Werewolf Trials in France

One of my claims to being fame-adjacent is that I was in college with Mark Rein-Hagen, creator of the World of Darkness series of role-playing games including Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The reason I bring this up is to point out that the World of Darkness was one of the first places in popular culture where the vampire and werewolf myths were combined into a single story. This trope has gone on to become a mainstay of modern paranormal fiction - vampires and werewolves are treated as part of a single unified myth, often as adversaries.

In real life, though, it should be pointed out that werewolves and vampires are separate myths and come from completely different parts of Europe. The vampire is myth is from Eastern Europe, which is why in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is originally from Transylvania, a region in modern-day Romania. The werewolf myth is from Western Europe, particularly France. And I will say that I'm getting kind of sick of the whole "paranormal slush" genre that lumps vampires and werewolves together, and then brings in basically every other paranormal creature on the damn planet. It makes a good scenario for a role-playing game in which you want players to have a lot of options, but in terms of real-world mythology it's kind of a mess.

At any rate, I came across this article today about the Beast of Gévaudan and the "werewolf trials" that took place in sixteenth and early seventeeth-century France. I was familiar with the story of the Beast of Gévaudan from cryptozoology circles and also with a couple of the most famous werewolf trials, but I was quite surprised to find out just how many actually went on. You'd think that a "werewolf panic" would be even more implausible than the witch panics that happened in other parts of Europe. It's one thing to accuse someone of casting spells or "communing with the devil," which can't be proven by empirical means, but these trials purported to be about observable physical transformations - which either happen or don't.

As Dangerous Minds notes, the period between roughly 1520 and 1630 saw “France’s version of Europe’s witch trials and executions, but with werewolves. For 110 years, 30 thousand people were accused of being werewolves, tortured in exchange for their confessions, or lack of admission of guilt, and died at the stake.” The panic persisted long afterward. In the most famous case of wolf terror, La Bête du Gévaudan, or the Beast of Gévaudan, supposedly killed and partially ate over 100 people in the span of three years, beginning in 1764.

Vampires in Malawi

Vampires are on the loose in the African nation of Malawi. At least, that's what vigilantes who are running around killing these suspected blood-suckers believe. The government of Malawi is attempting to crack down on the vigilantes, since obviously they're just running around killing regular people rather than protecting their nation from the undead.

Vigilante killings started on 16 September when three people suspected of being blood suckers were killed by a mob. Traditional leaders in southern Malawi believe the vampire rumours started across the border in Mozambique where rumours of blood sucking have led to violence this week.

In Mozambique, protesters have targeted police because they believe they are protecting the supposed vampires, leading a northern town's administrator to flee the city. The villagers in these areas believe human blood sucking is a ritual practised by some to become rich. They also believe they are failing to catch the blood suckers because they use magical powers.

If these communities believe in "mysterious magical explanations for things, then people will tend to attribute their difficulty on what they call blood suckers," Dr Chioza Bandawe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Malawi, said. For some that represents "the life of the hope being sucked out of them," he said. But this has been "expressed on innocent people or on people who are different".

So basically, this is the same old witch-hunting hysteria that pops up in way too many parts of the world. The police are protecting these vampires because they are not really vampires, but simply innocent people who are disliked by their neighbors. And this whole thing is way too familiar - a fanciful rumor gets started, and anybody who's different pays the price.

Here's hoping that the government crackdown succeeds, and that this violence can be stopped in its tracks. One thing the world doesn't need is a whole crop of delusional vampire hunters.

Brazilian Vampire Bats Feeding on Humans

For the most part, vampire bats get a bad rap. Even though the creatures helped to inspire Bram Stoker's famous novel Dracula, in real life vampire bats are not know to seek out humans as prey. That is, until now. Thanks to DNA analysis, Brazilian scientists have recently identified a species of vampire bat that appears to have developed a taste for human blood.

However, recent reports have confirmed what humans dread the most—that some of these wild creatures have been proven to include people’s blood in their diet. According to the New York Post, some species of the winged-mammals, which are commonly found soaring across America, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, have indeed been secretly sucking human blood.

Scientists at Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil claim that a colony of hairy-legged vampire bats are the culprits, after tracing human DNA from 70 feces samples of these bats. Enrico Bernard, the lead researcher from the university, said he and his team “were quite surprised” by their recent findings. “This species isn’t adapted to feed on the blood of mammals,” he revealed.

