The Strange Story of The Watford Vampire
I recently read a bizarre Reddit thread. In it, a seemingly normal 22 year old woman claims earnestly to have met and interacted with a real life vampire. This lead me on a journey of investigation and discovery that changed my view of the world and led me to think that maybe there are things out there that we cannot explain.
This story begins all the way back in November 2022, when members of the Watford Paranormal Society began publicly discussing reports they had received of “increased vampire activity” in the Hertfordshire town. It wasn’t long before others began posting their own first hand encounters with “The Watford Vampire”. All witnesses reported slightly different experiences of the vampire, but many shared common threads and themes.
Since reading that initial Reddit thread, I have gone back and read the article about the vampire in the Watford Observer, the local newspaper, and I have read every online post about “The Watford Vampire” across social media sites Reddit, Facebook, and Nextdoor. I have spoken directly to the authors of the majority of the posts for additional context and first hand information. Not to mention the hundreds of social media comments about the topic that I have trawled through looking for any piece of new information that commenters might have.
In this article, I will attempt to create the most comprehensive timeline of the alleged vampire encounters, and the common themes across all the witness accounts. Common themes will be highlighted in bold for easy referencing across the different encounters and reports. When I started researching for this article, I was beyond sceptical. I thought this would be a fun fluff piece about a niche urban legend, but as I read more accounts, and more importantly spoke with multiple witnesses who all had similar first hand stories, I quickly began to believe that this story is more than just an urban legend.
As mentioned at the start of this article, in early November 2022 the Watford Paranormal Society published a series of posts on social media site Nextdoor claiming that there had been a recent increase in vampire activity in Watford. They claimed that they had received a flurry of reports of rats and small animals drained of blood found throughout the town, reports of a tall man with long white hair who appeared to be in his early 30s in and around Vicarage Road Cemetery, and reports of a grey figure in Cassiobury Park.
Posted in November 2022, immediately following the initial post on Nextdoor, an anonymous local woman claims that her husband grew up in Watford and spoke about witnessing hauntings and a grey figure in Vicarage Road Cemetery in the 1980s.
In mid November 2022, two young women walking home from a music act around midnight alongside Vicarage Road Cemetery, were approached by a man with long white hair and “piercing eyes”. The duo reportedly could not remember the conversation with the man despite remembering events before and after the conversation. The following few weeks, the two women reported difficulty sleeping and a feeling of being pulled towards the cemetery. This account was shared online by a colleague of the two young women.
In late November, a middle aged man named Ben left the Red Lion pub in Watford at midnight, and walking past Vicarage Road Cemetery, saw a tall man “around 6'4” with long white hair who appeared to be in his “30s or 40s” who was wearing all black and who had pale white skin. Ben claimed that looking at the man gave him an uneasy feeling. When attempting to take a photograph of the tall man, his phone wouldn’t behave properly and the camera could not focus (malfunctioning electronics). For twelve days after the encounter, Ben reported that he had difficulty sleeping and had bad dreams featuring the vampire. Ben uploaded an image of the vampire to the social media site, which he also sent to me, but between it being out of focus, and the compression on the image, it is impossible to say whether the image actually captures the vampire or not.
Also in late November 2022, an anonymous social media commenter on social media website Nextdoor claimed that he had spoken with the vampire in Vicarage Road Cemetery and been told by the vampire that the vampire has a gravestone in the cemetery with his name misspelled. He did not disclose to the commenter what his name was, or which gravestone belonged to him.
In early December 2022, members of the Watford Paranormal Society, Rob and George, shared an update stating that they had investigated the influx of recent vampire reports by staking out (if you’ll pardon the pun) Vicarage Road Cemetery, where they claim to have seen the vampire first hand. They describe the vampire as being a tall man, around 6'2 with long white hair, who appeared to be in his early 30s. The duo from the paranormal society also report that they had malfunctioning electronics when close to the vampire, and felt the presence of “evil magicks” which caused them to both feel “curse like symptoms”. Notably, in this December update, the duo from the Watford Paranormal Society shared a photograph (below) they had managed to take of the alleged vampire.
