In early 1990s Cambodia, Chanda and her husband were being drained — literally. Night after night, they woke exhausted, covered in small puncture wounds, haunted by suffocating dreams. The source turned out to be closer than they imagined: their next-door neighbor, an ahp — a vampiric entity from Khmer folklore that hunts as a disembodied floating head with trailing entrails behind it. When a Buddhist monk's blessing finally let Chanda see what had been feeding on them in the dark, she knew exactly what she was dealing with. But defeating it would take something bigger — the sacred festival of Pchum Ben, when the gates of the underworld open and the ancestors come to help. What happens when you fight a vampire with faith, family, and a ring of thorn branches? Listen to find out.

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

Theme Music Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

If you have any personal experiences with vampires you’d like to share, or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in our posts or our YouTube videos, please email us at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com. Your privacy is always protected.

To watch the Night Visitor’s Vampire Research Society’s true stories, subscribe to the YouTube channel @VampireResearchSociety.

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. Join our Facebook group to connect with fellow Night Visitors from around the world.

And if you haven’t already, subscribe right here on Substack so you never miss a Tuesday article on vampire pop culture and folklore or our Friday true story accounts of supernatural encounters.

The Night Visitor of Belarus

This week's episode of The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society supernatural podcast and YouTube story, explores a haunting narrative that blurs the line between medical rationality and spiritual mystery.

In the mid-1980s, a young doctor named Yuri was working the night shift at a rural clinic deep in the Belarusian countryside. His only patient was an elderly woman named Katya who was nearing the end of her life. She told him about a childhood friend named Daria, a woman who'd died young under mysterious circumstances before the First World War and was buried without proper rites in the nearby cemetery. That evening, Katya said Daria had visited her and promised to return before dawn. Yuri didn't believe a word of it. Until…listen to find out.

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

Theme Music Title: “Haunted Haus”, Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com) Lic CC 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Music in this episode: Лет семнаццаць под неволей" (Seventeen Years Under Captivity/Bondage) by Аляксей Стрэльчанка & VIRY (Aleksei Strelchanka & VIRY)

If you have any personal experiences with vampires you’d like to share, or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in our posts or our YouTube videos, please email us at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com. Your privacy is always protected.

To watch the Night Visitor’s Vampire Research Society’s true stories, subscribe to the YouTube channel @VampireResearchSociety.

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. Join our Facebook group to connect with fellow Night Visitors from around the world.

And if you haven’t already, subscribe right here on Substack so you never miss a Tuesday article on vampire pop culture and folklore or our Friday true story accounts of supernatural encounters.

Belarus supernatural, Soviet Union ghost, vampire folklore, Slavic folklore, undead, revenant, Belarusian countryside, venchik, Eastern European vampire, unholy death, restless dead, ghost encounter, paranormal podcast, supernatural encounter, Tsarist Russia, rural clinic, night shift, cemetery, vampire or ghost, Night Visitors, James Cheney

In 1997, I logged onto the internet for the first time and discovered a world of forums and newsgroups where the supernatural wasn't just a hobby, it was a shared passion. It was in one of these digital spaces dedicated to vampire subculture that I met a writer from New York City. He shared with me a remarkable account he had gathered while interviewing a 98-year-old former actress named Dora, who had traded a life of Rhode Island luxury for the grit and glamour of 1920s Hollywood.

This week, I’m recounting the story as it was told to me where in an abandoned desert mansion, Dora met a mysterious Hungarian man named Janos. He moved through the set like a ghost, his skin the color of alabaster and his touch as cold as ice.

Through the lens of Dora’s memory, I explore her brief, intense connection with this "Mr. Szabo" and the chilling warning he gave her about the "soul-sucking monster" of the film industry. Was he a man out of time, or a literal creature of the night? I look into the fragments of truth left behind—the bit parts Dora actually played, and the haunting letter from the Hungarian National Theatre.

If you have any personal experiences with vampires you’d like to share, or if you have any suggestions as to which aspects of vampirism you’d like to see explored in our posts or our YouTube videos, please email us at thenightvisitorsvrs@gmail.com. Your privacy is always protected.

To watch the Night Visitor’s Vampire Research Society’s true stories, subscribe to the YouTube channel @VampireResearchSociety or subscribe to this Substack and receive new stories every Friday.

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. Join our Facebook group to connect with fellow Night Visitors from around the world.

And if you haven’t already, subscribe to my Substack so you never miss a Tuesday article on vampire pop culture & folklore or our Friday true story accounts of supernatural encounters.