Hunting Vampires

**Hunting Vampires** is the 4th episode of Season 2 of Expedition Unknown.

## Plot Synopsis

Gates digs up the truth behind vampire legends. His travels start at Curtea Veche in Romania, where he learns about Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration behind Dracula. Then off to Marotinu de Sus, a Romanian village, where six men desecrated a fresh grave believing it to be a "strigoi". He ends in Perperikon, Bulgaria to examine a supposed vampire grave.

## Historical Context

"Since the dawn of man, monsters have appeared in our myths, our culture, and our nightmares. And there's one type of monster that casts a long shadow over all the rest - or no shadow at all, actually - vampires. But where did the legend of these nocturnal bloodsuckers come from, and could it be based on something real? Nonsense, right? Well, that's what I thought. But a series of strange reports from Eastern Europe has many people sleeping with the lights on. In a village in southern Romania, a group of residents made headline news when they claimed a recently deceased man came back from the dead..."

- Josh Gates

## Summary

Josh goes to Bucharest, Romania and meets Oliviu Craznic, a historian, at Curtea Veche Oliviu tells Josh about the strigoi directs him an abandoned church where there is rumoured to be a strigoi. Josh finds an open sarcophagus with a cat inside but nothing else. The next day, Josh meets Petra Rotar, a local journalist. and they drive to Craiova where they meet Daniela Barbu, a prosecutor. She had to charge six men who desecrated and exhumed the grave of Petre Toma. After Petre died villagers began to get sick and have nightmares with Petre in them. Six men went to the cemetery and pulled out Petre's heart, grilled it and prepared a potion from the ashes and everybody who was sick drank it. The villagers' jail term was suspended and Josh sees the gruesome autopsy photos.

Petra and Josh go to Marotinu de Sus and to the cemetery where they fkmd Petre Toma's grave. Two angry villagers come but they are able to calm down and one of the men, Florin, is related to a man who dug up the body. Florin and Josh row across a lake to meet Florin's cousin Mitrica Mircea, where Mitrica recounts the story for them and believes what he did was the right thing.

Josh goes across the Danube to Vidin, Bulgaria and to Buzludzham an abandoned Communist building. From there he meets with Ivo Maev, an anthropologist, in the Rhodopes Mountains. Josh helps Ivo perform an anti-vampire ritual, requested by villagers, and they witness a fire dance in a nearby town. Josh then goes to the ancient city of Perperikon where he meets with Nickolay Ovcharvoc, an archaeologist. Up in the city, they find the vampire skeleton that Nickolay found. They find a ploughshare driven into its neck to make sure it didn't become a vampire. They decide that people performed the ritual because the skeleton may have had an unknown disease or health condition or it could have been suicide.

They are allowed to take a sample for DNA testing, which comes back as the skeleton having porphyria. Porphyria causes victims to have a dislike of garlic, sensitivity to sunlight, and have shrinking gums that make their teeth appear like fangs.

## Final Words

"Like the devil himself, the vampire has had dozens of faces. In antiquity, it was a demon. In the Middle Ages, a rotting corpse. Now, in modern times, it has become a romantic figure. Vampires both transcend death and inflict it. They embody our fear of mortality and our desire for everlasting life. But for all the hold they have over our imaginations, they are in the end, just a myth - one that, over the centuries, has had a tragic human cost. I've seen that cost firsthand. In Romania, I visited the disturbed grave of an innocent person and met a man who led superstition drive him to an obscene purpose. In Bulgaria, I witnessed the persecution of an unfortunate soul, with an untreatable disease. Perhaps human beings created the vampire myth so we don't have to admit our own cruelty. After all, if there's no such thing as a vampire, then the monsters that haunt our nightmares... are ourselves."

- Josh Gates

## Notes & Trivia

* Josh visits his 97th country (Bulgaria) during this episode

## Quotes

* "This is a Russian Ural motorcycle with optional oak coffin sidecar. It is amazing what you can find on Romanian Craigslist."
* "That is a boiling hot tube of bread."
* "People say "what do you think heaven looks like?" I can tell you what heaven looks like - it looks like this. A tube of buttery sugared bread. That's it. This is my baby now.... I'm gonna eat my hot buttery baby."
* "It smells funky inside that mask."
* "The old cat in the sarcophagus. I should have seen that coming a mile away."
* "Well, you know, you dig up a body and eat a heart, you're gonna get a little attention."
* "This means that I'll be travelling alone with a complete stranger to meet a cannibal Romanian vampire-killer. Not my ideal Saturday night."
* "I feel like I'm on a date out here."
* "Yeah, I'm fine. The bridge not so much."
* "This is the Romanian Uber."
* "Beautiful - just a screaming bat trapped in Lucite."
* "If I see one more bear holding a trout under a pink mushroom statue - "
* "Couple gallons of paint, a few exorcisms, and this place will be ready to go."
* "This is like from the Wonka factory. Careful, bats are going to shoot out of this."

## References

1. ↑ https://discovery.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/discovery/go/shows/e/expedition-unknown/200/hunting-vampires.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.616.347.suffix/1560975982484.jpeg