite her neck.

When the authorities eventually forced entry to the premises, they found the nobleman long gone, but what appeared to be flasks of wine mixed with blood hidden in his cellar.

During the 1930s, this nightmarish scenario was seemingly repeated, when a teenage girl managed to escape from inside a residential property in the city's French quarter.

As she showed the attending officers deep lacerations to both of her wrists, she told them that she had been abducted from the street by two brothers, and that more people were still trapped up in the third-story apartment.

The police found four other victims barely alive inside.

tied to chairs, and all with identical cuts to their wrists which had slowly drained their bodies of blood.

Some had apparently been there for over a week, with the survivors claiming that the flat's two occupants would go to work during the day and then return to systematically drain their victims of blood every evening.

At approximately half past five that same day, John and Wayne Carter returned home from their shift at the docks to find a small army of police officers waiting.

The two men fought with what the arresting officers described as superhuman strength, with seven or eight officers needed to incapacitate each brother and wrestle them to the ground.

A search of another nearby property belonging to the family uncovered the remains of 14 further victims, all of whom had died from extreme blood loss.

The brothers were subsequently tried for multiple counts of abduction and murder.

and were sentenced to death.

The Carter family had resided within New Orleans for several generations, and owned a crypt within one of the city's graveyards.

After they were executed, the bodies of the two brothers were conveyed to this crypt, their remains placed inside atop those of previous family members.

Several years later, when the tomb was again opened for another relative, it was found that both John and Wayne's bodies were inexplicably missing.

Unconfirmed sightings of a pair of shadowy figures resembling the brothers were later reported in the vicinity of their apartment, but the story of the Carter vampires still had a further bizarre twist of fate in store.

It was reported that one of their surviving victims, a young man named Philippe, would later go on to be arrested himself for the brutal and bloody murders of several local homeless men.

It is clear that whilst the fields of science and medicine undermine the traditional depiction of vampirism, as depicted by Bram Stoker in his novel, social history is littered with incidents containing mysterious and bewildering events, which are difficult to explain using conventional investigative techniques.

There is something not yet quite quantifiable that seemingly drives a small minority of antagonists to seek life through the deaths of others.

Whether this is a human condition that is contracted physiologically or psychologically remains to be seen.

But given the significant number of crimes that fit these characteristics, it seems that at least something fitting the description of a well-known folklore may indeed have some sort of basis in reality.

Whether the causes behind the cases we have related are supernatural or more psychological in nature, there is no denying how deeply disturbing they are.

We can only hope that our knowledge of the vampiric condition evolves to a point where we can understand and manage those afflicted by it in a humane and effective manner.

Story 2 The Scourge of the Skinwalker

For centuries, the southern regions of the United States have been plagued by stories of strange beings which travel under the cover of darkness, attacking anyone they encounter without fear or remorse.

What is it that lurks in the shadows, waiting for lone victims?

We explore the scourge of the skinwalker.

Some of the most colorful cryptids to be found in American culture originate from tales passed down through generations by the country's Native American tribes.

From Sasquatches that dwell within the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest to the dogmen which traverse the highways and byways of rural Michigan, it seems that the same monsters who stalk the campfires of the Sioux and Apache settlements may still walk freely amongst us.

The origins of each of these entities usually feature no small degree of mysticism and tragedy, often involving conflicted human characters who were transformed into monsters, either as a result of villainous witchcraft or involvement in rituals which they voluntarily subjected themselves to.

And whilst many are malevolent or murderous in nature, few are as unsettling as the tales told about the skinwalker.

This particularly dangerous and deceitful creature was first spoken of by the Navajo people, who christened it the Nolved Lushi, which translates as, he who walks on all fours.

The term described a witch or sinister individual who had chosen to relinquish all of their humanity by participating in a secretive ceremony.

This involved the invocation of certain charms and chants, and culminated in the willful murder of a loved one.

After consuming the flesh of their victim, the killer in turn lost all vestiges of kindness and reason, transitioning into an unfeeling and relentless monster, intent only on the commission of further acts of murder and cannibalism.

This unholy process also granted them the power not only to control the actions of other predatory creatures, but also to transform into them at will.

Regardless of whether they had remained in their own decaying form, or had chosen to take the shape of an animal such as a wolf or coyote, the Skinwalker possessed the ability to take control of those it encountered by entering via their gaze, discarding their own body in the process and inhabiting that of the unfortunate victim.

Skinwalkers were described as supernaturally fast and powerful, able to cover great distance distance in a short amount of time, and easily outrun a human being.

When not hunting live prey across the countryside, these vile entities would seek out recently dug graves.

They would unearth fresh corpses, grinding the bones down into a powder which would later be used to poison and incapacitate future victims.

It was said to be relatively easy to distinguish skinwalkers from other predators, because although they were able to mimic the physical form of their chosen animal, they still moved in much the same way as when they were a human being.

Their pelt was said to hang loosely off their skeletal frame, as if wearing an outer garment.

Their eyes also gave off an unnatural glow that could be seen approaching through the darkness.

