Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard McLain Smith here, not the impostor you've
Speaker 1: been listening to on the podcasts the real one. Join
Speaker 1: me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com Forward Slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained pod. You're listening to Unexplained Season eight, episode twelve,
Speaker 1: The Dark Banquet, Part two. When Bram Stoker's Dracula, the
Speaker 1: story of an undead Eastern European count who rises zombie
Speaker 1: like from a coffin, feasting on the blood of the
Speaker 1: living to survive, was first published in eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: it became an overnight sensation. Today it is considered the
Speaker 1: quintus viential vampire novel, spawning a reverence and fascination for
Speaker 1: this most alluring of creatures that has persisted for over
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five years. Though many of the
Speaker 1: characteristics we associate with vampires, such as having no reflection
Speaker 1: or not being able to enter a building unless they
Speaker 1: are invited in, were invented by Stoker, he also borrowed
Speaker 1: a great deal from the ancient folklore and even real
Speaker 1: life history of Eastern Europe. There the vampire phenomenon can
Speaker 1: be traced back to at least the ninth century Historians
Speaker 1: have surmised that many of the folk tales likely evolved
Speaker 1: from peculiar or inexplicable deaths that people may have witnessed,
Speaker 1: combined with a lack of understanding of the symptoms of
Speaker 1: certain diseases and the decomposition process in general. In the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, people who became infected by the plague often
Speaker 1: developed ulcers and lesions around their mouths, which would bleed,
Speaker 1: making them appear as though they had been drinking blood.
Speaker 1: There was also the medical condition known as porphyria, a
Speaker 1: disease of the blood resulting from the faulty production of hemoglobin.
Speaker 1: Symptoms include abdominal and chest pain, vomiting, and fever. One
Speaker 1: form of the disease, known as porphyria cutanee tardia, concentrates
Speaker 1: the porphyrins, organic building blocks that help create hemoglobin in
Speaker 1: the skin. Exposing the affected skin to sunlight causes the
Speaker 1: abnormal pigments to damage surrounding tissues, resulting in severe skin
Speaker 1: rashes and blistering. It may also lead to severe anemia,
Speaker 1: giving sufferers a pale spectral appearance, along with receding gums,
Speaker 1: which leads to the teeth becoming more exposed and causing
Speaker 1: canines to take on a fang like appearance, all symptoms
Speaker 1: that likely contributed to the stories of why vampires avoid sunlight,
Speaker 1: burning up and being destroyed if they are exposed to it.
Speaker 1: When people are buried, if the soil is especially acidic
Speaker 1: or temperatures are low, the decomposition process can be very slow.
Speaker 1: If grave robbers were to dig up a corpse under
Speaker 1: such conditions, they might find the body still looking eerily lifelike.
Speaker 1: In other cases, uneven rigor mortis sometimes caused corpses to
Speaker 1: sit up in the grave, churning blood up the esophagus
Speaker 1: which issued from the mouth. People could be forgiven for
Speaker 1: thinking that such bodies had come back to life and
Speaker 1: were feeding on blood. On occasion, it has been known
Speaker 1: for wooden stakes or metal rods to be driven through
Speaker 1: the chest of these seemingly errant corpses just to make
Speaker 1: absolutely sure that they were dead. In recent decades, a
Speaker 1: slew of medieval vampire burials have been unearthed across Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: Bulgaria alone is home to at least one hundred. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, archaeologist Peta Balabanov discovered six nailed
Speaker 1: down skeletons at a site near the eastern Bulgarian town
Speaker 1: of de Belt. According to Balabanov, the pagan rite was
Speaker 1: practiced in neighboring Serbia and other Balkan countries too, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't all. An alternative to staking a corpse lest