The chilling revelation contradicts previous experiments on the air-gliding critters, which reflected that they would rather starve than eat any other mammal blood. Bernard said that its no longer the case with these bats, who seemed to discover that human blood is thicker and higher in protein than the fatty bird plasma.

There's no word as of yet on any connection between this strain of bat and actual vampires, or any increase in the numbers of the Brazilian undead. But scientists do fear that this new strain of vampire bat could contribute to the spread of diseases. The bats fly and are also far tinier than what vampire hunters are used to, so driving little bat-sized stakes through their hearts is quite impractical.

Mike Pence's Vampire Daughter

What is it with Republican political candidates and vampires? Over a year ago, Augoeides was the first media outlet to courageously report on Jeb Bush's totally true and bizarre history with the undead. Then, yesterday, Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence tweeted a seemingly innocuous photograph of his family. However, closer examination of the photo revealed that Pence's daughter cast no reflection in the mirror on the adjacent wall.

At first glance Mike Pence's photo of his family dinner at New York's Chili's seems to show The Donald's running mate enjoying some nachos with his wife and daughter. But on closer inspection something is not right. Pence's daughter Charlotte, 23, appears to have no reflection - raising the accusation that she was photoshopped in.

Indiana Gov Mike Pence sent Twitter into a meltdown on Saturday when he tweeted a picture of himself and his family having dinner at Chili's - but something is not right She is sitting next to her father in a white dress, but even her frizzy hair can't been seen in the mirror.

Shocked observers have take to social media - with many joking that Pence's daughter is a vampire. Sebastian Murdock wrote on Twitter: 'Sir I don't mean to be rude but your daughter might be a vampire just sayin.'

Another shocked user added: 'Where is the reflection of the woman in white? Does Chili's cause people to become vampires?!' One surprised viewer said: 'The woman has no reflection. Explain.'

By treating these vampire accusations as "jokes" the media clearly shows itself to be in league with the undead, casually dismissing this disturbing evidence of their very real presence. And accusations of photoshopping are thrown around by skeptics whenever they encounter a picture they can't easily explain away, regardless of what it depicts. The evidence is clear. Mike Pence doesn't just pal around with vampires, one of them is a member of his family.

I cannot stress enough how serious this is, folks. Can we really allow a creature of the night to get anywhere near the White House or the Naval Observatory or the Undisclosed Location or wherever it is they stash the Vice-President these days? Who know what horrors such a development could unleash? For those of you who refused to support Jeb Bush because of his vampire-palling ways, the choice is clear.

You cannot support the Trump-Pence ticket. Vote third-party if you must, but keep American government vampire-free!

Good to Know!

Have you ever wondered how long it would take for a vampire to drink all of your blood? If so, a group of science students with too much time on their hands at the University of Leicester claim to have figured it out. According to their calculations, it would take a little under six and a half minutes to drain 1.3 pints of blood - and at least forty-two minutes to drain a human body completely.

To make their calculation, students at the University of Leicester used fluid dynamics to estimate how long it would take for the blood to flow out of a hole in the carotid artery.

They assumed the external carotid artery itself would have a diameter of 0.2 inches (0.5cm) and calculated the speed of the blood flowing into it travels at 1.34mph (0.6 metres per second).

They then calculated the pressure difference should a hole be punctured into the artery by comparing the average human blood pressure in arteries to air pressure. By factoring in the density of the blood at room temperature, they calculated that the blood would leave the puncture wound at 11mph (five metres per second).

The students also assumed their fictional vampire's fangs would leave puncture holes just 0.02 inches (0.5mm) wide and factored in the density of the blood at room temperature.

They performed the calculations to coincide with the 85th anniversary of Tod Browning's 1931 horror film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.

Now I'm not a vampirologist or whatever it is they call themselves, but even I can see the problem here. These calculations assume that the vampire doesn't suck - which, of course, everyone knows they do, in more ways than one. So comparing the pressure of blood in the carotid artery to regular air pressure will yield a value that's too slow. Still, movies and television programs often show vampires draining their victims in a second or two, which is unrealistic even if they can create a perfect vacuum.

Maybe Anne Rice had it right all along - vampires can drain their victims almost instantly because they have super-speed relative to everything else in the world. But could that effect really extend to the speed at which they can extract blood from their victims?

