Paranormal Magazine

(This feature can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 42 by Brad Steiger)

Yes, they are, claims veteran researcher BRAD STEIGER.After decades of study, Brad has developed an astonishing – and alarming– theory about the origin and reality of these most enduring of monsters.

The vampire legend has always been with us, from the shadows of the ancient Egyptian pyramids to the bright lights of New York City. Every culture has its own name for the night stalker. The word with which most of us are familiar rises from the Slavonic Magyar vam, meaning blood and Tpir, meaning monster.

The traditional physical appearance of a vampire in European folklore is grotesque, a nightmarish creature with twisted fangs and grasping talons. The cinematic depiction of the vampire in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) presented moviegoers with an accurate depiction of the traditional vampire. In this film, which was Murnau’s unauthorized version of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, we see actor Max Schreck’s loathsome bloodsucker, Count Orlock, skittering about in the shadows with dark-ringed, hollowed eyes, pointed devil ears, and hideous fangs. With his long, blood-stained talons, his egg-shaped head and pasty white complexion, Schreck’s Nosferatu captures the classic appearance of the undead as seen in the collective nightmares of humankind.

After Stoker’s novel became a popular stage play in 1927 and, in 1931, a classic horror film with Bela Lugosi portraying the Count as a sophisticated aristocrat, the image of the vampire as a hideous demon began to become transformed in the popular consciousness into that of an attractive stranger who possesses a bite that, while fatal, also promises eternal life.

In the decades that have followed Lugosi’s iconic appearance, the demonic vampire of legend gradually became replaced by beguilingly romantic figures – figures which have proved the inspiration for a thriving Vampire Community existing today.

THE VAMPIRE COMMUNITY

Merticus is the administrator for Voices of the Vampire Community, a high profile member of ‘a visible and vibrant community of people who are using the label [vampire] to describe themselves’.

Merticus explains: ‘When a serious member of the vampire community describes themselves as a vampire, they are not trying to tell you that

they think they’re a fictional character with supernatural powers or that they hope you’re gullible enough to believe they’re hundreds of years old and live in a castle. They’re not even claiming kinship with the folkloric monster that frightened the people of Central Europe and has them performing vampire-banishing rituals to this day.’

The unifying factor is that members of the community really believe themselves to be vampires, an attitude supported by the fact that, as Merticus puts it, ‘there is no functioning definition of a real vampire’.

He continues: ‘This is primarily because no one knows what the cause of the phenomenon actually is, and the community has coalesced around a set of loosely shared perceptions and symptoms rather than a central organizing principle.

‘Therefore, we can describe some common experiences involved in being a vampire, but these shouldn’t be taken as a definitive vampire checklist. There are no known necessary and sufficient conditions to be met before you can be a vampire. Likewise, there’s no single definitive sign that someone is not a real vampire.’

Merticus adds that the most common experience vampires share is the need to take in life energy or blood, from sources outside themselves, to maintain spiritual, psychic, and physical health.

‘Blood-drinking, or sanguinarian, vampires have to consume small, polite amounts of human blood from willing donors,’ Merticus said. ‘The majority of sanguiniarians report taking only an ounce or less at a time; usually no more than once a week. Feeding is absolutely a health necessity: vampires have reported many negative physical symptoms when trying to ignore this need to feed.

‘Psychic vampires, or psivamps, feed on psychic energy. Some psivamps enter into relationships with donors in the same way that sanguinarian vampires do, while others cultivate techniques for absorbing ambient energy from crowds and public places, so as not to take from any one source.’

Of course, not everyone who considers themselves a vampire prove so civilized in their behaviour.

THE VAMPIRE OF SACRAMENTO

From the time of his birth on May 23, 1950, it seemed that Richard Trenton Chase of Sacramento, California, had been born under an unlucky star. As a child he was a bedwetter, a firestarter, and a killer of small animals.

When he started high school, Chase became convinced that a Nazi crime syndicate had targeted him and was paying his mother to poison him with a chemical that was turning his blood into powder. As an antidote to keep his heart beating, Chase began killing and disemboweling small animals, mixing their organs with Coca-Cola in a blender, and drinking the potion.

In 1975, after he injected rabbit’s blood into his veins and developed blood poisoning, Chase was committed to a mental asylum. Even here he found a way to continue his obsession, by capturing birds that landed on his window sill and eating them.