Speaker 1: it returned from the dead was to behead the body,
Speaker 1: then place the head between the knees. Sometimes huge stones
Speaker 1: were placed on the corpse too to weigh it down,
Speaker 1: or the corpse was buried surrounded or pierced by sharp
Speaker 1: agricultural implements. Incredibly, these methods haven't been completely consigned to
Speaker 1: the history books, with some regions continuing to harbour these
Speaker 1: long held beliefs and practices. In Romania, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, reports emerged of a woman who'd become strangely
Speaker 1: ill after a farmer relative of hers named Toma Petrie
Speaker 1: had died. Believing her illness had something to do with Tom,
Speaker 1: it fell to six of her family's menfolk to remedy
Speaker 1: the situation, and so it was that, in the dead
Speaker 1: of night, together they went to the village cemetery and
Speaker 1: proceeded to dig up Thoma's corpse. Once unearthed, they removed
Speaker 1: its heart and burned it. The ashes were then mixed
Speaker 1: with water and given to the sickly relative to drink
Speaker 1: it said that after downing it all, she reportedly made
Speaker 1: a swift recovery. However, when the news gone out, the
Speaker 1: six men involved in tomas exhumation were promptly arrested, prosecuted,
Speaker 1: and jailed for six months. Though Toma Petrie was most
Speaker 1: likely not a real vampire, the animal kingdom are there's
Speaker 1: many vampiric creatures, most being very small by comparison to humans,
Speaker 1: though potentially no less intimidating, such as bed bugs, leeches, fleas, ticks,
Speaker 1: female mosquitoes, and the especially unsettling lamprey. Only one bird
Speaker 1: species is known to drink blood. It lives on the
Speaker 1: Galapagous Islands, and far from being a scary predator, it
Speaker 1: is an actuality. A diminutive song bird, The vampire finch
Speaker 1: is closely related to the sharp beaked ground finch and
Speaker 1: normally eats seeds and insects, though it will occasionally peck
Speaker 1: at the skin of other birds for nourishment. There's only
Speaker 1: one group of mammals that have evolved to live a
Speaker 1: life completely on a diet of blood. The creature moves
Speaker 1: slowly with a stealthily tread across the bare ground in
Speaker 1: the warm, humid blackness. It stops, raises its head and
Speaker 1: sniffs the air. It listens intently to an almost imperceptible
Speaker 1: sound up ahead, the steady breathing of a person lying
Speaker 1: on a bed sleeping deeply. The creature recognizes the exact
Speaker 1: pattern of those breathing sounds it has fed on this
Speaker 1: victim before. It raises its nose into the air, once more,
Speaker 1: sensing the faintest hint of warm air drifting through the
Speaker 1: darkened room. Then steadily it moves in closer towards the
Speaker 1: sleeping victim, using the minute changes in air temperature to
Speaker 1: navigate through the darkness the sleeper's body heat. With surprising agility,
Speaker 1: The creature hops up lightly onto the person's chest and
Speaker 1: begins moving inexorably towards their neck. Once there, it licks
Speaker 1: at a small patch of exposed skin, its saliva, dispensing
Speaker 1: a painkiller, a skin softening agent, and an anti coadulant
Speaker 1: at the same time. Then, finally, the creature sinks its
Speaker 1: strikingly white raisor sharp teeth into the flesh of the
Speaker 1: victim's neck. The puncture wound is so small and the
Speaker 1: bite so gentle that the victim senses nothing. As the
Speaker 1: creature begins to extract its blood. It does not suck. Rather,
Speaker 1: the blood flows by capillary action along a pair of
Speaker 1: grooves in its tongue, which moves rhythmically unceasingly in a
Speaker 1: piston like motion. When it has finally drunk its fill,
Speaker 1: the creature simply withdraws as quietly as it came and
Speaker 1: vanishes silently back into the moonless night. It's certainly easy
Speaker 1: to see how the humble vampire bat provided such rich
Speaker 1: inspiration for bram Stoker. Despite its obvious influence on the writer.