Vampire-Paller Jeb In Trouble

Ever since I exposed Jeb Bush as a vampire-paller last year, I've been waiting for his campaign to collapse. I'm a bit saddened that no opposition researchers seem to have found my article or had any interest in using it, but that's probably because Jeb has been shooting himself in the foot all on his own, over and over again.

The South Carolina Republican Primary this weekend could very well be ground zero for Jeb's campaign. According to recent polls, Trump is ahead by a large margin among likely primary voters, and while Jeb sought the endorsement of popular South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, it instead went to Marco Rubio. The next few states look even worse, so a bad showing on Saturday might just do him in.

One could imagine GOP front-runner Donald Trump getting away with it -- calling himself the greatest presidential disrupter or whatnot -- but coming from Bush, it felt forced and unconvincing, as if he were a 22-year-old pitching a venture capital firm on Tinder for gerbils. Trump could pitch that -- it’d be a great, great place for classy gerbils to meet -- but you could tell, deep down, Jeb knew how ridiculous it sounded.

“Disrupter Jeb,” who’d set aside his glasses for a more youthful, contacts-based look, was just one of numerous Jebs put forward by the candidate that night. There was "Swagger Jeb," trying to mimic Trump’s bluster and self-confidence, boasting of his abilities. There was "Tea Party Jeb," stressing how he’d move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on his first day in office and countermand President Barack Obama’s executive orders. There was "Adult Jeb," highlighting his experience handling natural disasters and battles with teachers unions as Florida’s governor.

And then there was Jeb Bush, a member of today’s most successful political dynasty, highlighting the hawkish foreign policy of his brother, former President George W. Bush and the strong moral fiber of his father, former President George H. W. Bush. “If every child had parents like George and Barbara Bush growing up, we’d be a completely different country,” he told the crowd.

It's possible that Jeb might be a better president than his brother. At least, I would sure hope so. But what he's shown so far in the race for the Republican nomination is that he's a flat-out terrible campaigner, while his brother was an excellent one. And by the way, I expect that's pretty much the nicest thing you will ever hear me say about George W. Bush.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, appears set to duplicate his big New Hampshire win on Saturday. I think those witches who tried to hex him need to go back to the drawing board, because he's doing far better than anyone expected at this point in the race.

UPDATE: So as it turns out, the polls were right. Trump won South Carolina, and Jeb is done. And to think it happened without anyone deploying my vampire-paller allegations against him! I'll keep them around, though, should he ever run for office again.

Seriously, Jeb Bush Pals Around With Vampires!

And that's still not a joke.

Usually I try to keep things here on Augoeides apolitical, but every so often something arises of significance that touches on the sort of subject matter that I normally cover here. When an aspiring presidential candidate has a personal connection to a vampire - like, a real vampire, who drinks blood and everything - it's pretty hard to resist.

So I didn't.

I posted the whole sordid story awhile back, but it seems appropriate to bring it up again as Jeb Bush just officially announced he will be seeking the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election. My previous article did not generate nearly the traction I had hoped, even though I'm not that prominent a blogger. Maybe the story just seemed too weird for opposition researchers to dig into.

I'm not personally a Republican so I won't be voting for Jeb regardless, but I still believe that the guy is a complete nightmare waiting to happen and even if you are a Republican, there are better candidates you could be supporting. The Iraq War was an unmitigated disaster, whether you believe that it was an "intelligence failure" or something more sinister.

And as I mentioned in the previous article, Jeb has gone out and recruited all the same people who were involved in pushing the Iraq invasion. They're either stupid or evil, and either way, does anybody really want them running the country again? I'm convinced that even the loopiest of the other Republican candidates would be an improvement over that, at least as far as foreign policy goes.

I also am convinced that if this vampire story gets enough coverage, it will be embarrassing enough that even the Bush family's deep pockets won't be able to cover it up. Maybe that's unrealistic, and maybe the other candidates have enough questionable associations themselves that they don't want to go there.

But I can dream, can't I? Go ahead and share this one too, and maybe together we can make a difference.

Pope Warned of Sexy Vampires

Pope Francis has gotten some good press for being a relatively progressive pope, or at least more progressive than his reactionary predecessor. His statements on poverty and injustice are quite welcome as a foil to the "Green Gospel" preached by many American evangelicals, even if his positions on other issues such as sexuality have barely budged compared to those of previous popes.

