Latest / Mystery Archives Episodes / Hungry Ghosts: The Terrifying Bishop Family Haunting in Taiwan
Transcript
- 0:00In the lush mountains of Taiwan, beneath the constant veil of
- 0:04mist and rain, a beautiful mansion promised comfort and
- 0:10prestige to an American family starting a new chapter abroad.
- 0:15But behind its glass walls and marble floors, something ancient
- 0:21was waiting. They were not alone.
- 0:25What began as whispers in the night soon grew into footsteps,
- 0:30voices calling from the dark, and finally violent attacks no
- 0:35skeptic could dismiss. The bishops had unknowingly
- 0:40stepped into a battlefield between the living and the
- 0:43restless dead spirits starved of offerings, bound by tragedy and
- 0:50hungry for the energy of the living.
- 0:54This is their story, true, terrifying and unforgettable.
- 1:01In the humid nights of Taiwan, when the summer rains swell
- 1:05rivers and missed coils through the valleys, there is a month
- 1:10that no family dares to ignore. Lanterns glow at doorways,
- 1:17incense smoulders on sidewalks, and baskets of food are left on
- 1:22Stoops. Not for the living, but for the
- 1:26dead. This is Ghost Month, the time
- 1:30when the gates of the underworld are said to open, releasing the
- 1:35restless and the hungry into the world of men.
- 1:40In Chinese belief, these are not the honored ancestors who
- 1:44receive reverent offerings at family altars.
- 1:49These are the forgotten dead, the souls of those who perished
- 1:53violently or without descendants to honor them.
- 1:58They wander, gaunt and hollow, tormented by insatiable
- 2:04appetites that rice wine and paper money can only briefly
- 2:10ease. They are known as the Uruguay,
- 2:15the hungry ghosts. To neglect them is to invite
- 2:19disaster. Fire start without cause.
- 2:24Illness takes root. Misfortune stalks a household
- 2:28until it buckles under the weight of unseen company.
- 2:33So each August, families appease the hungry dead with careful
- 2:37rituals, the living light, the path of the forgotten, hoping
- 2:43that food and flame will buy peace for another year.
- 2:48But what of those places where violence left a scar so deep the
- 2:53earth itself refuses to forget? What of homes raised on soil
- 2:59blackened by tragedy, where spirits were never guided
- 3:03onward, never offered release? It was in such a valley that the
- 3:10Bishop family would come to live.
- 3:12An American father, his wife and two daughters, strangers to
- 3:19Taiwan's ancient customs, arrived with optimism and
- 3:24curiosity. They believed the house they
- 3:27were given was a gift, a token of success.
- 3:32They could not know that it was already claimed by others, souls
- 3:38that had not left and perhaps would never leave without taking
- 3:45something in return. The bishops would learn, as
- 3:51countless Taiwanese had whispered for centuries, that
- 3:55the hungry dead do not sleep. They linger, waiting for the
- 4:00living to feed them. And in the mountains outside
- 4:04Taipei, in a mansion gleaming with glass and marble, those
- 4:09spirits had waited long enough. The year was 1984.
- 4:16An opportunity had knocked for Dennis Bishop.
- 4:19After years of grinding the corporate ladder, he had finally
- 4:24been promoted to a senior position with his company, a
- 4:29posting that would take him and his family halfway across the
- 4:33world to Taipei, Taiwan. To Dennis, it was a dream.
- 4:40To Candace, his wife, it was a step into the unknown.
- 4:45For their daughters, Stacy, who was 16 at the time, and Marissa,
- 4:51who was just 12, it was an adventure waiting to unfold.
- 4:57The company spared no expense. A driver was provided, as well
- 5:03as housing befitting Dennis's new stature as ACEO.
- 5:08The Bishops, accustomed to modest suburban living in the
- 5:12States, were stunned when they were taken to see the house that
- 5:16would become their home. It sat at the base of the miss
- 5:21draped Yang Ming Mountains, massive and imposing, far from
- 5:27the bustle of Taipei's crowded streets.
- 5:31The road curved past rice paddies, scattered cemeteries
- 5:36and the ruins of farms until the driver slowed before the gates.