Speaker 1: The common vampire bat is in fact not found in
Speaker 1: Europe at all, but South America, in parts of northern
Speaker 1: Mexico and south into Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. The bats
Speaker 1: roost in caves, hollow trees, old mine shafts, and abandoned buildings,
Speaker 1: emerging after dark to hunt for blood. In common with
Speaker 1: other bat species and their fictional human vampire counterparts, vampire
Speaker 1: bats are most decidedly lunophobic, which is say, only active
Speaker 1: when there's no moon or on a cloudy night. Contrary
Speaker 1: to popular belief, vampire bats feed mainly on domestic livestock,
Speaker 1: typically cows and goats, and to a lesser extent, on
Speaker 1: wild mammals and birds. They are thought to have become
Speaker 1: common in the early fifteen hundreds, when there was an
Speaker 1: influx of Europeans to the continent, bringing with them a
Speaker 1: wealth of domestic animals for the bats to feast on.
Speaker 1: Biologically speaking, life as a vampire is tough, and that's
Speaker 1: why all known living vampire bats are small. The larger species,
Speaker 1: Desmodu rotundus, weighs just under one and a half ounces,
Speaker 1: the same mass as a large grape or a small
Speaker 1: sachet of sugar. However, a giant vampire bat, appropriately named
Speaker 1: in Latin Desmodus straculi, has been found in the fossil record,
Speaker 1: with some believing it might yet still be alive, living
Speaker 1: undiscovered deep within the Amazon. As it happens, blood is
Speaker 1: not a very nutritious food, comprised mostly of water and
Speaker 1: proteins with no fat, vampire bats can't store energy like
Speaker 1: other mammals, which means they have to consume around fifty
Speaker 1: percent of their body weight in blunt each night. Failure
Speaker 1: to feed for three days in a row could mean
Speaker 1: starvation and death. So how would this all play out
Speaker 1: in a real life human vampire transmuted into human form?
Speaker 1: That character would be a far cry from the fictional
Speaker 1: portrayal of human vampires as terrifying and sadistically sexy, like
Speaker 1: Edward Cullen in the Twilight series or the Start From
Speaker 1: Interview with a Vampire, for example, due to physiological constraints,
Speaker 1: your vampire lover would far more likely be short, barely
Speaker 1: five feet tall, and very slight. He wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: go out until after dark and only on moonless or
Speaker 1: cloudy nights. He need to drink around half his weight
Speaker 1: in blood every day or two, and while feeding, the
Speaker 1: stomach would swell to such vast proportions he'd be forced
Speaker 1: to urinate while drinking. If in line with modern vampire
Speaker 1: fictional tradition, you'd chosen to be bitten and had become
Speaker 1: a blood drinker yourself. If you weren't able to feed
Speaker 1: for two or three days, your vampire compatriot might share
Speaker 1: some of the most recent meal with you via the
Speaker 1: perhaps unromantic or romantic method depending on your kink of
Speaker 1: mouth to mouth regurgitation Vampire bats in the wild commonly
Speaker 1: share food this way, both with their young but also
Speaker 1: with unrelated adults, in an example of naturally socialist behavior.