One oddity about the allegedly progressive Francis is that he has offered more support than his predecessors to the practice of exorcism. As a magician I believe that magical and spiritual attacks can be real and that they can be resolved by ritual means, but the problem is that many of the church's exorcists seem trapped in some sort of backwards urban fantasy universe. And naturally, said universe is teeming with sexy vampires.

“There are those who try to turn people into vampires and make them drink other people’s blood, or encourage them to have special sexual relations to obtain special powers,” said Professor Giuseppe Ferrari, head of The Group on Research and Socio-Religious Information, an Italian occult watchdog, at a conference in Rome last week. “These groups are attracted by the so-called beautiful young vampires that we’ve seen so much of in recent years.”

Ferrari is not some fringe exorcist (ha ha) — he is actually backed by the Vatican and the Pope himself, who has insisted that dioceses have one trained exorcist on campus to deal with any urgent possessions. Father Cesare Truqui, a Swiss exorcist and protégé of Father Gabriele Amorth (the Vatican’s longtime chief exorcist) who also spoke at the conference, told The Independent that exorcism training is super important but overlooked: “It’s like training to be a journalist without knowing how to do an interview.” Amorth’s main concerns were sex abuse scandals, the fantasy genre and yoga.

Is it just me, or is one of those things not like the others? Yoga is harmless. The fantasy genre is harmless. And the recent sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church are an abject nightmare, especially for the victims. It seems to me that Amorth would do a lot better to quit wasting time hating on stretching and elves, and instead devote his efforts towards resolving this infinitely more serious problem.

But I suppose in the end what's really going on is public relations. I doubt that anyone thinks yoga or fantasy novels are on par with child molestation, even among deluded exorcists who dream of being Buffy or something. I think it's probably an attempt to draw attention away from the latter. If the media is focused on how dumb it is that the church hates yoga, that's less time they're spending on abuse victims.

Jeb Bush Pals Around With Vampires

No, believe it or not, that headline is not a joke.

Back when Barack Obama was first running for President in 2008, his Republican opponents made a big deal about him knowing former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers. The two taught at the same university in Chicago and were casually acquainted with each other. The McCain/Palin campaign characterized the situation as Obama "palling around with terrorists," a ridiculous exaggeration that many nonetheless believed. Now it's my turn, because Jeb Bush is apparently friends with a real-life vampire.

Before I get to that, though, here's some background. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has recently been preparing for a White House run in 2016, lining up donors and putting together a policy team. As a recent article in The Washington Post points out, 17 of the 21 members of Jeb's foreign policy team served during the administration of his brother, George W. Bush. So this suggests that if Jeb is elected president, the same team that initiated the disastrous war in Iraq will be back in power.

If Bush's goal is to present himself as his "own man," that list of advisers undermines the point somewhat: 19 of the 21 people on it worked in the administrations of his father or brother. We've identified the roles each played in the past three Republican administrations, divvying them up as needed in the following Venn diagram.

Vampire Grave Found in Bulgaria

Here's a story from earlier this month that seems tailor-made for Halloween. In Eastern Europe, belief in vampirism was common in the middle ages. Individuals who died under the right set of circumstances were thought to rise from the grave and prey upon the living. Archaeologists recently discovered one such "vampire grave" in Bulgaria. A metal stake was driven through the chest, and one of the legs was removed and placed next to the body.

Archeologists in Bulgaria haved uncovered a 13th century staked "vampire" at Perperikon, an ancient Thracian site in the south of the country, Archaeology reports. The remains once belonged to a man who was likely in his 40s. An iron rod had been hammered through his chest "to keep the corpse from rising from the dead and disturbing the living," Archaeology continues, and his left leg had also been removed and placed beside the corpse.

Clearly, this man's neighbors did not trust his remains to stay put. As Nikolai Ovcharov, the archeologist in charge of the dig, told the Telegraph: "We have no doubts that once again we’re seeing an anti-vampire ritual being carried out." At the time of the man's death, vampires were perceived as a real threat in many Eastern European communities. People who died unusually—from suicide, for example—were sometimes staked to prevent them from coming back from the dead, the Telegraph writes.