In 1976 Chase was released to his mother with a prescription for an antipsychotic medicine. In mid-1977, he was found wandering nude in the Lake Tahoe area. A bucket containing blood and a liver was later found in his Ford Ranchero. In this case the vital fluid did not belong to a human.He killed his first person in December 29, 1977, in a drive-by shooting. About a month later, Chase shot 22-year-old Teresa Wallin three times. He dragged her body

into the bedroom of her home, where he stabbed her repeatedly, smeared her blood over his hands and face, and used a yogurt cup to catch some of her blood to drink.

Two days later, Chase bought two puppies from a neighbor, killed them and drank their blood. However, he decided animal blood did not give him the satisfaction he gained from drinking human blood.

On January 27, Chase committed his most appalling crime. He murdered four people within minutes of each other: Evelyn Miroth, her six-year-old son, her friend Danny Meredith and her 22-month-old nephew, whom she was baby-sitting. Chase removed several organs from the bodies of Miroth and her son and drank his victims’ blood from a cup. He left behind him several perfect bloody handprints which swiftly led to his arrest.

DRACULA AND BATHORY

Vlad Tepes – known as the Impaler because of his habit of staking his enemies on sharpened wooden posts – was a 15th century king of Wallcahia (present day Romania) and has often been cited as an inspiration for Dracula. He was also known as Vlad Dracul (meaning ‘Son of the Dragon’), so lending his name to Stoker’s character.

However, there is no evidence to suggest Vlad was a vampire. Cruel he certainly was but in his homeland he is regarded as a national hero, responsible for halting the apparently unstoppable encroaches of the Ottoman Turks. Indeed Vlad could reasonably be regarded as a saviour of the Western world. To call him a creature of darkness in Romania would be comparable in the United States to calling George Washington a vampire.

However, there does exist a historical connection between Vlad Dracul and a real vampire. Erzsebet (Elisabeth) Bathory belonged to the same family as one of Vlad’s right-hand men. The teenage Elisabeth, known for her beauty and her flawless complexion, married Ferenc Nasady in 1575. Nasady was another family name with a sinister reputation, and the young Count Ferenc had a streak of sadism running through him.

It is likely that Elisabeth would have remained just another depraved aristocrat if her husband had stayed at home to keep her happy but Ferenc was often engaged in warfare with the Turks for long periods. While he was away the castle guests began taking on a strange appearance, as Elisabeth’s personal serving maid Iloona Joo and two lesbian witches named Darvula and Dorka summoned bizarre acquaint ances from all over the countryside to amuse their lonely mis tress. Some of the visitors claimed to be vampires or werewolves. Others were witches, wizards, and alchemists.

Many hideous and gruesome experiments were performed by these disciples of Satan, and they often featured the torturing of servant girls to enliven a dull afternoon. Jonas Ujvary, the castle’s chief torturer, would select girls from the staff on whom to practice his skills with branding irons and executions.

When Ferenc died in battle in 1604, Elisabeth found herself a single woman in her forties, concerned that she was no longer young and beautiful. One night a serving maid spilled a small portion of the wine she had been pouring for her mistress. The Countess struck the girl in the face and sent a splattering of blood on her hand. When she brushed the drops of blood away, it seemed to her that the skin beneath appeared softer and younger.

Quickly the Countess summoned Iloona Joo and told her that she had just discovered a vital element to the secret of eternal youth. While the burly guards held the terrifi ed serving girl, the Countess drew a pan of blood from her veins and began bathing her body with the blood she had stolen. In her eyes, her complexion improved immediately.

With a desperate passion for retaining her allure, the fiery-eyed Elisabeth Bathory of Hun gary set out to keep a regular supply of maidens in stock to bleed for her bath. She would also take sips of their blood in the belief it would keep her young. For 11 terrible years the horrible acts of torture and murder were allowed to continue. At last, her deeds were brought to the attention of the court in Vienna and King Matthias of Hungary was compelled to act. Bathory’s castle was raided on New Year’s Eve, 1610.

They found dead and dying bodies of young women strewn about the fl oor, some of them horribly mutilated. From the sounds upstairs they knew that a huge, drunken revelry was taking place. The raiders quietly sealed off the exits from the castle and arrested everyone inside. The exact number of young women murdered by Elisabeth Bathory may never be known, but the most accepted total of her victims is about 650.

A year later Dorka, Ilona Joo, Janos Ujvary, and a number of other witches were put to death and their bodies burned. Because of her influential name, Countess Bathory was imprisoned under house arrest and placed in a walled-up set of rooms. Her body was found on August 21, 1614. Nearly 50 when she died, the Countess of Blood was still a remarkably beautiful woman.

