FLIGHT OF VAMPIRE

And now your True Adventure host, Bill Burrud. Hi there, this is Bill Burrud saying welcome to Adventure. True adventure filmed as it happens throughout our fascinating world. You might describe what's in store for you as out of this world. Because we're going to explore the facts behind one of the most terrifying myths that ever emerged from the twilight realm of the supernatural. This is the story of the vampire. It's a relic of medieval times when a host of demons and goblins and witches and their familiar spirits haunted the imaginations of peasants and learned men alike. This was an age of faith and of fear. And in spite of the passage of intervening centuries, the myth of the vampire still has the power to terrify credulous human beings. The vampire, fact or fiction? As it turns out, a little of both, as we'll see. In addition to taking a look at the vampire of legend, we're going on an expedition to Sinaloa, Mexico to see the genuine article, the flesh and blood vampire bat. I'm sure that you'll agree that both the fact and the fantasy provide the ingredients of an unusually chilling true adventure. The New World has its share of strange beliefs and superstitions. But to track down the vampire legend, we have to go to Europe. America's last great witch trials took place in the 1690s. But the last great Hungarian vampire scare took place a good many years later in the 18th century. We usually think of vampires as being a Slavic idea, pretty much confined to the southeastern Europe and Asia. Actually, it's liable to crop up anywhere in the world. Certainly anywhere in Europe, especially where there's an old peasant population. That's where tradition dies hardest and a firm belief in witchcraft returning ghosts and countless other relics from the distant past lingers on. The graveyard, the crypt, these are places of fear. Even the bones have been disturbed in some of these burial places. Time has cracked the walls. They're filled with water occupied by crabs and other visitors. Given a little imagination, a touch of credulity, a fear of the unknown, it's no great mystery how fantasies in these surroundings become unshakable belief. The classic vampire story is a tale of night. Say it's not true. It can't happen. But to thousands upon thousands of people alive today, it's as real as real as anything in their lives, perhaps more real because it's more terrifying. This is the vampire legend. What you're about to see might have been lifted intact from any one of several learned books written in the 18th century. What's supposed to lurk out there? The night inhabited by ghosts, by spirits, and somewhere in some dark crypt, perhaps, the body of one of the undead doomed to hunt in the form of a bat. This night has nothing to do with a rotating earth, the setting sun. It's a night of the soul, and the endless catalog of imagined fears take on life and the strength of their own. The vampire lives on the blood of its victim, and the victim in turn becomes a vampire. Curfew for the vampire. Sunlight is fatal, so when the rooster warns of approaching sunrise or morning church bells start ringing, the vampire returns to its coffin to wait for night again. Now, the details of the vampire legend differ from place to place, and no wonder, because you will find it as far from Slavic Europe as China, Malaya, and Trinidad. The vampire wasn't always a bat and still isn't. It may be a cat or even a bird. One thing everybody agrees on, a vampire's hard to kill. A pointed stick driven through the heart is recommended, and there are other methods just about as drastic. Incidentally, if a corpse awaiting burial has its mouth open, it will probably become a vampire unless the mouth is filled with clay. One belief says that scattered grains or even a broom will stop a vampire who can't resist counting the grains or broom straws. But where did the bat part of the story really come from? When men first left the Old World and came to the New, you might have thought that they'd leave some of their old wives' tales behind. Once they landed, they found plenty on which to base a whole new series of legends, plus material to give some old ones a new lease on life. You see, the New World was full of ancient wonders. The Native American civilizations were not only strange to the conquering Spaniards, they often seemed bloody and incomprehensible. The Aztecs still practiced human sacrifice, and their sculpted decorations portrayed a variety of bizarre and frightening forms. And it was here that Europeans first heard of America's blood-drinking vampire bat. By the time that story had gone to Europe and returned, it had taken on its familiar shape, immortalized, if that's the word to use, by Bela Lugosi. Lugosi starred as the notorious Count Dracula in a series of popular Universal movies based on old Slavic legends as modified by the introduction of the bat idea from the New World, the Dracula stories have provided chills for two generations of moviegoers and late late show fans. Now, I have to admit that until recently, I had no idea of America's contribution to the version of the vampire legend. Of course, I'd heard that in some parts of the Far East, the bat is a sign of good fortune. For instance, in some places, five symbolic bats are worn as a charm, and they mean five blessings, happiness, wealth, peace, virtue, and long life. In Europe, the bat has always meant the opposite. But it wasn't until I personally flew down to Sinaloa, Mexico for a weekend of deep sea fishing, that I learned how the bat graduated from being a minor creature of ill omen to sharing the spotlight with the likes of Count Dracula. Now, in my business, you're always on the alert for anything that smacks of the unusual, any odd fact that might suggest a story with a ring of adventure to it. But, nothing could have been further from my mind when I arrived in Sinaloa, Mexico on the natural history of the supernatural vampire. For one thing, the Sinaloa coast is semi-tropical, even tropical. The warmth and sunlight has a way of sort of melting any lingering thoughts of ghosts or vampires that you might have brought with you. And this, I think, is about as far away from the nightmare world of a Slavic legend as anybody could ever get. Nothing even remotely bat-like about this takeoff. Certainly times like this, a man hasn't a care in the world, even if the catch isn't one for the record books. One member of our party brought in a respectable marlin that afternoon. But, the real catch came later quite by accident. It was one of those chance conversations that crop up when everybody's told his favorite story about the one that got away. We got around to other topics beside fish. This is where I picked up the trail of the vampires. And it was all because I got to talking with a man who'd been roaming Sinaloa's high back country and had seen real vampire bats in an old mine tunnel. Mexico is an old country. Men have lived here as long as 20,000 years, possibly longer. At