Many experts think that vampirism outbreaks in the middle ages were linked to a disease with which the modern world is familiar - "consumption" or tuberculosis. As the bacteria damage the lungs, victims slowly lose the ability to breathe and seemingly fade away, as if the life energy were being sucked out of them. At the same time, coughing brings up blood which congeals around the lips as if it were being drained in some fashion.

There's no evidence that corpses ever rose from the dead during the middle ages, though maybe that's because people took special precautions like this to prevent them from doing so. From their supposed powers, I'm inclined to think that if vampires really exist they are more like ghosts, "rising" in spectral form as the dark of the year grows closer and the veil between this world and the next reaches its thinnest point.

Like tonight.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Have a great spooky weekend!

Vampire Hunter Faces Weapons Charges

I haven't seen much in the news about a plague of vampires descending upon Sweden, but that didn't stop an unnamed Swedish man from arming himself to fight them off. When police arrived at his home, they found a handmade crossbow pointed at the door. The man explained that he built the crossbow to kill vampires. There's no mention in the article of what made him suspect that hordes of bloodsucking fiends were out to get him.

A man in Uddevalla, western Sweden, hated vampires. He hated them so much that he built a crossbow at home and had it aimed at the door.

The man had a history of weapons violations, and police were on their way to pick him up for a trial relating to a breach of knife laws. Upon entering his apartment they discovered that a crossbow, with arrow at the ready, was pointing straight at the door.

"Today I am going to go out and kill vampires," the man had written on his Facebook page. Other social media statuses included "Garlic!" and "What do you do when the blood is all gone?"

The article also doesn't mention the "breach of knife laws" for which the man was facing trial. Was he previously planning on decapitating the undead? According to vampire folklore, cutting off heads is more reliable than staking because a decapitated vampire can't be reanimated. However, a crossbow is safer because it doesn't require you to get as close. And let's face it, according to television and movies vampires are scary fast.

Police did test-fire the crossbow, which worked quite well. It's apparently not clear whether or not it's illegal to own a crossbow in Sweden, and the man has asked for it to be returned. Without it, I suppose he fears he may be powerless against the marauding undead.

Ancient Vampire on the Prowl in Serbia

Eastern Europe is home to the original vampire myth that inspired John Polidori and Bram Stoker. While the modern vampire fiction canon has incorporated a number of foreign elements, such as the incredible speed that was first described in the works of Anne Rice, mentioning Transylvania still evokes the vampire in the popular imagination. Bram Stoker's Dracula is the most famous vampire of all time, having been featured in countless films, and in real life the legend lives on in that part of the world. Recently, villagers in the Serbian town of Zarozje fear that a local vampire named Sava Savanovic may resume his attacks after lying dormant for several centuries.

Legend has it he would kill and drink the blood of the peasants who came to grind their grain at his watermill on the Rogačica river. A local family bought the building in the 1950s and re-opened it as a profitable tourist attraction. But they were so terrified by what may be lurking within that they refused to go near it — even to perform repairs. Recent trouble began when the old mill collapsed due to decades of neglect.

Now that the mill lies in a pile of rotted wood, everyone is terrified. Particularly since mayor Miodrag Vujetic told Orange UK there had been numerous reports of "strange growls, neither animal nor human" coming from the mill, along with sightings of a "dark tall individual" standing next to the mill in the "dead of night." "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people. We are all frightened," Vujetic said.

Vampire On The Loose in Texas

One might think that Texas would be a terrible place for vampires to live. Not only are the days long and hot, but the wide open plains offer little in the way of shade or cover. Furthermore, the droughts that are currently plaguing the southwest bring with them the possibility of wildfires, and if there's anything vampires hate more than the sun it would have to be fire. Nonetheless, according to this report from Corpus Christi, a vampire appears to be on the loose in the area.

A 16-year-old boy was walking along Shoreline Boulevard in Corpus Christi near Corpus Christi Bay Wednesday night, according to Texas radio station 1200 WOAI, when he bumped into a man by accident.

What should have been a harmless misunderstanding then took a turn for the weird -- and perhaps the vampiric? -- when the man turned around and bit the boy on his neck, according to the radio station.

Police became involved, and Senior Police Officer Julia Hernandez-Garcia told WOAI that the boy's mother took him to the hospital with minor injuries.

