Mysteries

Panics and plagues

• CaseBeijing, China, 1476 to 1477

  Heisheng, Beijing's black creature of 1476, and the Western Depot

  In June 1477 four ministers told the Chenghua emperor that his new Western Depot alarmed Beijing as a night creature had the summer before.

  

• CaseHermersdorf (Svobodné Heřmanice), Czechia, 1753 to 1768

  Hermersdorf's vampires were burned before Vienna sent a physician

  Maria Theresa's earliest letter we found on the Hermersdorf vampires is dated 8 February 1755, eight days after an executioner burned nineteen of the dead.

  

• CaseAntananarivo, Madagascar, 1863 to 1864

  Ramanenjana, the dancing sickness of Madagascar, 1863

  In 1863 the court physician called the dancers of Antananarivo a real illness; the missionary beside the king called it pure deception.

  

• CaseKisiljevo and Medveđa, Serbia, 1725 to 1732

  Plogojowitz and Paole: the vampire reports of 1725 and 1732

  In January 1732 Habsburg army surgeons had graves opened at Medveđa, cut the bodies open, and signed a report saying which dead were in a "vampire state".