Speaker 1: It's done on a reciprocal basis. Bats who don't share
Speaker 1: eventually become nosferatu non grata in the colony and are
Speaker 1: more likely to die from starvation in lean times. Some
Speaker 1: more attractive aspects of fictional vampires are biologically accurate, though,
Speaker 1: like being amazingly athletic and fast. Some species of vampire
Speaker 1: bats can make spectacular acrobatic jumps in any direction, using
Speaker 1: powerful pectoral muscles along with elongated thumbs which they use
Speaker 1: to push off from the ground, and they can run
Speaker 1: up to two meters per second scaled up to small
Speaker 1: human size, that is impressively fast. Vampire bats can also
Speaker 1: effectively see in the dark, too, using leaflike structures in
Speaker 1: their nose to sense differences in temperature, an adaptation that
Speaker 1: helps them approach warm blooded prey in complete darkness. This
Speaker 1: ability is so sensitive that once a bat gets within
Speaker 1: around six inches of its prey, its thermo receptors can
Speaker 1: detect the minutest temperature variations on the surface of the skin,
Speaker 1: which allow it to locate where the blood vessels lie
Speaker 1: just below the skin's surface. Your vampire lover, should you
Speaker 1: choose to take one, would also have the most extraordinary
Speaker 1: sensitivity to specific sounds. In a two thousand and six
Speaker 1: paper published by Udo Gurger and Lutz fe Greep on
Speaker 1: the common vampire bat, they explain how they solve the
Speaker 1: puzzling problem of how vampire bats have been observed to
Speaker 1: relocate and feed on the same human host night after night. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: the bats can hear and recognize your breathing. The researchers
Speaker 1: found that the bats were able to discriminate between the
Speaker 1: breathing patterns of three different human subjects, even when mixed
Speaker 1: with additional random breathing sounds, a distinction which human subjects
Speaker 1: hearing the same sounds couldn't make. When vampire bats find
Speaker 1: a source of blood that tastes good, it appears that
Speaker 1: they remember the unique ultrasonic components of that individual's breathing pattern,
Speaker 1: using it to repeatedly relocate their favorite supplier. Human vampires
Speaker 1: would also have an impressive immune system. Bats have hyperactive
Speaker 1: immunity needed to repair the frequent micro injuries to cells
Speaker 1: and DNA from having to ramp up their metabolism every
Speaker 1: night for flying. In the wild, vampire bats typically live
Speaker 1: for around nine years, although in captivity they've been recorded
Speaker 1: as surviving to the grand old age of thirty, a
Speaker 1: very long life equivalent to roughly one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: human years for such a small mammal. Vampire bats don't
Speaker 1: age the way they should by controlling inflammation and slowing
Speaker 1: down the aging process, so although your vampire bow would
Speaker 1: not be immortal, they would be long lived. Watching a
Speaker 1: vampire bat feed can be a compulsively gruesome sight. The
Speaker 1: species Deemus young guy typically approaches a bird from below
Speaker 1: its roosting perch, moving like a stalking cat, one limb
Speaker 1: at a time, taking care to keep the branch between
Speaker 1: itself and its prey. Once beneath the bird, it picks
Speaker 1: the potential bite sight, usually on the bird's big toe.
Speaker 1: After licking the site, it bites gently and begins to feed.
Speaker 1: The vampire bat is even more crafty when it feeds
Speaker 1: on a chicken. It's been seen hopping onto a hen's back,
Speaker 1: imitating the behavior of a mating male chicken, assuming she
Speaker 1: is being mounted for another purpose. Altogether, the hen instinctively
Speaker 1: adopts a crouching posture while the vampire bat contentedly feeds,
Speaker 1: but not all vampires, it seems, are bats or bed bugs,
Speaker 1: or works of fiction. It was early evening in the
Speaker 1: French quarter of New Orleans, and John Edgar Browning was
Speaker 1: feeling apprehensive. Things began as if it were a medical procedure.
Speaker 1: Asked Browning to take off his top, then took out
Speaker 1: an alcohol swap and wiped a small patch of skin
Speaker 1: on Browning's upper back. Next, he made a small puncture
Speaker 1: wound with a disposable hobby scalpel and squeezed the flesh
Speaker 1: around it until the blood started to flow. Browning's companion
Speaker 1: lowered his lips to the wound and began to drink.