Officers later said the putrid odour of Chase’s residence was overwhelming. Nearly everything in his home was stained with blood and the refrigerator was filled with body parts. An electric blender on the kitchen counter was stained and clogged with decaying flesh. There were numerous dog collars scattered around various rooms, but no sign of any living dogs.

Chase was subsequently examined by a dozen psychiatrists. He only once admitted he was disturbed about killing his victims, but only because he was concerned that their spirits might return to haunt him. He seemed to experience no real guilt for what he had done. He said he needed human blood to combat his many afflictions, that blood drinking was therapeutic.

Convicted of six counts of first degree murder, Chase cheated the gas chamber by taking his own life in his cell at San Quentin Penitentiary.

THE DEVIL’S CHILD

When he was 13, Sean Sellers, a self-proclaimed ‘Devil Child’, made a pact with the devil and sealed it by drinking his own blood. From that time on, he kept a jar of his blood in the refrigerator, hidden behind the eggs. He later told the authorities he drank a lot of blood, just like a vampire.

The teenage Sean began holding nightly rituals in his Oklahoma home and inviting demons to possess his body. Soon the demons had renamed him ‘Ezurate’ and told him his power would grow if he were to kill someone. On Sunday, September 8, 1985, sometime after midnight, Sean/Ezurate killed his first victim, an Oklahoma City night clerk called Robert Bower.

Just a few minutes before midnight on March 14, 1986, Sean stripped down to his black underwear and conducted a demonic ritual while his parents slept one bedroom away. Then, he later told police investigators, the temperature in his room suddenly dropped 10 degrees. Sharp, clawed fingers touched his flesh, and he was surrounded by demons flying all around him in a strange kind of mist.

In the next few moments, Sean entered his parents’ bedroom and shot them both in the head. He truly loved his parents, he insisted, but he laughed at the blood that poured from their wounds.

On October 2, 1986, Sean Sellers was convicted of first-degree murder. At the age of 15, he became the youngest prisoner on Oklahoma’s death row.

WHO ARE THE REAL VAMPIRES?

In the example of the demon ‘Ezurate’, who took possession of young Sean Sellers, I believe we have an example of a real vampire. Real Vampires are not the undead, returning from crypt or cemetery plot to steal blood, the vital fluid of existence from the living. Real vampires are parasitic, shape-shifting entities that feed upon the energy, the life force, and the souls of humans. From whatever dimension of time and space they have come, real vampires may be compared to an ancient, insidious virus that first infects, then controls its host body, causing it to in turn possess other victims.

Real vampires are the spawn of timeless entities such as Lilith, the seductive fallen angel, or of other paraphysical beings who have traversed the boundaries of time and space to prey upon humankind.

Lilith is most often depicted as a beautiful woman with long, unkempt hair and large bat-like wings. Lilith quite likely was first feared in ancient Babylon as Lilitu, who, together with Ekimmu, wandered the night world in search of victims for their insatiable blood lust. In Hebrew folklore, Lilith was Father Adam’s wife before the creation of Eve, the true chosen mother of humankind. The terrible night creatures known as the incubi and the succubi were the children of Adam and Lilith.

Venerable traditions state that such entities as Lilith and her spawn first manifested on earth at a time when the gods were said to walk freely among evolving humankind. To these godlike creatures of darkness, the primitive humans who regarded them with such awe and reverence were property, chattel from which to gain energy and sustenance.

The apocryphal book of Enoch tells of the order of angels called ‘Watchers’, or ‘The Sleepless Ones’. The leader of the Watchers was called Semjaza or Shemhazai (in other places, Azazel, the name of one of the Hebrews’ principal demons), who led 200 Watchers down to Earth to take wives from among the daughters of men. It was from such a union that the Nephilim were born.

The Nephilim are said in the Old Testament to have been the progeny of the ‘sons of god’, whose union with earth women produced ‘giants…men of great renown’. Although often translated as ‘giants’, the word Nephilim actually means ‘the fallen ones’.

Since the Watchers manifested on Earth as angels, the Watchers were beings of spirit essence, rather than flesh and blood. What these fallen ones invading Earth needed from the sons and daughters of humans was their blood and their flesh so that they might become corporeal beings. The Watchers and the Nephilim were the first real vampires to exploit humankind, and they continue today to feed on the life force of humans – both their blood and their spirit.