In mid December 2022, in a now deleted social media post, which I have seen screenshots of as well as direct messages between the man and the Watford Paranormal Society alluding to the content of the original social media post, a man claimed that his mother, who lives near Cassiobury Park had found dead foxes drained of blood in her garden, footprints in the snow in her garden, and most surprisingly, two empty coffins in a previously empty storage shed at the end of her garden. The Watford Paranormal Society visited the property and claim to have disposed of the coffins and warded the area from evil. The society also theorise that the coffins were those of “vampyres” before being abandoned. No, I did not misspell that. The society claims that vampyres and vampires are distinctly different “beasts”. The distinction? That vampyres often living in groups, and being much weaker than vampires who they say typically live alone. The society provided me with a photograph (below) of the aforementioned empty coffins.
In December 2022, the local newspaper, The Watford Observer wrote an article about the vampire sightings in Watford and included a brief summary of known sightings at that time. Another article about the Watford Vampire was previously shared on Yahoo News in December 2022, but is no longer hosted on Yahoo News. However, the original Watford Observer article is still online and can be found easily enough on Google.
In March 2023, the Watford Paranormal Society claimed to be busy investigating reports of a grey figure in Cassiobury Park who they believe is the same being as the vampire spotted in and around Vicarage Road Cemetery.
Fast forward all the way to July 2024, just under seventeen months since the last account that I could find of the vampire, a 22 year old woman calling herself Claire posted on Reddit the most detailed account of the Watford Vampire yet. I read Claire’s original post after she shared a summarised version on the r/vampires subreddit, which began my quest to research and write this article. Claire was the first person that I spoke to when researching this article.
In trying to write this article, I have struggled to find ways to summarise Claire’s detailed account, so I have asked for her permission to share it in it’s entirety. I have edited her post only to bold words that are common themes in keeping with the rest of the article.
“I’m so glad I came across this subreddit because I’m convinced that I met the Watford Vampire.
A month ago, I had this weird experience that I’ve posted about (you can go read that post if you want), but I’ll basically summarise it here. I’m (22f) from Watford, and I met this guy at a pub. He had long white-blonde hair, a slightly pointed nose, and looked like guy in his early 30s. His voice was smooth and hypnotic, and he had some sort of European accent. I remember that he never mentioned his name, but at that time, I didn’t really think about it or realise it was strange. We spoke for some time, but I don’t remember even a single topic that we spoke about.
That night I dreamt of him along the dark corridors, the whispering voices, everything so vivid. I woke up with such a huge desire to take a walk and found myself that evening at the cemetery on Vicarage Road. It was very dark, but luckily not so cold out, yet somehow I felt compelled to go there, like I was drawn there.
As I walked through the cemetery he appeared again; he just stood there as if standing in a cemetery at midnight is the most normal thing in the world. The next thing about him that turned my blood cold was his smile, yet, for some reason, I went towards him. We talked for a couple of minutes and once again I have no memory of the conversation. It’s all just a blur. After a couple of minutes, I got this gut-wrenching feeling that I needed to leave, so I made an excuse and left.
Something about him doesn’t seem quite right, like he isn’t quite a person. I have been reading accounts of this guy over the internet, all similar, and it made me realise that I encountered the Watford Vampire. Someone else even reached out to me saying they had met him. There is stuff about this guy going all the way back to the 1980s, always with the same description.
In the past month, I haven’t been back to the cemetery, but I have dreamed about him several times, with each dream more vivid than the last.
I know a few people on here won’t believe me, but I know a lot of you will understand, and I want to share my story.”
On the 20th August 2024, a reddit user claiming to work overnight security near Vicarage Road cemetery commented that he is aware of the person described as the vampire and has seen him on multiple occasions.
On the afternoon of the 6th September 2024, a 24 year old woman named Charlotte posted on the social media site Nextdoor that she had gone for a walk on Blackmore Lane in the early hours of that very morning to look at the waterfall on the lane in an effort to reduce her anxiety. When she got there she noticed a man with long blonde hair and wearing all black. She claims that the man spoke to her in an accent, possible French, but that she doesn’t remember the conversation. After their brief conversation, she fled home and when she eventually did sleep, she reports that she dreamt of the man. Notably, this woman had not heard of the Watford Vampire, and when shown the image featured above in this article, she identified it as the man she had met.
It is possible that there are more accounts of the vampire online that I have not found, and while this aims to be a comprehensive list, it is very possible that I have missed several. Please get in touch with me if you find anything that I have missed and I will update this article.
This article has been written with the benefit of the doubt given to the people who have reported experiences with the alleged vampire. There is no material evidence other than people’s experiences and a couple of out of focus photographs. I urge you all to make up your own minds about whether or not you believe these accounts, and if you do, whether you believe the person being encountered across the town is a vampire, or something else altogether.