"Apparently he left a bite mark and broke the skin and took some skin off," Hernandez-Garcia told WOAI. "This is a very unusual case ... I've been here for 27 years and I've never heard of anything like this."

The Colorado roadway vampire spotted back in 2010 is not known to have attacked anyone; it just stood in the middle of the road and caused a traffic accident. This Corpus Christi vampire, on the other hand, appears to be more aggressive. It sounds like the folks down in Texas need to break out the wooden stakes and get to work before the creature can feed again. Also, residents need to keep in mind that even though Texans tend to be well-armed, everyone knows that vampires are immune to bullets.

Nicolas Cage: Immortal?

This photograph recently listed on eBay has been making the rounds through the blogosphere. According to Jack Mord, a dealer in antique images, the photograph is of actor Nicolas Cage, and constitutes proof that Cage is some sort of immortal undead creature. Of course, Mord is asking a million dollars for the otherwise old but ordinary photo, so how objective could he possibly be?

The eBay listing for the photo reads: 'Original c.1870 carte de visite [a type of small photograph] showing a man who looks exactly like Nick Cage.

'Personally, I believe it’s him and that he is some sort of walking undead / vampire... who quickens / reinvents himself once every 75 years or so.

'150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host.'

Morgan, meanwhile, weighed in yesterday with his own theory that rather than being a vampire, Cage is in fact an alchemist who has discovered some magical means of prolonging his life. Supporting Morgan's contention over Mord's is Cage's role as an ageless wizard in The Sorcerer's Apprentice and his producer role on The Dresden Files television series. And in fact, he very well could have been winking at the audience all the way through Vampire's Kiss - because, remember, in that film he didn't play an actual vampire, but rather a man suffering from some sort of vampire delusion.

Unfortunately for Jack Mord's million dollar payout, a close look at the face in the photo next to a picture of Cage reveals that while the two men have similar appearances they are not the same person. In the picture above from Metro, look where Cage's chin falls relative to that of the man in the antique photo. Adjusted so that their eyes are at the same level and their faces are of similar widths, you can see that Cage's face is much more oblong. Also, note the downward turn of the man in the antique photo's left ear. Both of Cage's ears lie flat against the sides of his head.

So the resemblance is most likely just a coincidence. It's also possible that this man might be a distant relative of Cage's, but sadly there's no way that he's an immortal.

Another Damn Vampire

When I declared it to be shark-jumping season in vampire land it seems that I wasn't kidding. Three weeks ago a young man who claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire was arrested in Texas for attacking a woman and attempting to drink her blood. Now another vampire attack has been reported in Florida just in time, I suppose, for the True Blood season finale.

Milton Ellis, 69, told police in St. Petersburg, Florida, that he and Josephine Smith, 22, met on the street and went to the porch of a vacant restaurant to get out of the rain. He said he fell asleep in his motorized wheelchair and woke up to find Smith on top of him.

Ellis told authorities that she said, "I'm a vampire. I am going to eat you" and then began to bite him.

According to a police affidavit, Ellis was bitten on his arm and lips, leaving him bloody before he was able to escape and call police. He was later treated with stitches at a local hospital and released.

After arriving at the scene, police said they found Smith bloody and half-naked nearby, but that she had no memory of what happened and did not identify herself as a vampire, St. Petersburg Police spokesman Mike Puetz said.

I suppose it goes without saying that both the Texas man and this Florida woman are likely suffering from serious mental problems. Because they totally aren't vampires, at least not the sort who are centuries old and burn up in the sun. Some people who suffer from certain types of anemia do crave blood and sometimes describe themselves as vampires, but Dracula and the entire modern vampire genre it spawned are fiction only vaguely based on the original European vampire mythos. There's nothing undead about either of these two troubled individuals, and I hope that they can get some psychiatric help before they injure anyone else.

Vampires at Sea

In my last post about vampires I commented that their trend is due to reverse any time now. Here's more proof - a vampire cruise! Talk about cashing in on the fad! Cruises are expensive, but apparently there's enough demand out there to organize such an excursion. I thought I remembered something about vampires and running water, but maybe that only applies to fresh water. After all, Dracula traveled by sea to England in Bram Stoker's famous novel.

Hundreds of vampire enthusiasts will sail Alaska's fabled Inside Passage in a summer 2012 cruise tailored to their interests that combines gazing at glaciers with a late-night costume ball, organizers said on Thursday.