Much like the vampires of European culture, A skinwalker could not enter a residence unless it had been invited.

Instead, they would scour the transport routes and highways that connected human settlements, picking off small groups of travelers before retreating to their chosen hiding place.

The only way to truly kill these beasts was to uncover it and then speak its true human name, which would cause it to die within three days.

If recent stories are to be believed, the skinwalker has successfully endured the trials and tribulations that its human ancestors had to endure and continues to pose a very real threat to America's modern-day inhabitants.

US Route 491 carves its way down through the states of Utah and Colorado, finally terminating as it reaches New Mexico.

Originally christened as US Route 666 when it was completed in the mid-1920s, it came to earn the unfortunate nickname of the Devil's Highway.

Following the persistent theft of its iconic road signs and a series of fatal traffic accidents, it was eventually renamed to its current and decidedly less dramatic reference number.

A stretch of this iconic highway, which forms a border of the nearby Navajo Reservation and connects the city of Gallup to the nearby town of Shiprock, has been the scene of a number of inexplicable and supernatural occurrences.

One summer evening during the mid-1990s, A pair of highway patrolmen were dispatched to conduct a search of the area, following a report that a motorist had been attacked.

As the two officers drove slowly along the carriageway, illuminating the surrounding terrain with the searchlight mounted on the roof of their cruiser, they received an update that a truck driver had felt tired whilst travelling along the highway earlier that evening, and had pulled over to get some sleep.

He had subsequently awoken a short time later to the sounds of scratching, coming from the base of the driver's side door.

As the trucker had lowered his window and leaned out of the cab to see what was making the the noise, a shape had lunged up out of the shadows beneath him.

The terrified driver caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a dark figure, wearing some kind of Halloween mask, before he had panicked and driven away at high speed.

Contacting the police switchboard in the aftermath of the incident, the witness described how he had looked in his wing mirror as he had been driving away.

to see the figure running along behind the truck in pursuit, illuminated by the red glow of his taillights.

When he had finally reached the nearest town and pulled over, he had then discovered deep scratches and indentations, freshly carved into the metal of the cab door.

At the conclusion of the radio transmission, the two officers had scoffed at the story and were just about to terminate their search when their patrol car was suddenly rocked by something violently impacting off the passenger side door.

As the driver instinctively stamped down on the accelerator, the officer beside him had turned to see a horrifying face leering in at him through the window, its red glowing eyes staring intently at him.

As the police vehicle accelerated away, the face at the window remained, making him believe its body was clinging to the side of the car.

But then the nightmarish features began to fall away, and the officer realised that the creature was in fact running alongside the fleeing vehicle.

at a speed that should have been impossible to achieve.

Later on back at their parade station, the two officers agreed that their attacker had resembled an old lady, possessing a body that was emaciated and skeletal in appearance.

Its skin had been dark, as if covered in an animal pelt, and yet it had possessed a face that was pale and hairless, in stark and haunting contrast.

It was an encounter that would cause both officers to avoid travelling along that particular stretch of road in the future, wherever possible.

During the summer of 2004, a mechanic by the name of Stephen Ferguson had a chilling encounter whilst working on the Dillon Reservoir in Colorado.

On the 13th of July, Ferguson found himself working late into the evening after a busy day.

The owner of the Frisco Marina had asked him to come and take a look at one of his boats, which had been cutting out intermittently.

It was almost 10 pm by the time he arrived on site, and whilst the marina itself was closed, the owner had left the keys to the boat in a key safe by the main reception.

He found the vessel in question sitting towards the end of the main jetty, and keen to finish his last job of the day and get home, he set to work straight away.

Within about 10 minutes, he had diagnosed the fault and was commencing the repair.

when he suddenly spotted someone standing on the jetty to his left.

He could not see who it was, as the light he was working by was far too bright.

All he could see was a silhouette cast against the dark blue of the night sky.

He assumed it was the owner of the boat, coming to check that the repair was being carried out, so he called out his name.

Mr.

Bennings, is it?

The silhouette did not respond, and remained completely motionless.

Feeling slightly unnerved, Ferguson spoke again.

Listen, whoever you are, you're not supposed to be down here.

This is private property.

Again there was no response, but after a brief pause, the figure suddenly took a step forward, and the mechanic could see several features illuminated in the ambience of his worklight.

It had extremely long arms, at the ends of which were grotesquely large hands and long spindly fingers.

The skin of the face was creased and all folded up, almost like the figure was wearing somebody else's face over its own.

Its clothes were all mismatched and haphazard, as if sporting the garments of several different people.

Its movements were jerky and unstable as it moved forward once more, this time stepping down onto the boat.

Ferguson picked up the biggest wrench he had to hand and told the intruder to stay back.

but it continued forwards until it was almost upon him.

He swung with all his strength, knocking the figure off balance, before rushing forwards and pushing it over the side of the vessel.

Whatever it was disappeared with a splash, whilst the mechanic jumped up onto the jetty and ran back to his truck, leaving his tools behind.