the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519 to 1521 AD, there were over 100 different self-governing tribes. Today, perhaps half the population preserves the art and traditions of those pre-conquest civilizations. Side by side, the very old and the new present striking contrasts in modern Mexico. And these are the creatures the conquistadores sent home news about. In Sinaloa lives the father of a legend, the vampire bat. The search for a legend led into the interior of the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. I had begun making inquiries about the vampire bat and learned that it had been an object of fear for a long time, not because of anything supernatural, but because it's a carrier of rabies. The vampire bat, like the vampire of legend, does in fact drink the blood of living victims, which are often cattle, but not always. I discovered that vampire bats do attack sleeping men and women. Not long ago in one South American district, 22 miners died of rabies because they neglected to use mosquito nets. That's all it takes to protect you from the genuine vampire. Sinaloa's high back country is arid desert. Because of a television commitment, I wasn't able to follow through in the search for the vampire bats myself, but I had our True Adventure camera crew go out to look for the mine tunnel we'd heard about. Eventually, they met a surveying team working on a new road, stopped to ask directions. No one carries a gun as a status symbol. This is rough country. Our crew learned that the mine that they were looking for was the remains of an ancient Spanish diggings. Yes, it was occupied by bats. Yes, they knew just how to get there, and they were happy to give directions. Now, as you watch this Jeep traverse this rough road, you can't help but go back in history because our Jeep is going through the land that the Spaniard Cortez and his tiny army occupied and conquered in the early 16th century. Unbelievable historical dramas have been played out in Mexico. Simple cultures flourished here before the start of the Christian era. Then came the Mayas, whose golden age spanned the time between the 3rd and 10th centuries AD. Their old empire reached from southern Mexico to what is now the Republic of Honduras. Their mastery of art and science has led scholars to describe them as the Greeks of the New World. After them came others, among them the Aztecs, who founded Mexico City in the 14th century. They were at the height of their power when the Spaniards arrived. Then in one tragic year, they lost everything they'd gained in the previous 200. And the Spaniards, of course, took back the tales of the New World to Europe. There's our destination, the tunnel entrance. From the look of the country, you'd think you'd be more likely to find Arabian jinns here than traditional vampires. Bats, though, are found everywhere from the Arctic Circle almost to Antarctica. And they come in all sizes. There's an African bat with a body no bigger than the smallest hummingbirds. An East Indian bat called the flying fox has a body the size of a crow's and a wingspan of over 5 ft. Most of them feed on insects. A few eat fruit. And two species actually catch fish. Ah, but the vampires live exclusively on one thing, blood. So, that's what we're going to bring them, a bowl of animal blood. If there's no one home, then it's been a long hard trip for nothing. With the use of that bowl of animal blood, we'll know whether or not we've found the true vampire bat. There they are. These are the vampires the conquistadores heard about, perhaps even saw. Thanks to Cortez and his men, these little fellows helped remold some ancient legends about supernatural attackers, and they gave us Count Dracula. From time immemorial, they've been thought of as creatures that fly like birds, bite like beasts, hide by day, and see in the dark. Well, they fly all right, but not all of them hide by day. There are South American bats that chase insects in broad daylight. They don't actually see in the dark. They navigate by means of sound, emitting short, high squeaks, and detecting obstacles by the echo that comes back to them. On the other hand, the expression blind as a bat isn't true either. All bats have eyes, and most of them can probably see quite well. I get the impression they're not really glad to see us, and I have a feeling that feeling is mutual. Now, let's see how they respond to a free meal of animal blood. It doesn't take them long to overcome their antagonism, at least enough to come down for a look. A few more are getting the idea now. These are vampire bats. Many people still think of bats as belonging to some weird branch of the bird family. Early zoologists weren't sure how to classify them either. They gave them the Latin name avis non avis, which means birds that aren't birds. Actually, they're a primitive, highly specialized type of mammal, the only mammal that can fly. The blood-drinking bats have the further distinction of being the mammals that are also parasites. When they attack a living victim, their teeth makes a tiny incision that's almost painless. Men have been bitten in their sleep, not once, but several times, without even waking up. The danger, of course, isn't from the loss of blood, which is small, but from the chance of infection. Dinner's over. You'll never know it, but in the 16th century, this fellow's ancestors made one of the earliest American contributions to European culture. At one time or another, folklore has told us that iron, garlic, bells, and light are all effective protection against vampires. I guess it's a mark of progress that we can now assure anyone who might be worried that all you really need is a mosquito net. I don't suppose that knowing about the genuine article, real vampire, is going to diminish the amount of superstition in the world. Bringing the hobgoblins out into the broad light of day sometimes gets rid of them, yes, only to have some new piece of nonsense jump in to take their place. I sometimes think that some of us have a deep-seated need to be scared stiff. It's hard to see details after sundown. That's when the vampire bats of Mexico make their appearance. But, the bats belong not in the realm of myth, but to the world of true adventure. Well, there you have it. The vampire story, fiction and fact. It's really extraordinary how persistent the vampire legend has been. But then, I suppose there are other beliefs just as wild and just as widespread that have even less to justify them. Crystal gazing, reading tea leaves, for example, or the belief in witches. But, seeing the real vampire bats at Sinaloa, Mexico, though, my only wonder is that they haven't given rise to an entire mythology all their own. As an old Scottish prayer has it, from ghoulies and ghosties, and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us. Well, I want to thank you for sharing this true adventure with us. Until we meet once again, this is Bill Burrud saying, may all your adventures be happy ones.