Speaker 1: He lapped at the blood with his tongue briefly before
Speaker 1: cleaning and bandaging the cut. When Browning asked why he
Speaker 1: drank so little, the man explained that the blood was
Speaker 1: not quite to his taste. It was not as metallic
Speaker 1: as he usually liked, the vampire said. He explained that
Speaker 1: many factors, including diet, hydration, and blood group or make
Speaker 1: subtle differences to the flavor. Browning later reported that he'd
Speaker 1: been relieved to get the experience over, especially since he
Speaker 1: was a bit of a needle fobe who preferred to
Speaker 1: avoid sharp objects. But why had he subjected himself to
Speaker 1: such a situation in the first place. John Edgar Browning
Speaker 1: has made a career studying and writing about horror, in
Speaker 1: particular works of vampire fiction. Currently a professor of Liberal
Speaker 1: Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: Browning often works as a consultant on TV documentaries and
Speaker 1: films depicting vampires. While a graduate student at Louisiana State University,
Speaker 1: as part of his doctoral dissertation research, Browning embarked on
Speaker 1: a two year ethnographic study of a community of self
Speaker 1: described vampires in New Orleans. He decided that the only
Speaker 1: way to conduct genuine research was to immerse himself in
Speaker 1: vampire culture. His field notes document how on the eve
Speaker 1: of the second Tuesday of every month, he would become
Speaker 1: a diligently observant bystander. Strolling around the Bourbon Street neighborhood
Speaker 1: in the French Quarter, Browning would often see bats darting
Speaker 1: about in the twilight sky above. As he walked the streets.
Speaker 1: He began to home in on places where vampires seemed
Speaker 1: to hang out typically goth clubs. In terms of personal safety,
Speaker 1: it helped that Browning was six foot four and two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty pounds, but he was more concerned for
Speaker 1: his study subjects than himself. Outing a vampire could potentially
Speaker 1: put their personal and professional lives in jeopardy. After several
Speaker 1: nights of observations, the owner of a goth clothing shop
Speaker 1: he was visiting subtly pointed to a woman standing with
Speaker 1: her two children in one of the aisles. Sidling up
Speaker 1: to her, Browning began to tell the woman about his
Speaker 1: study of vampires. She told him that she might know
Speaker 1: a few, then smiled, revealing two fanglike teeth, which to
Speaker 1: Browning looked atrociously sharp. John Edgar Browning managed to make
Speaker 1: friendships with a large group of vampires, whom he interviewed
Speaker 1: repeatedly before he began his study. He assumed they'd simply
Speaker 1: be delusional types who were enamored with vampire fiction and
Speaker 1: merely fetishized the lifestyle rather than lived it. Certainly, there
Speaker 1: were a few who wore fangs and slept in coffins,
Speaker 1: for they weren't the majority. Instead, most of the vampires
Speaker 1: he met had little or no belief in the paranormal
Speaker 1: at all, and often had only a passing knowledge of
Speaker 1: vampire fiction and TV shows like True Blunt. He certainly
Speaker 1: didn't expect to find individuals who actually drank human blunt.
Speaker 1: Over time, Browning began to feel a great degree of
Speaker 1: empathy with people he described as often highly intelligent, who
Speaker 1: more often than not, were pursuing the lifestyle because of
Speaker 1: a medical condition. Many claimed to suffer from frequent fatigue, headaches,
Speaker 1: and excruciating stomach paint, which they believed could only be
Speaker 1: treated by drinking another human's blood. They called themselves medical
Speaker 1: sanguinarians or medsancs for short. As it happens, there are
Speaker 1: many cases in history where human blood was once considered
Speaker 1: a bona fide curative. It is claimed that at the
Speaker 1: end of the fifteenth century, Pope Innocent the eighths physician
Speaker 1: allegedly bled three ten year old boys to death and
Speaker 1: fed their still warm blood to the dying pope in
Speaker 1: the hope that it might pass on their youthful vitality,
Speaker 1: but the treatment failed. Although the story is most likely apocryphal,
Speaker 1: there is little doubt that in medieval times, blood was
Speaker 1: viewed as enhancing connections between the physical and spirit world,
Speaker 1: with the ability to confer strength. People suffering from ailments
Speaker 1: would sometimes gather around gallows and collect the warm blood
Speaker 1: dripping from recently executed criminals, believing that by drinking the
Speaker 1: blood of healthy young men, they would imbibe their youthful
Speaker 1: spirit and cure whatever afflicted them. Such practices only fell
Speaker 1: out of favour following the Enlightenment, when more prudish sensibilities
Speaker 1: took hold. In modern times, real life vampirism has conjured
Speaker 1: horrible images, and the practice is seen as taboo in
Speaker 1: much of mainstream society, partly through association with gruesome acts,
Speaker 1: like the case of Richard Trenton Chase from Sacramento, California,
Speaker 1: who in the late nineteen seventies reputedly began his vampire
Speaker 1: habit by killing rabbits and drinking their blood. He was
Speaker 1: sectioned and spent time in a psychiatric facility, where he
Speaker 1: allegedly bit the heads off live birds. He went on
Speaker 1: to commit murder, after which he was said to have
Speaker 1: drunk his victim's blunt. He later apparently told a fellow
Speaker 1: prison inmate that he believed it would improve his health.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, Rod Ferrell became the youngest person
Speaker 1: at the time to be consigned to Florida's Death Row
Speaker 1: after being convicted of the double slaying of a couple.
