Vampire Folklore Was Exploited to Beat Back the Reds
In 1950, the CIA brought in Air Force brigadier general Edward Lansdale to help with the fight against the Huks. A pioneer in clandestine and psychological warfare, Lansdale believed that psy-ops against insurgent groups should be tailored to the specific culture targeted. The specific culture of central Luzon, where the Huks throve, happened to have a bit of folklore that turned out to be useful to Lansdale. The locals believed in the existence of a shape-shifting vampire called an aswang.
In Filipino folklore, aswangs drained their victims’ blood with a long, sharpened tongue. So Lansdale mimicked aswang attacks. He abducted and ended Huk fighters, drained their blood, and made puncture wounds on their necks. The bodies were left for other Huks to find – and conclude that their comrade had been drained of blood by an aswang. It proved highly effective, and cleared Huk fighters out of an area. Between that and other counterinsurgency tactics, the Huk Rebellion was crushed within a few years.