The flowers died first. Fresh-cut blooms withered overnight while a man lay paralysed, watching someone who shouldn't exist stand motionless at the foot of his bed until dawn. In 1950s Transylvania, three women thought they knew how to deal with a witch. They thought prayer would be enough. They were wrong about all of it.

This account, witnessed firsthand by a child who later recounted it, examines how a community's fear transformed an ordinary neighbor into something far more sinister and raises uncomfortable questions about community, belief, and scapegoating.

Can communities trapped by hardship and ideology find their way back to compassion?And who are the true monsters? Were they supernatural or all too human?

Listen to discover how fear and folklore collide in this haunting Romanian story.

You’ll find The Night Visitors podcast on a variety of platforms from Apple and ListenNotes to Pocketcasts and iHeartRadio, plus more.

The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society is a worldwide community sharing firsthand vampire encounters and exploring the folklore, history, and pop culture of the undead.

GET SOCIAL: Join the Facebook group or follow on Instagram @nightvisitorsvrs

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to my Substack newsletter where you’ll receive each episode in your inbox weekly on Fridays.

Share Your Experience - If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com. Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”

Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

#Romanianfolklore #vampirelegend #Transylvania #strigoicavie #truesupernaturalstory #1950sRomania #villagewitch #Communistera #OrthodoxChristianity #paranormal #supernatural #nightvisitors #mythology #truestory

In celebration of the Lunar New Year, our first episode explore's a Taoist legend!

The Temple’s Jiangshi: Ming's Encounter with the Dreaded Hopping Chinese Vampire

When Ming sought refuge in a rural temple during his journey to Hong Kong in the 1890s, he had no idea what lurked beneath the altar. That night changed everything he thought he knew about the supernatural.

The creature that emerged was a Jiangshi, a Chinese vampire with hollow eyes, a green corpse-like body, and razor-sharp claws. Unlike the vampires you might picture, this one moved in slow, hopping motions (which sounds almost comical until you're the one being chased). Ming barely escaped by climbing a tree, where he watched the paralyzed creature until sunrise revealed its weakness.

What kept this malevolent spirit trapped at the temple threshold? The villagers knew the answer. They'd been avoiding the place for generations, using it only during specific festivals. Turns out, jujube trees planted in the courtyard held the key to containing this undead Taoist priest from a century earlier.

Through Taoist mystical symbols and other means, Ming helped free the temple from its haunting. Did you know that Chinese vampires inhabit sacred spaces while European vampires flee from them?

Discover how Ming confronted the hopping terror and what makes Jiangshi so different from their Western counterparts.

1. The Rice Farmer's Journey to Hong Kong
2. Ming Encounters a Jiangshi in the Temple
3. Destroying the Jiangshi Vampire

You’ll find The Night Visitors podcast on a variety of platforms from Apple to ListenNotes to Pocketcasts and more.

The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society is a worldwide community sharing firsthand vampire encounters and exploring the folklore, history, and pop culture of the undead.

GET SOCIAL: Join the Facebook group or follow on Instagram @nightvisitorsvrs

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to my Substack newsletter where you’ll receive each episode in your inbox weekly on Fridays.

Share Your Experience - If you have any experiences you’d like to share or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in articles and YouTube videos email me directly at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com. Please note that if you give us permission to share your stories of vampire encounters and would like to remain anonymous, we will change your name and any potential identifying details to protect your privacy. I look forward to hearing from you.

Podcast Theme Music

Title: “Haunted Haus”

Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What if the folklore our ancestors passed down wasn't entertainment—but historical testimony?

Most paranormal content sensationalizes the unexplained. But what happens when we approach these stories with genuine curiosity and respect?

James Cheney's "The Night Visitors" does something different. It explores documented accounts of vampiric entities across cultures and centuries—not the romanticized versions from pop culture, but the serious testimonies people have carried in silence.

These aren't ghost stories. They're accounts of very real experiences: inexplicable energy drain, mysterious time loss, unexplained depletion of resources. Patterns that appear across different continents, different eras, different families.

Here's what makes this approach worth paying attention to:

The podcast treats folklore as historical memory—acknowledging that our ancestors documented what they observed, often with remarkable consistency. Rather than dismiss or sensationalize, it examines these patterns through both cultural context and skeptical inquiry.

Listeners share firsthand accounts without dramatization. Family histories passed down through generations. Experiences people rarely discuss openly because they fear dismissal.

The core message? If you've experienced something similar—that inexplicable nocturnal presence, the lingering exhaustion—you're not alone. And you're not losing your mind.

In a world obsessed with definitive answers, there's value in respectfully exploring what we don't yet understand.

Have you encountered perspectives on paranormal experiences that actually treated the subject with intellectual honesty? What made the difference in how it was presented?

The first episode drops on Tuesday, February 17th in celebration of the Chinese New Year, then new episodes are released weekly on Fridays,

Subscribe on your fav listening platform or subscribe to James' Substack where you'll receive each episode in your inbox each week.

https://jamesnightvisitors.substack.com

https://linktr.ee/thenightvisitors

Music

Title: "Haunted Haus"

Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/