Episode #3 – Anthony Hogg

Sean Manchester at home, like all bishops, in front of a wall of Nazi memorabilia. Photograph reproduced with kind permission of Kevin Chesham.

Anthony Hogg of the ‘Did A Wampyr Walk in Highgate?‘ blog discusses the infamous Highgate Vampire case and its main protagonists: David Farrant and Sean Manchester.

Further to the recording of the interview, Anthony is no longer associated with the Highgate Cemetery Vampire Appreciation Society. He has a new group, named after his blog, which can be found here.

Wikipedia’s entry on the Highgate Vampre – [click here]

Read Don Ecker’s report into the Highgate Vampire case and the not so mysterious Lusia – [click here]

Trystan’s own dealings with Sean Manchester – [click here]

Presented by Trystan Swale.

LINKS

David Farrant and friend in Highgate Cemetery. Photograph used with kind permission of British Paranormal and Occult Society.

David Farrant and friend in Highgate Cemetery. Photograph used with kind permission of David Farrant.

Darren Perks and UFO Shropshire – [click here]
Those UFO photographs – [click here]
Hereford Cathedral and the Mappa Mundi – [click here]

MUSIC

Our theme is ‘Roundway’ by Manmademan. Used with kind permission.

Mappa Mundi feature introduction music: ‘Signs’ by Jet Noir. Used with kind permission.
‘Sunlight through the trees (version 2)’ by The Lovely Moon. Used under a creative commons licence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.co.uk/ Taliesin_ttlg

It is clear that there are two factions – both of them led by incorrigible fakers/fantasists; Farrant and Manchester – who both murky the waters of the Highgate Vampire case and (between them, though maybe not in consort) created the “vampire case”, which has more in common with the media vampire than the folklore vampire.

As such it is a crying shame that the only one (that I am aware of) neutral forum (hosted on facebook) for discussion of the case has suffered a takeover by the Farrant camp and the neutral investigator – Anthony Hogg, who you interviewed on this podcast – was stopped being an admin and then banned because Farrant’s wife, Della, was clearly deemed more independent. This banning seemed to be because the other original admin, Redmond McWilliams, has (I understand) a deal to make a documentary along with the Farrants, a documentary being made by the other new admin – Joao. The actions of McWilliams and the Farrants have led me to leave the group as I was only a member due to its non-partisan stance.

Indeed I see little difference between the antisocial activities and claims from the “Farrant team” and the “Manchester team”.

Incidentally the accusations of extreme right wing sympathies, as highlighted by a picture you have published, seem to the impartial viewer just as prevalent with Manchester (and his Nazi memorabilia), Farrant (according to political flyers – albeit reproduced by Manchester – from the seventies) and Kevin Chesham (who admitted, eventually, to posing giving a Nazi salute).
- Gari
  
  I can remember years ago someone saying, not sure who, that the rivalries within a group with a common purpose are greater than their enemies, we see it all the time with religion, don’t we? Islam and Christianity spend more time ‘fighting’ internally, than they do focusing on the weakness of the rival religion’s weaknesses.
  
  I’ve seen this kind of thing all my life within groups, when I was major woo I lost count how many times people argued, left and formed new ‘investigation’ groups, heck I used to play in bands for years, and that was the same, personalties class, and egos get bruised, new bands get formed.
  
  I suppose for any group to succeed you need a capable leader, and if you get more than one person with self-belief enough to lead, then things can get rocky, even if their views mostly agree.
  
  As for the Highgate Vampire case, the only ‘evidence’ is from those claiming to have been there, I can remember a graveyard we ‘investigated’ when we were young, people claimed to see things, I got them to draw what they saw when we got home, and I was kind of puzzled why they saw and heard things and I did not.
  
  It is amazing how heated discussions can get, over something that has no real evidence, and an event, as far as I can tell, that has not been repeated. Hysteria? Outright hoax? Something spooky?
  
  Real or not, who can ever know? The mind is fallible, as I know too well, so even stuff that I have seen, I can’t be sure that I really did witness.
  
  Doesn’t mean that claims aren’t worth a look though!!
http://dawwih.blogspot.com.au/ Anthony Hogg

Bang-on about the waters being murkied. I’ve been represented as a ‘hardcore sceptic’ of the supernatural on this thing (my accusers don’t seem to recall me mentioning being a Christian in this very podcast). Nor do they seem to recall what option I chose when I voted on the HCVAS poll.

But to clarify, is ‘something’ *did* happen at the cemetery, it has been muddied up by the publicity stunts and dodgy self-representation. There is some evidence to suggest a degree of collusion, too.

Though no official reason has been given for why I was dramatically – and abruptly – outed from the group I helped establish, the primary concern was my defence of Angie Watkins, author of the ‘Demonflyonthewall’ blog and the admin of the ‘HIGHGATE! HIGHGATE! HIGHGATE!’ Facebook group. I strongly disputed her blog and forum being referred to as a ‘hate group’, even inviting fellow HCVAS members to view it for themselves. I also pointed out that their stance was hypocritical in light of the way I, myself, had been blatantly misrepresented, virtually unchallenged, on the same forum, by David Farrant.