The "Vamps at Sea" cruise is scheduled for late June, which is a time of near-constant daylight in the far north.

"They've got curtains and they can block everything out -- so it can be as dark as we want it," said organizer Linda Wolf, president of Los Angeles-based agency Cruises Cruises Cruises Inc, who is herself a fan of the vampire genre.

Is it just me, or does this sound like the worst possible time for vampires to be on a ship? Near-total daylight? You would think they'd want to do it the other way around, traveling in the winter when there's near-total darkness. After all, vampires are impervious to cold.

Still, the Vamps at Sea cruise promises to be special, said Buckwheat Donahue, executive director of the convention and visitors bureau in Skagway, a historic gold rush town that is on most cruise itineraries.

"This is going to be fun," Donahue said. "I can't imagine what people are going to be dressed like coming off the boat."

The group will sail on a Holland America ship, the Zuiderdam, and will hit the usual ports of call such as Juneau, Glacier Bay and Ketchikan.

But there will be other special features, including a late-night costume ball, a scavenger hunt and a vampire talent show, Wolf said. There is also a literary angle to the cruise, with vampire-genre authors scheduled to speak, including a relative of the late "Dracula" writer Bram Stoker, according to the cruise website.

As an author, let me just say that the concept of a vampire named "Buckwheat" is both silly and awesome in so many ways. I may have to use that in a story at some point. As far as the cruise goes, some of the events sound interesting to me as I am a fan of the literary vampire genre, but doing them in the company of a bunch of people who are running around in goofy goth makeup and constantly asking if they can bite my neck makes the whole thing sound like a lot less fun than it might be otherwise.

Dude, You're Totally Not a Vampire

Vampires in media and literature tend to follow a sort of cycle in which they become extremely popular for awhile, then fall out of favor, and then after a time start gaining popularity again. There was an upswing in the 1980's with Anne Rice, a hiatus through much of the 1990's, and then another upswing with the rise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy went off the air in 2003, but at the same time the vampire mythos was being picked up in the novels of Charlaine Harris and a couple of years later Stephanie Meyer. Harris' novels were adapted into the HBO television series True Blood, capping a decade of the vampire's ascent.

We're finally getting to the point in the cycle where the vampire is set to decline once more. How do I know? Well, for starters, this. A 19-year-old Texas man has been arrested for breaking into a woman's home and trying to drink her blood, apparently convinced that he is a 500-year-old vampire.

Whether pop culture played a role in the attack remains to be seen, as 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley awaits a psychiatric evaluation in jail on burglary charges in Galveston, Texas, southeast of Houston.

Found growling and hissing in a parking lot and wearing only boxer shorts, the pierced and tattooed Bensley claimed he was a 500-year-old vampire who needed to "feed," Galveston Police Capt. Jeff Heyse said.

Vampires have been a focal point of literature since Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula". But fascination, particularly among young people, has peaked in recent years with the popularity of the "Twilight" books about teenage vampires and the HBO series, "True Blood."

"I think the vampire is a metaphor for the outsider and the predator in all of us," said author Anne Rice, whose Vampire Chronicles series has captured the imaginations of horror fans since the 1970s.

"We're all conscious at times of being alone, of being alienated, of being a secret self that fears exposure to the judgments of others. So we feel like vampires," she told Reuters.

Bensley is now being held in the Galveston County Jail on a $40,000 bond for home burglary with intent to commit a felony.

The woman, who lived about two miles from Bensley and did not know him, escaped the attack unharmed, Heyse said.

I guess if this guy was so easy to catch those super-special vampire powers must not have been working for him. Shouldn't he have been able to glamor the cops, or use super-speed to escape them, or just turn into a bat? Or is this guy some low-budget version of what we've all come to expect from the undead? The fact is that dangerous delusions about vampires tend to emerge when the archetype is at its peak, and this guy is totally not a vampire. It should be pretty easy to prove one way or another - just toss him into the sunlight and see if he explodes. Or, I suppose, sparkles, if you buy that Twilight nonsense.

Cue The Theme From Highlander

For the six or so people who may have been wondering whether or not the rumors are true, Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey is out of jail and running for President in 2012!