- 5:43Beyond them, the mansion rose like a fortress, it's large
- 5:49windows reflecting the Gray sky. For Marissa, it was
- 5:54breathtaking. The biggest house I'd ever seen,
- 5:57She whispered, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
- 6:01After years of cramped apartments, here was a palace,
- 6:06complete with a swimming pool shimmering in the humid air.
- 6:10She imagined running through its endless rooms, swimming until
- 6:14dusk, and playing in the gardens that seemed to stretch forever.
- 6:19Stacy, ever the skeptic, wasn't so easily charmed.
- 6:24She looked up at the upper windows, at the way that the
- 6:27mist pooled along the roof line. The house loomed too heavily,
- 6:32she thought, as though the mountain itself pressed down
- 6:35upon it. Something about it unsettled her
- 6:40and Candace. Candace's unease was immediate
- 6:46as the front door was opened and the family stepped inside.
- 6:50A heaviness settled on her chest.
- 6:53The air felt different, colder, though outside the heat was
- 6:59oppressive. She trailed her fingers along
- 7:02the wall as she moved through the entryway, and that was when
- 7:07it struck. An unseen fist, sudden and
- 7:12violent, slammed into her back. She stumbled forward, catching
- 7:18herself against a column, her breath ragged.
- 7:22Dennis turned around, alarmed. Stacy froze.
- 7:26Marissa giggled nervously, thinking that maybe her mom had
- 7:30tripped. But Candace knew better.
- 7:34She hadn't tripped. Something had chuffed her.
- 7:39She turned, eyes wide, but no one stood behind her.
- 7:44The cavernous foyer was empty. Her skin prickled.
- 7:50She forced a smile for her two daughters, not wanting to
- 7:53frighten them. The company representative
- 7:57talked about all of the amenities of the property, about
- 8:00its prestige and how lucky the bishops were to have it.
- 8:05The Candace's mind was elsewhere.
- 8:09It kept replaying that moment over and over again, the blow,
- 8:15the cold, the feeling of being watched the instant she crossed
- 8:20the threshold. For two weeks, she begged Dennis
- 8:25to reconsider. They toured other homes, and
- 8:29those homes were smaller, more humble, but were tucked in
- 8:33crowded neighborhoods. Nothing seemed to compare to the
- 8:37mansion. Nothing impressed Dennis the way
- 8:40the estate did. He saw in his success, stability
- 8:46and a future for his family abroad.
- 8:49Candace, however, only saw shadows.
- 8:54In the end, her protests were drowned out by reason and
- 8:57responsibility. With Dennis's career on the
- 9:01line, she relented. They would move into the
- 9:05mansion, she told herself. She would find a way to make it
- 9:09work. Yet even as boxes were carried
- 9:13in, even as Marissa danced through the hallways, Candace
- 9:18felt the mansion looming around her.
- 9:21The bishops believed they were settling into a home, but in
- 9:25truth, they had crossed into a domain that did not belong to
- 9:31them. The first weeks in the mansion
- 9:34were filled with contradictions, opulence and unease.
- 9:39Beauty and menace. To Marissa, the place was
- 9:44enchanted. She wandered its halls with awe,
- 9:49exploring room after room as though she had stumbled into a
- 9:53fairy tale palace. She swam in the pool until her
- 9:58fingertips wrinkled, delighted to finally have space to breathe
- 10:04and play. But to Candace, every corner
- 10:08whispered discomfort. The jungle pressed close to the
- 10:12estate, humidity clung to every surface, vines crawled along the
- 10:19outer walls, and each night the air rang with the buzz of
- 10:25cicadas and the calls of unseen creatures.
- 10:31The house seemed less a sanctuary than a fortress
- 10:35standing against a wilderness that wanted to creep back in.
- 10:40It was during one of those early evenings, while the family
- 10:43unpacked, that the jungle showed its teeth.
- 10:48Stacy's scream rang down the staircase.
- 10:52Dennis and Candace rushed upward, only to freeze at the
- 10:56sight of a giant spider. Its body thick and black, it
- 11:03clung to the wall near Stacy's door.