I should add that not only was I expelled from the HCVAS for my defence and refusal to ‘shut up’ about the matter, I was also expelled from associated groups – even though the discussion on the HCVAS had no relation to them. Redmond also ‘unfriended’ me, immediately after booting me off the HCVAS and blocked me from viewing it.

Della, David and Redmond – all friends – have longstanding issues with Watkins, on account of Watkins’ open mockery of the Farrants (and Red) and Watkins’ unfortunate attempts to ravel Della’s identity, on account of her being sceptical of Della’s ‘existence’ (to be fair, there is some precedent for this, on account of the Veronica Lake business David participated in some years ago). Nonetheless, I was also openly critical of Watkins’ pursuit.

I should also disclose that Watkins’ is a friend of mine. Our friendship was established through discussion on the case. She was also a former friend of David’s before their falling out. Nonetheless, my friendship with her has certainly not clouded my judgement about openly disagreeing on certain issues.

In terms of a takeover, I was most amused to find out Della Farrant, David Farrant’s wife – who works for David’s organisation, BPOS – was drafted in my stead as an ‘impartial’ admin, especially as she’d only been on the group for two days. As knowledgeable as she is on the case, making her an admin goes against the group’s independent principles and I’m sure its founder is aware of that.

As to Joao, it’s true he’s filming a doco related to the case, but isn’t as familiar with its ins and outs – another bewildering choice for admin duties (which I hope he doesn’t mind me saying – but it’s true).

I’m even more amused by the fact that the group is currently on the lookout for another impartial admin, even though it had one: me. The guy who helped establish it, defended and promoted it – and was one of its primary contributors.

I believe I was ousted for personal, emotional reasons (on account of defending Angie and being her friend), which should not have been mingled with the group’s remit, i.e. to be an independent discussion forum on the Highgate Vampire case. Very much a kangaroo court. After all, by the same logic, should David have been ousted for his role behind the ‘Cousin Hoggy’ caricatures and his open, misrepresenting, virtually-unchallenged criticisms of my work? Of course not – that’d mean I was biased. And unlike Angie, he never apologised for his shenanigans.

When we have all these actions, it’s hard to see any substantial differences between the ‘antisocial activities’ in question.

However, the extreme right wing sympathy business, I believe, lies more with Manchester than it does with Farrant and Chesham, simply because there’s more evidence in favour of Manchester’s sympathies – which also include Chesham’s testimony.
Pat

This Nevada sphere thing is old news it was clearly faked it seems but not by the guy Darren. You guys waste too much time on the old. If you do your home work his Darren dude got set up good and proper and he is a clever guy to have taken some sort of legal thing out in the UK. But it seems he has an endless stream of cash so I do wonder who is backing him behind the scenes? I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an international copyright in his name. If that happens, any newspaper, magazine, book or website etc has to get permission to print his name. If not it can result in big copyright breaches of millions of dollars. This could get messy but in any case who is this guy anyhow? H does know alot of stuff…
- admin
  
  If you did your homework you would know things are still unfolding with this story.
  
  Incidentally, why have you posted via hidemyass.com? And it isn’t to hide your lack of knowledge on copyright law.
- Gari
  
  Pat, did you school with Darren, your use of English seems pretty similar.
  
  What puzzles me is that on Darren’s website, he makes no mention of the hoax, if it were me, I’d have put a piece on the homepage explaining the situation. Maybe he is too busy to do so, what with him giving interviews, social networking and updating his website.
  
  It must dishearten him somewhat, to see all these people, like you, on the web defending him, with the consequence that their actions are raising the whole affair’s profile again.
  
  Oh, the trials and tribulations of a genuine serious investigator.
http://www.facebook.com/diggydawson Dave Dawson

Another belter
Pat-On-The-Head(s)

Ah “Pat.” All “Darren” needs to do to clear this up is to produce the alleged “Mark Roberts’ Court Statement” stamped as admitted in evidence that “Darren” CLEARLY stated exists. Even a Case Reference and Court in which the action was taken would be useful to establish the truth. Otherwise its just another unsubstantiated claim. My bet is it never sees the light of day!

By the way, you can’t copyright your name – it would make life a bit hard for all the other poor sods who happen to share it.
Xpose UFO Truth

To Gari, Pat-on-the-Head(s):

Darren did make a declaration regarding the hoax photos and the cases that we have investigated.

However, as this is all just more of his storytelling it has little effect on the actual hoaxing (and more) situation currently under investigation.

Quote:

“This group fell foul of a UFO hoax done by an ex member of the group.

It seems that it was happening behind our backs for sometime.

Unaware of what was happening we have now unravelled his wrong doing, and it goes back months well into 2012.

What he did got mixed up in our investigations and certainly has now given us cause for concern with regards to things we were looking at back in July 2012.

However, it has not affected the group or its members in any way. In fact, we have quite enjoyed seeing how this has been exposed and it’s good for people to see.

We take defamatory comments seriously along with copyright issues.

Anyone that is seen to write or speak in a defamatory way about this group on the internet or otherwise, will be investigated and if necessary legal action will be taken.