It is interesting to note that all of the world’s major religions speak of a duality of the gods or demigods that came to Earth – some to exploit; others to teach; some to enslave; others to free. In Muslim traditions, the Jinn are demons who possess a wide variety of supernatural powers. Some scholars declare the Jinn a bit lower than the angels, because they were created of smoke and fire. Their leader is Iblis, once hailed as Azazel, the Islamic counterpart of the Devil.

The Jinn are mentioned frequently in the Qur’an, but the entities were known before the Prophet Muhammed wrote of their existence. In pre-Islamic Arabia, the Jinn were revered as godlike beings who inhabited a world parallel to that of humans.

Many scholars of mysticism and the esoteric declare one type of Rakshasas – the unrighteous spirits of Hindu belief – to be the Hindu equivalent of the Nephilim. The evil Rakshasas most often appear as beautiful women who drink the blood and feed off the flesh of men and women. The Rakshasas also possess shape-shifting abilities, and they take great delight in possessing vulnerable human hosts and causing them to commit acts of violence until they are driven insane.

The ancient Persians and Chaldeans named those angels who fell to Earth the Cacodaemons. Cast out of heaven (another world, another universe) for rebelling against the prevailing order, their leader, Ahrimanes, was determined to rule Earth and the primitive humans who resided there. However, the Agathodaemons, the representatives of universal law, prevented Ahrimanes from exploiting or interfering with the natural evolution of humans.

According to the Persians, the Cacodaemons were rejected from Earth and took refuge in the space between Earth and the fixed stars, a domain which is known as Ahriman-abad. It is from this dimension that Ahrimanes, resentful and revengeful, takes his pleasure in directing his daemons to afflict and torment human beings.

Throughout all of history, these paraphysical beings, mimicking our human forms, have walked among us unnoticed, sowing discord wherever they wander, sapping our soul energy, invading host bodies whenever possible, causing vulnerable humans to seek the blood of their fellow beings.

Paranormal editor RICHARD HOLLAND uncovers fascinating tales of ghosts haunting prehistoric monuments.

My home-town of Mold (Yr Wyddgrug) in North Wales has an archaeological claim to fame: the finding of a unique, 3,000-year old Gold Cape in 1833. Proudly on display in the British Museum alongside such superstars of antiquity as the Sutton Hoo burial mask and the Snettisham torc, the Gold Cape is the largest piece of prehistoric gold ever found in Europe.

It was discovered by road builders in a Bronze Age cairn they were robbing of stones. With it was a skeleton and hundreds of amber beads which would originally have been sewn into an elaborate cloak, long since rotted away. The cape would have been fitted round the shoulders of its owner, a chieftain or, as some suppose, a priest. I spent most of my youth in a house about 100 yards from this burial site but what makes the Mold Gold Cape even more interesting for me is that its discovery in effect proved the existence of a ghost.

For many years before the cairn was opened, it had gone by the name of Tomen-yr-Ellyllon (‘Goblin Mound’) and the field in which it stood was known as Cae Yspryd (‘Haunted Field’). The reason for this is that the mound and surrounding area was the haunt of a ghost called the Brenin yr Allt, or ‘King of the Hillside’. He was described as taking the appearance of a man of huge stature – a man who was seen to be ‘glittering and shining in gold’!

This article can be read in Paranormal Magazine issue 39

Strange tales of statues that move, weep and sing are gathered by KARL SHUKER, together with equally fascinating accounts of apparently genuine mechanical men and beasts.

One of Greek mythology’s most famous stories tells of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, who skilfully carves from ivory the statue of a young woman so beautiful and realistic that he falls in love with her, and which, in answer to his prayers, the goddess Aphrodite brings to life so that he can marry her and make her his queen, Galatea.

Although I have yet to encounter a modern-day factual case quite so dramatic as this, there are many accounts on file of statues, icons and other carved, inanimate effigies that have reputedly exhibited all manner of unexpected behaviour – weeping, moving, blinking, singing, and even wing-flapping and chess-playing.

However, as examined here, could it be that these miraculous entities owe their talents more to a complex mix of human ingenuousness and ingenuity than to any divine intervention?

The rest of this article can be found in Paranormal magazine issue 39

When we think of monsters, we imagine them inhabiting the wilds of the earth: deep forests, inaccessible mountain ranges, remote lakes and distant oceans. But this is not always the case.

Sometimes the monsters come closer to home. They swap the jungle for the concrete jungle and are glimpsed lumbering just beyond the neon lights or lurking in suburban gardens.