- 11:06Its long legs twitched as it crept slowly and deliberately.
- 11:13Marissa shrieked and leapt onto a chair.
- 11:16Dennis cursed under his breath, and Candace's skin crawled as
- 11:21her chest tightened. Their driver, HN, hurried in,
- 11:27wielding a shovel. With one brutal strike, he
- 11:32smashed the creature and its body crumpled to the floor.
- 11:37He stood over the remains, his expression grim.
- 11:42These spiders, he said softly. They go in pairs, so if you kill
- 11:48one, the other is always nearby. Candace felt a chill race down
- 11:54her spine. She found herself glancing
- 11:57toward the shadowed corners of the hallway, half expecting to
- 12:01see another set of legs scuttling towards them.
- 12:06That night, she lay awake imagining the mate's spider
- 12:10creeping silently into a bedroom.
- 12:14The pests were not the mansion's only gift.
- 12:18The rains came heavy as they did in Taiwan's monsoon season.
- 12:24Water streamed down the mountainside and into the house
- 12:27itself. The walls began to drip, then
- 12:32the bedrooms. Streaks of moisture traced
- 12:35downward, like tears soaking carpets.
- 12:39Candace wrapped towels around the bases of the doors to hold
- 12:42the water back, but the mansion seemed determined to drown
- 12:47itself. Then came the electricity.
- 12:51At first it was little shocks, light switches that snapped with
- 12:56static when touched, and it grew worse.
- 13:00A flick of a switch sent painful jolts through fingertips, strong
- 13:04enough to leave Candace afraid of the lights themselves.
- 13:08She kept lamps unplugged and would sit with her daughters in
- 13:12the dark. Yet despite this, the power
- 13:16bills rose inexplicably far beyond what they could explain
- 13:21with normal use. Dennis grew frustrated,
- 13:26convinced the family was careless with the electricity.
- 13:30Candace argued back furiously. The house was draining them in
- 13:37ways that he couldn't or wouldn't see.
- 13:41And still, stranger things crept in.
- 13:47Late at night, Stacy swore she heard footsteps in her room,
- 13:52soft and deliberate, as though someone circled her bed in the
- 13:56dark. She pulled her covers tighter,
- 14:01her heart pounding, too afraid to cry out, and as too felted
- 14:08the faint whisper of her name in an empty hall, the flicker of a
- 14:13light at the edge of her vision. She told herself it was
- 14:18exhaustion, stress, the strangeness of life abroad.
- 14:24But deep down she knew she was being watched.
- 14:29The house, it seemed, had opened its eyes.
- 14:34Night fell differently in the mansion.
- 14:38The jungle pressed against the walls, the screaming of cicadas
- 14:42giving way to stillness that made every Creek echo louder
- 14:47than it should. It was in this silence that the
- 14:51first true whispers began. Marissa noticed less, at least
- 14:57at first. She still tried to find wonder
- 15:00in the house, though even she began to ask strange questions.
- 15:07One evening she peered out a window toward the dark yard and
- 15:12asked her sister. Is a Chen here, referring to
- 15:17their driver? But the yard was empty.
- 15:22There was no footsteps in the gravel, no sign of anyone.
- 15:27Stacy shivered at the question. The mansion was vast, but it
- 15:33never truly felt empty. It was as though the family had
- 15:38become guests in their own home, moving through rooms that belong
- 15:43to someone or something else. Candace's instincts screamed
- 15:48that something was wrong. She began to listen more
- 15:52carefully at night, to pause when the air shifted as though
- 15:57someone unseen had passed by. She didn't tell Dennis.
- 16:02He was already frustrated with the leaking roof, the electrical
- 16:07shocks, and the constant bills. To him, these were solvable
- 16:12problems. To her, they were symptoms of
- 16:17something far deeper, something alive in the walls, but for the
- 16:24sake of her daughters, she kept her fear tucked away.
- 16:29She smiled when she needed to, laughed when Marissa showed
- 16:33excitement. Yet each time she closed her
- 16:37eyes at night, she felt it. The weight of unseen eyes
- 16:42staring at her from the darkness, and in silence.