This is something that the group has resources to do in many ways that are available to its admin team….”

Full declaration:

http://www.ufoshropshire.co.uk/interesting-article-on-faking-ufo-photos-hoax-response

He has blamed “Mark Roberts” for the misdeeds, but also “Terry Spencer” wrote to me and told me that HE hacked Perks’ photo account and set Perks up.

This was while Perks was in LA in a “web cafe” by the way.

Judging by IP addresses and timed entries in our logs, “Terry Spencer” is actually Darren Perks, so that would suggest that Darren Perks hacked his own photo account and set himself up!
- gari
  
  @ Xpose UFO Truth
  
  I have been following the fairy tale closely, I thought I’d already replied to this post of yours, excellent work BTW
  
  UFO fantasists and hoaxers are all over the Internet, and really are why the subject is ridiculed so much by the mainstream. Fact is, IF there were really anything in the whole ET piloted UFO hypothesis, then people wouldn’t need to be faking stuff, the truth would be known, we have 7 billion humans on the planet, even if just a billion of them had a camera we’d have REAL pictures by now surely? But no, we have Photoshopped pictures and grainy photos.
  
  To hear the fantasists, you’d have to accept that UFOs are daily in our airspace, yet no definite confirmed contact has ever been made. In the UK we have kids going around with iPads and iPhones, leave alone digital cameras, in just my personal experience I know a child of 7 with an iPad and pensioners up to 76 with one and a camera, these are people who sometimes practically sleep with a digital camera device, it’s there at breakfast, dinner and tea. I can’t put a figure on it, but I’d be surprised if 50% of the population didn’t have some kind of camera device within grasp 24 hours a day, so @50% in the UK that’s 30 million people plus. Yet no real UFO photos exist.
  
  Do I think we are alone in the universe? Probably not. Is any other life out there, that may exist, sentient and intelligent enough to get to Earth? I can’t see it. It has taken maybe 10 billion years and two star deaths for the appropriate elements for life to exist on Earth at all. Then it took 3.5 billion years from soup to humans, and humans the ‘pinnacle’ of evolution, the only life on Earth known to ponder about life elsewhere, the only life here that explores have only been around for 200,000 years as sapiens, and have only been intelligent to travel to the nearest planetary objects in the last 50 or so years.
  
  I think that life, intelligent life, is so rare and the cosmos so large that the chances of two civilizations existing close enough together at the same time too remote. We know that humanity has nearly become extinct a couple of times n the distant past – we have the least diverse DNA of the apes; a family group of chimpanzees numbering 55, has more genetic diversity than ALL 7 billion humans – and we know that the most common thing about life is that it becomes extinct, 99% of all species that ever existed are now gone, the average species lifetime is around 7 billion years, and our branch of apes are at that level. It is entirely possible that IF someone visits Earth someday, we’ll all be dust, and they will wonder who put those spacecraft on the Moon.
Simon Jones-Willis (Bristol)

This Perks thing is a bit old now but it did get the attention of some people. I looked at it back in March and it seems that no one knows the truth about what is happening or ‘happened’ should I say. The problem is that you can do all the investigation you want into this, but we will never know for sure what went on. For all we know he really could of been set up but by more than one person and he thinks it is just one person that is doing it. When you look more in depth into this I can’t see any reason for him to actually do this because he has literally nothing to gain from it at all. That said if he was doing it then what are his reasons? Does he have another agenda or is he working for some sort of government or black ops company? You can’t rule that out because when you look at Perks’s history, he is certainly well connected in military terms. But that should be approached with caution as we all know that can lead to more trouble than bargained for. I think he may have closed the doors on letting people get close into his group and who can blame him, after all if this Mark had something against him and wanted to get him back then he has done that job well. One thing we should all note though is that Perks and Nick Pope are very close friends and both do lots of behind the scenes contribution for the BBC. So from that perspective they may be getting paid to do and say certain things from higher up, which is controlling the way the UFO subject is portrayed in the mainstream media. So we all just need to be careful and use a bit of common sense because until you have concrete 100% proof and physical evidence all this say so is just say so. To be honest in ufology there are far more interesting things going on. But thanks for the show here it was interesting to listen to.
- gari
  
  Well, Darren, if you say it is true, it must be, I mean, you are the advocate of truth aren’t you?
  
  What was to be gained from hoaxing a photo?
  Who says there needs to be gain? Folks do it for a laugh, mostly. How many other hoaxers out there done it for gain?
  
  I am amused though, how most of the supporters of Darren’s position on the Internet seem to have identical posting style, grammar and spelling as him.
  
  Must have all gone to the same finishing school.
  
  If you, Darren, were working black-ops, you have a funny way of keeping low-profile, which is mostly what a black-op is about.
  
  FACT: there is NO proof of any alien powered machines in our airspace, sure we have unexplained phenomena, but that is all they are, until Klatu and Gort appear and ask to speak to Obama.
  - forteanradio
    
    Interesting that Simon should post from an email address that doesn’t actually exist. Funny that.

Episode #3 – Anthony Hogg

About

Subscribe

Social

Content