Sharkey has been a perennial political candidate for much of the last decade, running for President in 2004 and 2008 and also for Governor of my home state of Minnesota in 2006. Previously the founder of the Vampires, Witches, and Pagans Party, the self-proclaimed Satanist, former professional wrestler and Jeb Bush associate, and reigning King of the Vampyre Nation has filed the necessary paperwork with the FEC to compete in the 2012 Republican Presidential primary. While a number of analysts have pointed out that many Republicans are unsatisfied with the current "top tier" of candidates, Sharkey's third-party runs have never attracted many votes so it's hard to see how he expects to win now.

So far I haven't seen an official website for Sharkey's 2012 campaign. His 2008 blogger site is still up but his 2004 campaign page is apparently no longer available. That's too bad, because the 2004 site was one of the most amusing political web destinations ever. The home page showed a picture of him in full vampire regalia along with the huge tagline "Behold Your Next President." And if that wasn't enough, the page would start playing the theme from Highlander as soon as it loaded, which usually prompted giggles rather than whatever emotion Sharkey was trying for. He had more special theme music for all of his subpages, adding to the site's over-the-top ambience that seemed to encapsulate both gothic angst and Renfair douchery.

One thing I will say is that the plan Sharkey outlined on his 2004 campaign website to send out small teams of "death dealers" after terrorists is remarkably similar to the recent Navy Seal mission that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. So the strategy apparently gets results even without Sharkey's "death dealer" music or trademark impaling stakes. With so many details of the mission classified I suppose we can't be sure whether or not anyone involved was charged with carrying theme music into battle, but I do know that the Navy Seals and for that matter all the branches of the United States Military take a dim view of impalement.

Sharkey did not compete in last night's Republican Presidential Debate in New Hampshire, so at this point it's hard to get a sense of how he stacks up against the other candidates. But the word "silly" is what immediately comes to mind.

Could That Welsh "Rift" Be Real?

In the BBC television series Torchwood one of the ongoing plot points is that there's a rift in the universe running under the Welsh city of Cardiff through which all manner of extradimensional and extraterrestrial creatures can occasionally pass. On the show the Torchwood team's job is to clean up after these unwelcome visitors and minimize the damage they cause once they arrive.

According to documents recently released under Britain's Freedom of Information Act there may indeed be some sort of rift running along the Welsh countryside, but passing through Powys county rather than Cardiff. Police there report an unusual number of weird and paranormal sightings there over the last several years, including ghosts, witches, vampires, zombies, and UFO's.

Dyfed Powys Police have been asked to investigate 26 ghosts, 20 UFOs, 11 witches and even two vampires in recent years, while officers were also called out to two 'zombie spottings'.

One if the sightings turned out to be a character from a horror movie being filmed nearby.

With all this going on it sounds like putting Captain Jack Harkness and his team on the job could do some good. We'll have to keep an eye on the area and see if the weirdness continues at its current rate. If so we might just have a genuine rift on our hands.

First Vampires, Now Leprechauns?

Something funny is going on in the state of Colorado. Only days after the roadway vampire incident police are looking for a leprechaun that was spotted harassing customers outside a supermarket in Boulder.

Either Colorado is now home to a crack in the universe that amplifies paranormal phenomena or there's a guy out there with more than one costume.

Police in Colorado are looking for a man dressed as a leprechaun who was seen jumping around a car park pretending to shoot people with his fingers.

Police in the city of Boulder were called after the man was spotted in the parking lot of a local supermarket, jumping out from behind cars, doing gun-fingers at shoppers, and reportedly making obscene gestures.

Sergeant Fred Gerhardt of the Boulder police told local newspaper the Daily Camera: 'I think that's why they called us. He was acting bizarre.'

Well, that, and it's not every day you see a leprechaun in a parking lot, making obscene gestures or not. True to form, though, the creature vanished before law enforcement could arrive and steal its pot of gold.

Officers who arrived on the scene were, unfortunately, unable to locate the leprechaun, who remains at large.

According to Gerhardt, this is the first time Boulder police have had to deal with a complaint about a leprechaun.

So far there is no word on whether or not alcohol or drugs were involved this time around. In related news, a photographer in Finland has finally succeeded in finding the end of the rainbow. Perhaps this discovery prompted the leprechaun's appearance, though why it showed up in Colorado instead of Finland remains a mystery.