- 16:48The house grew bolder. For weeks, Stacy had grown
- 16:53accustomed to hiding her fear. She heard footsteps that had no
- 16:57source, whispers that carried her name through the dark, but
- 17:02she kept it all inside. She told herself that it was
- 17:06stress or imagination, and if she spoke, she feared she'd
- 17:12sound crazy. Her solace was Thomas, 16.
- 17:18Like her, it was a local boy. With an easy smile, he offered
- 17:23an escape from the mansion's suffocating atmosphere.
- 17:28Whenever she could, she spent the evenings at his home
- 17:32laughing, listening to music and forgetting the dread that seemed
- 17:36to hang like smoke over her family's new life.
- 17:41It was on one such evening, after Thomas dropped her off at
- 17:44the gate, that the house revealed itself.
- 17:50The night was humid, the jungle thick with the sounds of frogs.
- 17:56Thomas waited at the end of the driveway as Stacy slipped
- 18:00inside. He glanced back at the looming
- 18:03structure, its dark windows glinting faintly under the pale
- 18:08moon. And then he froze.
- 18:12At the top floor, a light flickered to life.
- 18:16Behind the glass, a woman's silhouette stood, her hair long,
- 18:22her figure motionless. She looked out into the night.
- 18:27To Thomas, she looked exactly like Candace.
- 18:30Bishop, alarmed, jolted through him.
- 18:35Something about her stillness, the way she stood in the shadow,
- 18:40that was wrong. He started the car, then
- 18:45hesitated. A cold dread whispered through
- 18:48him. What if she's in trouble?
- 18:51After rushing home, he quickly grabbed his family's phone and
- 18:56called Stacy. Stacy answered, surprised.
- 19:00Stacy. He said quickly with his voice
- 19:02shaking. Go check on your mom, please,
- 19:06right now, just please. I I saw her upstairs at the
- 19:09window and she didn't look right.
- 19:12He said. Stacy's stomach dropped.
- 19:16With her heart pounding, she raced through the mansion's
- 19:19halls, calling out for her mother.
- 19:22Marissa, alarmed followed, became frightened as well.
- 19:27Their voices echoed off. Marble and tile became
- 19:31increasingly desperate and urgent.
- 19:34Room after room lay empty, no movement, no sign of her.
- 19:41The house seemed to swallow their cries, as though mocking
- 19:46their search. Finally, a door opened and
- 19:50Candace stepped out of the master bedroom, startled by the
- 19:53commotion. She looked perfectly fine.
- 19:57Stacy stopped dead, her breath catching.
- 20:01Thomas's sighting replayed in her head, her mother's figure
- 20:05standing upstairs in the window, watching when she had been here
- 20:11all along. The realization washed over her
- 20:14like ice water. It hadn't been her mother.
- 20:18It had been something else. That night, the fragile silence
- 20:23between mother and daughter cracked.
- 20:26Trembling. Stacy confessed.
- 20:29The footsteps, the voices, the nights she felt something
- 20:35circling her in the dark. Candace's eyes widened, tears
- 20:40forming as she admitted the same, that she too had heard
- 20:45whispers, seen flickers of light, and felt the eyes of
- 20:50something unseen. They sat together in the heavy
- 20:54stillness, clinging to one another, no longer able to deny
- 20:58it. The house was haunted.
- 21:03The night after Thomas's sighting, silence weighed heavy
- 21:06on the House. Candace could feel it in her
- 21:09bones. The walls were watching them.
- 21:12The air was listening. The admission she and Stacy had
- 21:17shared only sharpened the tension.
- 21:20They were no longer keeping secrets.
- 21:23Now they knew they weren't alone.
- 21:27But knowing did not bring peace. It brought fear.
- 21:32Stacy drifted uneasily into sleep, her mind tangled with
- 21:36dread. In her dream, the mansion's
- 21:39corridor stretched endlessly, their walls slick with
- 21:44rainwater. She wandered, crying out for her
- 21:48mother. In the air smelled of smoke.