Speaker 1: Ferrell had been the leader of a cult that centered
Speaker 1: around a teenage gang in Murray, Kentucky, known as the
Speaker 1: Vampire Clan. Ferrell claimed to be a five hundred year
Speaker 1: old vampire named for Sago, a character he created for
Speaker 1: himself after becoming obsessed with the role playing game Vampire
Speaker 1: the Masquerade. His death sentence was subsequently reduced to life imprisonment.
Speaker 1: Despite its grisly associations, vampirism has persisted among small groups
Speaker 1: of people, who, in the Internet era, have built thriving
Speaker 1: underground networks for the medsas who John Edgar Browning questioned
Speaker 1: the hunger for blood seems to strike around the onset
Speaker 1: of puberty. One interviewe told Browning that as a teenager
Speaker 1: he felt weak all the time until one day, while
Speaker 1: fighting with his cousin, he drew blood, tasted it, and
Speaker 1: felt a sudden rush of vitality, which turned into a
Speaker 1: compulsive hunger. Another reported being plagued by irritable bow syndrome.
Speaker 1: Which only got better when she consumed around seven shot
Speaker 1: glasses of blood. While one young, self confessed female vampire
Speaker 1: told Browning that following a blood meal, she feels instantly
Speaker 1: more mentally alert, and that any joint or muscle pain
Speaker 1: she has disappear for up to two weeks at a time.
Speaker 1: Browning also learned that the donors for these modern vampires
Speaker 1: are most often sympathetic, close friends or relatives, who are
Speaker 1: said to understand the perceived need. Both donor and vampire
Speaker 1: will first get tested for potentially transmissible diseases such as
Speaker 1: HIV and hepatitis before any blood is consumed. He also
Speaker 1: learned that vampires make sure to clean their lips, brush
Speaker 1: their teeth, and gargle with mouth wash before drinking. One
Speaker 1: British vampire described the act of feeding as an impersonal one,
Speaker 1: much more like taking a pill than a scene from Twilight.
Speaker 1: It's rumored that thriving underground vampire communities exist in most
Speaker 1: major cities across the world today, all comprised of everyday
Speaker 1: ordinary people. Perhaps the person next to you right now
Speaker 1: in the office, on the bus or train, or in
Speaker 1: your bed is one of them. Thank you, as ever
Speaker 1: for listening to the show. Please subscribe and rate it
Speaker 1: if you haven't already done so. You can also now
Speaker 1: find us on TikTok at TikTok dot com, forward Slash
Speaker 1: at Unexplained Podcast. This episode was written by Diane Hope
Speaker 1: and produced by me Richard McLean Smith. Diane is an
Speaker 1: audio producer and sound recordist in her own right. You
Speaker 1: can find out more about her work at Dianehope dot
Speaker 1: com and on Instagram at in The Unexplained is an
Speaker 1: AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All
Speaker 1: other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard mcclinsmith. Unexplained The book and audiobook
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Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
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