Hi I'm pretty new to the boards and am just checking in to see what everyone thinks. Personally, I've been fascinated with vampires from being very young and although I'm not 100% sure they exist, I get a feeling they do. As unpopular as it seems to be, I think Anne Rice had it right when she described her vampires. How they adapted to the modern world so they could remain unoticed and unseen.

Is it such a strech of the imagination to think that mysterious deaths and dissapearences are not just covered up, left to go unsolved by goverments/police forces scared of creating hysteria? and would it be so hard for a vampire to make sure victims would be people nobody missed?

and finally, if we can believe quite readily in God, aliens and ghosts, then why not vampires?

Also, I've seen something mentioned on this board of a reporter "hunting" for vampires who went missing in 1998. could anyody tell me more about that? Thanks.

P.S-could non-believers please keep the bitchy comments to themselves. I have neither the time nor the energy for passive agressive behaviour. It would be best to find a thread discussing why they do not exist.

Anne Rices Vampire books are a masterpiece of literature. What makes them interesting to me is how the "unholy" form their own orthodoxy about how vampires should behave. The Vampire Lestat goes against this orthodoxy and strikes out for his own interpretation of what he is and how he should live (or is that unlive?!? ).

Anne Rice is truely unbelievable. She does such a good job at writing. more books that are good and based on vampire(s) is the Twilight series. THis December a movie is coming out on the first book of the series, do note though that the books are romance though, i have 4 sisters and the ones that can read are obssessed with them. I've always been fascinated with the vampire theme/idea. Every day i wish they were real, i'd much rather have a nation fighting vampires than the middleeast lol.

Originally posted by HarlequinHannah
P.S-could non-believers please keep the bitchy comments to themselves. I have neither the time nor the energy for passive agressive behaviour. It would be best to find a thread discussing why they do not exist.

I hate to break it to you, but the very nature of ATS is to debate topics such as this and find evidence or information proving or disproving a topic that exists in "alternative" culture. Meaning please don't be offeneded if this thread gets assaulted by those demanding proof of your claims.

That said, I believe in neo-vampirism and other blood cults, and those that use human blood for ritual and consumption. These cults and practices have existed since there has been organized religion and are easilly researced online. I also belive in diseases such as porphyria, and sleep disorders that can in effect turn a human being nocturnal.

As for the rest -- well, I have to admit to being skeptical, for obvious reasons. Most ancient vampire myths can now be explained in modern medicine, and those that can't show little evidence of ever being based on fact.
Can you give us more information on the vampire hunter that "went missing?" A name, place of origin, etc. would be very helpful. I'd love to look into it (and I'm sure at least several others are interested, even if they don't actually post).

Read Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

It's loaded with vampire myths as he tries to figure out how the myths (stakes, crosses, light, garlic) are connected to the germ that turns them into vampires.

BTW, welcome to ATS. It's great when we get a good thread off of a newcomer. Have you been reading/browsing around for a while before you joined?

[edit on 30-5-2008 by Trash can]

Well if they did exist I wish they'd turn me.....

Personally i think there is a possibility they do exist...

I mean they look and act human after all, and who is to say that they can't go out into sunlight ?

The only thing would be the fact they don't age, which means they could never be a "known" person, because obviously people would notice that this dude isn't aging one bit...

That fact alone would drive vampires into the "night" so to speak, and to make their homes "underground"

They might live in huge cities like NYC, but have long since discovered or created underground "hives" for themselves...

And would only come out at night to party and feed....they would just be another face in the crowd then....

[edit on 30-5-2008 by The Soldier Of Darkness]

Although I love the idea of vampires being real, I think all you'll find are a bunch of mentally disturbed people who have convinced themselves that they are undead, and require blood to survive.

It all feeds into the need to belong to something greater than yourself mentality like gangs. Most of the so-called vampires I've seen were just disenfranchised teens who wore goth clothing and sported fake teeth.

[edit on 5/30/08 by LLoyd45]

Kholdstare, I heard about the reporter on the ATS boards. I can't find too much information but I heard she was from Japan. Perhaps it could be hearsay

I think they are real like a parasite living off us from another realm. We maybe vampires without knowing it and hosting beings from another realm that feeds off this universe and emotions.

LLoyd45: "Although I love the idea of vampires being real, I think all you'll find are a bunch of mentally disturbed people who have convinced themselves that they are undead, and require blood to survive."


I was compelled to post after reading the particular sub-comment.

And I suppose that what I am about to say will cause negativity to the set regulations,
but I dare say that the opportunity is arising for Nightwalkers to come out;
to live among and fraternize with the human race.

To have absolute evidence of Vampires over the internet,
or actually any controversial, 'out-of-the-norm' claim,
is something that cannot be derived.

To believe that Vampires do exist, is not what you would call 'mentally disturbed'.

I myself rarely post,
but whence I do, it is for a subject I am very knowledgable about.

Feel free to reply, discriminate & poke questions at this post,
i'll be more then willing to discuss it in a civil manner.

Please don't type in all caps. It's the internet form of yelling and screaming something.

Oddly, most vampire legends (the actual folklore, vs. modern fiction), are pretty similar, and seem to sprout mostly from ignorance of the death processes. In most folklore, vampires were not romantic, didn't live in castles, etc.

They were actual corpses that would rise from the grave and feed on the living. For example the stake came from the belief that the corpse would animate and come out of its coffin. So, they'd stake the body down, to prevent it from leaving!

They'd see a fresh body get bloated, the internal gasses pushing blood out of the side of the mouth, and add 2 and 2 together, and get 5...a corpse that gorges itself on the blood of the living.

The stake through the heart was just a safety measure. Real destruction came from severing the head (and often stuffing it with flowers, and/or burning the head and body in different pyres.)

Most modern fiction derives from one source, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Actual references to vampires in real folklore are quite different than Dracula.

I spent a summer hunting down vampires and came up with nothing. Followed every lead I could find and it turned out it was all false. I'm convinced they're not real. Just my thoughts on that.

Aaahhh... one of my favorite book reads/dreams/fears...Vampire!! I have been scared of and enthralled with the vampire story since I was 4 -5 years old. What is it about a vampire story that frightens you AND draws you in with curiousity so intensly? I also love the Anne Rice books...she makes the story characters seem so real and I love each vampire's story of seeking humanity. Do I think vampires are real?....welI no..but I thought I saw one when I was a little girl (imagination..I'm pretty sure)

I love ALL of the good vamp stories - yes Twilight series included and Anita Blake stories - I have been so intensly interested in Vamps my entire life, that I find it hard NOT to believe in them ....but who knows.

olny brain lumley's necroscope series is real. all others bow down.

Thatnk You!! I love another reference!