Bigfoot seems the ultimate symbol of the wild, untamed wilderness, and yet huge ape-like creatures have also been reported from the cities and suburbs. On January 9, 1974, Richard Lee Smith was driving along Hollywood Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the early morning when his car collided with a massive figure that lurched out of the darkness. Smith pulled up and got out of his car to help – but was appalled to see the ‘man’ he’d struck stagger up to a height of 8ft and then make for him with a roaring sound. He hurriedly got back into his car and sped away.

This rest of article can be found in Paranormal issue 36.

[Image courtesy of Tia Stoneman. Visit her website at: www.stardustillustration.co.uk]

Sexual hauntings are among the most disturbing and mysterious of paranormal phenomena. Assaults and seductions by inhuman entities have been recorded for thousands of years. Veteran researcher BRAD STEIGER discusses several of the many such cases that have come under his notice.

The email was not a request.  It was an urgent plea: ‘You must help my sister!’
In the body of the email, a woman stated that her sister – an adult female living in her own apartment – had suffered a number of nocturnal attacks by an invisible being.  These terrible night visits by the molester were described as violent and sexual in nature.

One night, she said, admitting to me that a seed of doubt persisted in her mind, my correspondent left her children home with her husband and went to spend a night watching over her sister.

After her sister had fallen asleep and she herself was beginning to nod in the rocking chair beside the bed, she witnessed for herself the unbelievable onslaught on her defenceless sister.  The covers were torn from the bed by an invisible force, and a nightmarish struggle between her sister and her determined and increasingly aggressive assailant began.

(Full article in Paranormal issue 35, available now. CLICK HERE to buy the issue and for subscription information, or CLICK HERE to download the digital issue from www.zinio.com)

Grave-robbing rabbits, bum-fondling terrapins, killer cucumbers – it will be no surprise to learn that this roster of bizarre paranormal beings belongs to Japan. RICHARD FREEMAN introduces the Yokai, crazy ghosts and critters more monstrous than any Manga comic.

Japan has a folklore tradition unrivalled for its richness and strangeness. Collectively, the ghosts and monsters of Japan are known as Yokai. With a handful of exceptions, the amazing creatures and characters belonging to this supernatural menagerie are almost unknown in the west.

Yokai is really a catch-all term for any odd, unnatural, ghostly or monstrous being. They fall into a number of categories.

The Henge are shapeshifters. Unlike the western lycanthropes and other were-beasts, the Japanese Henge are usually animals that take on human form rather than vice versa (such inversions of western conventions are not uncommon in eastern lore). Henge can include foxes (Kitsune), raccoon dogs (Tanuki) and cats (Bake-neko); animals most of us would consider harmless. In Japanese legend all of these creatures can take on human form to spread chaos and misery.

Yuki-onna, the snow woman is one of the best known of all yokai, having being popularised by author Lafcadio Hearn. Yoki-onna is the most beautiful and sexually provocative: an inhumanly lovely woman with long, silky black hair and exquisitly pale skin.

The rest of this feature can be read in Paranormal issue 31

The Borley Bug, © Joyce Mercer

RICHARD HOLLAND revisits one of the strangest stories regarding one of Britain’s most celebrated haunted houses, Borley Rectory.

The story of Borley Rectory on the Essex/Suffolk border is one of the best known in British ghost-lore. Investigated, among others, by the legendary Harry Price, who dubbed it the ‘Most Haunted House in England’, the Rectory burned down in 1939 after years of ghostly activity.

One of the strangest of the myriad phenomena reported from Borley was that experienced by a Mrs Margaret Wilson; it strikes me as being quite unclassifiable, if not unique. Mrs Wilson was a painter whose favourite subject was ‘old and picturesque houses’. Unfortunately, as Price pointed out to her, Borley was not very old and in his own opinion ‘ugly’. This did not deter the lady, however, and having obtained permission to visit, she set up her easel on August 22, 1938.

The rectory had been vacated by this time and Mrs Wilson was entirely alone in the garden. She chose a spot near the summer house and opposite what had become known as the Nun’s Walk, two areas where apparitions had often been seen. She insisted that her interest in Borley had been aesthetic rather than spiritual and, after meeting her, Price stated that he found Mrs Wilson ‘particularly unemotional and… a very hard-headed businesswoman, in addition to being an artist’. Nevertheless, she found the place oppressive.

This Feature can be found in Paranormal issue 31 still available for purchase. For subscription information simply click here.

[SOURCE: The Most Haunted House in England by Harry Price, second revised edition, March 1941, pp 132-7].

