Debunking vampires? Is nothing sacred?

This morning, I heard on the radio that vampires can't truly exist, because they would consume their food source (us) too quickly. I just had to look this little tidbit up:

Efthimiou's debunking logic goes like this: On Jan. 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on, even if our entire species doubled each month.

I've actually questioned the predatory habits of zombies, vampires and werewolves in this very blog before, so it is something I've spent time thinking about. Still, though, seeing that someone did the math and all is kind of depressing to me.

There's still hope, though. If real life vampires are like the ones in the works of Anne Rice, they could still be out there skulking around. In her works, the vampires could feed on an unlimited number of people, and they would only turn the ones they wanted to into vampires. They really considered this choice carefully, since they'd be spending a lot of time with that person from that point on. Also, they weighed out how many vampires could live in one area without arousing suspicion, so it didn't happen very often. Hmmm, I guess Anne spent some time thinking about this, too!

Or, if you look at the vampire legends on wikipedia, many cultures believe that becoming a vampire has nothing to do with being bitten by another vampire in the first place:

The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In Slavic and Chinese traditions, any corpse which was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead. A body with a wound which had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In Russian folklore, vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the Church while they were alive.

So, really, it's possible that IF there are vampires out there, they aren't reproducing in an out of control fashion. They could still be around!

There, I feel better now! Sort of! I do still wonder about the zombies, though...

Happy Halloween!

Labels: holiday, newsworthy, vampires, werewolves, zombies