When he went back to collect them early the next morning, he found his toolbox sitting exactly where he had left it.

Nothing had been taken from it, but the baseball cap he had been wearing, which had come off his head at some point during the commotion, was gone.

Another location which has gradually become enshrined in the legend of the Skinwalker is the city of Flagstaff in Arizona.

Situated on the borders of the Grand Canyon National Park, it is only a three-hour drive from the territory of the Navajo Nation and has been the scene of multiple sightings of alleged skinwalker activity.

During one of their incursions, the police were called to an isolated rural farmstead, following a report that intruders had attempted to gain entry.

Upon speaking to the homeowners, it transpired that their daughter had been awoken earlier that evening by a strange noise coming from outside.

Peering out of her bedroom window into the darkness, she had noticed what appeared to be three exceptionally large wolves congregating at a point just outside the perimeter of the property's wooden fence line.

The three animals were far larger than any wolves she had seen before, and all appeared to be in a poor condition, being very thin in appearance, with their coats sagging loosely underneath them.

As she watched, one of the animals reared up on its hind legs and tentatively pawed at the fencing, producing the strange sound which had disturbed her.

After a few seconds, it dropped back down onto all fours, before suddenly rearing up again and managing to stand independently.

Her eyes now wide with horror, the girl looked on as the two accompanying animals proceeded to do the same, until all three were standing bolt upright, seeming to regard the barrier in front of them.

They then moved forward, their forepaws reaching out like human arms, taking hold of the wooden fencing.

With a sickening feeling rising inside her, She realized that they were attempting to climb up and over the fence.

It soon became clear that none of the tall figures could gain an effective handhold, and their attempt ceased.

But rather than moving away from the fence, the three wolves suddenly moved closer to one another.

It was at that point that the girl became aware of a new commotion coming from the animals.

The sound of men chanting in chorus.

Utterly terrified by the three unnatural figures which were now staring back at her, speaking together in an unknown language, the teenager cried out for her parents.

As her father ran out onto the front porch with his rifle, he caught sight of three large black shapes bolting away into the tree line before he managed to get off a shot.

A search of the perimeter fencing uncovered nothing unusual, and the attending officers were soon on their way again, but the incident had left a lasting impression on the farm's inhabitants.

Several days later, at the insistence of the girl's father, an elder from the Navajo Reservation came to inspect the fencing.

In hushed terms, she explained that the family had been visited by three evil spirits, and that they had been lucky to survive the encounter.

Both Flagstaff and the Legend of the Skinwalker would achieve national notoriety in June of 1987.

when a hospital worker named Sarah Saganitso was found murdered on the grounds of the local medical centre.

She had been stabbed repeatedly, and her attacker had apparently bitten away at her torso and face, leaving it extremely difficult to identify her remains.

Following inquiries by the local police department, a college professor by the name of George Abney was arrested and charged with the murder, and it was the mitigation offered at court by his defence attorneys that elevated the case to a national level.

Abney had been compelled to commit the murder by strange voices, which had spoken to him whilst he was asleep and had told him to consume the victim's flesh after the deed had been done.

The presence of a broken woodstave near to the body and soil which had apparently been removed from a nearby graveyard were evidence of black magic, according to the defence.

Abney was duly convicted of the crime, but then released a year later when an appeal that he had lodged was upheld.

In a curious twist of fate, Members of Saganitso's family had petitioned the judge for his release, claiming they did not believe Abney was the the true killer, and that he had been acting under something else's control.

Historians and commentators on Native American culture are quick to point out that the majority of historical encounters with paranormal entities stem from the fact that warriors would often go to war adorned with the pelts of animals fastened to their clothing.

In the heat of battle, Witnesses would mistake their enemies as oversized beasts, who moved unnaturally compared to regular members of their species.

Similarly, tales of these individuals possessing supernatural speed and endurance are attributed to memories of the survivors being affected by the trauma of having been relentlessly hunted and pursued by their attackers.

It is intriguing though, that the skinwalker shares a large number of characteristics with similar entities found in other cultures all around the world.

The concept of a human becoming cursed by consuming the flesh of another is similar to tales of the Wendigo.

The idea that they cannot enter a premises without permission is also found in the folklore of vampires from Eastern Europe.

And the idea that if they are wounded in their animal form, the injury remains upon their human body is identical to the description of the Aswang found in the Philippines.

Are the similarities in these stories from across the globe proof that there is another sinister species that shares this world with humanity?

one which has always existed alongside human beings, dwelling within the shadows but following on as mankind migrated to new lands, settling near to their communities.

Or is there perhaps something much deeper and psychologically rooted taking place, hardwired into the human psyche, which generates the concept of a creature that is truly horrifying and apparently unstoppable, a monster that possesses powers and characteristics that defy belief?

In time, it is possible that America's southern states may yet yield some clues relating to the origins and existence of the Skinwalker.

Until then, our only advice is to avoid venturing out into the night if you can at all help it.

And if you do find yourself driving along a dark highway in the small hours, whatever you do,

don't stop.