Fairies may seem to belong firmly in the folklore of the past but the ‘little people’ continue to be seen by ordinary people throughout the British Isles. JANET BORD provides a fascinating field guide to modern fairies from her collection of first-hand reports.

Fairies have wings, don’t they?  The answer to that question is, Not usually.  The alternative name ‘the Little People’ is usually more appropriate, because very few ‘fairy’ sightings are of winged beings.  Having said that, wings are sometimes mentioned by witnesses. One such report was told to me by a personal friend, Nona Rees, who saw a tiny winged fairy when she was a child in St David’s, Pembrokeshire.

On a hot summer’s day in 1947 when walking home from the beach with her mother, they saw, ‘hovering over a gorse bush, a tiny pure white creature, with wings, like the traditional Christmas Tree fairy’ only an inch or so high.  It ‘hovered upright’ and was definitely not a moth or butterfly:  ‘To us, it was definitely a fairy.’  In 2004 a couple sitting in their garden in Croydon saw a female fairy around 12 inches tall, hovering horizontally over the house gutter.  She wore a flowing white dress, had almost white hair, and white wings.  People who see tiny fairies among flowers also describe seeing wings.

You can read the rest of this article in issue 29 of Paranormal Magazine

RICHARD HOLLAND tracks down some ‘frightful fiends’ that are still said to prowl around the British countryside.

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

When Coleridge wrote those famous lines in his ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, he may well have had in mind a particular kind of supernatural horror that has been terrifying night-bound travellers throughout Britain for centuries: the Black Dog.

These weird apparitions fall into a class of their own. The classic Black Dog appears in the form of a huge black hound of the mastiff variety, with a shaggy pelt and big, fiery eyes. The size is commonly stated as being about the size of a calf.

Not all Black Dogs are black, not all are huge, not all have shaggy hair or glowing eyes, but they all have certain characteristics in common: they are more or less canine and they haunt lonely lanes at night or twilight. They share the unpleasant habit of following solitary travellers, keeping abreast of them or pacing along unnervingly behind – literally dogging their footprints. In some areas death is believed to follow if you catch sight of one – and on rare occasions instant death has been reported from direct contact.

So well-known are the Black Dogs in certain regions of the UK that they have local names: Shriker and Trash in the North West of England, Padfoot in Yorkshire, Black Shuck in East Anglia and Gwyllgi (‘Dog of the Twilight’) in Wales.

The origin of the Black Dog phenomenon is a mystery. Certainly they are not considered apparitions of once living dogs (although ghostly pet dogs occur, too). They are otherworldly, terrifying spectres – minor demons of the British countryside. It has been suggested that the Black Dogs represent a form of ‘ancestor memory’ of being pursued by wolves when they still ran free in Europe’s extensive forests. The fact that they prefer to haunt lanes and footpaths rather than open countryside is interesting because it is possible the routes they choose are ancient ones, perhaps spirit ways sacred in pre-Christian times, or old ‘corpse roads’ used to transport the dead in medieval times. Many pubs named the Black Dog may stand at the end of lanes known to be patrolled by these phantoms.

You can read the rest of this article in issue 28 of Paranormal Magazine

Loch Ness and the surrounding area are on the brink of a boom time due to the number of films being shot there, it has been predicted.

Willie Cameron, a location manager, said the past 10 days had been among the busiest in recent years.

Scottish Highlands and Islands Film Commission said there had been a gradual rise in inquiries about the loch from the film industry.

The figure has grown from about 30 to 200 in the last seven years.

Recent films to draw inspiration from the water’s mythical monster include made-for-TV horror Beyond Loch Ness.

Produced by Canada’s Insight Film Studios, it follows a cryptozoologist’s hunt for man-eating Nessie years after it killed his father during an ill-fated trip on Loch Ness.

A promotional stunt to launch a DVD for a more mainstream film – The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep – was one of a series of events involving the Highlands loch in the last 10 days.

The film itself was shot mostly in New Zealand, but Mr Cameron said the local area still benefits from any spin-offs from features that even just mention the loch, or its monster.

The Visit Loch Ness location manager said: “I think we’re going back to a boom time again.

“Loch Ness goes through a period of popularity and then there is a little dip, but we’re in a high interest period just now.”

He added: “In the last 10 days we’ve had the promotion of the Water Horse DVD, a fashion shoot for a German executive clothing magazine and contestants in a German reality TV show came here to collect water from Loch Ness.

“A documentary has been shot on the geology of Loch Ness and we are expecting another one to be done on the geology of the Great Glen.”

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