- 21:52Then she saw her. Candace was standing in the
- 21:55kitchen, her face pale and hollow.
- 21:59In her hands, a butcher's knife gleamed.
- 22:03Her eyes flicked upward, not her usual gentle gaze, but something
- 22:10feral, driven mad by terror. Without warning, Candace raised
- 22:16the blade, and Stacy's heart froze.
- 22:20She tried to scream, but no sound left her mouth.
- 22:25The nightmare shifted in jerks and flashes.
- 22:28Her mother was stalking her through the halls, knife in
- 22:32hand. Her father was crumpled in a
- 22:34corner. Marissa screamed as Candace's
- 22:38shadow loomed. Stacy then woke with a jolt, her
- 22:42body slicked with sweat. The image of her mother holding
- 22:46the knife clung in her mind like a stain.
- 22:49She sat up, trembling, realizing that the dream had not been
- 22:53random. It had been a warning, a
- 22:56premonition of what the house could drive them to.
- 23:01While Stacy was tormented by dreams, Candace waged her own
- 23:06battle against the dark. With Dennis away on a business
- 23:10trip, the weight of protection fell solely on her.
- 23:15Every night she gathered her daughters into the master
- 23:18bedroom. They slept together in one bed,
- 23:23the girls pressed close while Candace kept her eyes open,
- 23:27listening to the house. She had placed a butcher's knife
- 23:33and a baseball bat under the mattress.
- 23:36If the spirits came, if anything tried to touch her children, she
- 23:41would fight. The hours crawled.
- 23:45Shadows stretched and moved across the walls, twisting with
- 23:51each flicker of the storm outside.
- 23:54Sometimes she swore she heard someone standing just outside
- 23:58the door. Other times, Stacy would bolt
- 24:02upright, certain that she had heard the handle rattle.
- 24:07Candace would grip the knife, her pulse hammering, ready to
- 24:12face whatever endured. But nothing came, at least not
- 24:18yet. Returning from work, Dennis
- 24:22found his wife strung thin, his daughter's pale and restless,
- 24:28their eyes rimmed with sleepiness.
- 24:31He listened, but struggled to reconcile their terror with his
- 24:35own rationality. What do I tell my boss?
- 24:39He snapped. That we have to leave because
- 24:42the house is haunted? Candace pleaded for him to
- 24:46understand. Stacy begged him to believe.
- 24:51Even Marissa, usually innocent and carefree, grew quiet and
- 24:56uneasy. The mansion had become a
- 24:58battleground, not just between the bishops and whatever haunted
- 25:03them, but between their instincts and Dennis's
- 25:06disbelief. And in that rift, the house
- 25:10thrived. It seemed to feed on fear and on
- 25:14doubt, on the slow erosion, their strength.
- 25:19For Stacy, the nightmare would not leave her.
- 25:23Each time her mother reached for the knife at night, keeping
- 25:26watch with trembling hands, Stacy saw again the image of
- 25:31blood and madness. The house wasn't only haunting
- 25:36them, it was turning them against themselves.
- 25:41The Bishop family had come to Taiwan full of hope, but now the
- 25:45mansion was unraveling them thread by thread.
- 25:50The Bishop home had become a pressure cooker of fear.
- 25:54Every shadow seemed heavier, every silence more oppressive.
- 26:00Candace did her best to keep her daughter's clothes, to shield
- 26:04them from what she could no longer deny.
- 26:08But the house was patient. It was waiting for the moment
- 26:13when one of them was most vulnerable.
- 26:16And that moment came for Marissa.
- 26:20It was evening. Rain tapped against the wide
- 26:23windows in the jungle outside, buzzed faintly in the humid
- 26:29dark. Stacy was away with Thomas, and
- 26:33Candace had agreed to accompany Dennis to visit a neighbor's
- 26:36house down the road. It would be just for a little
- 26:40while. Marissa nodded when her mother
- 26:43asked if she'd be all right, but as the front door closed behind
- 26:47them, the mansion seemed to exhale.
- 26:52The vast hall stretched around her, too quiet and too still.
- 26:59She turned on the television to chase away the silence, but the
- 27:03sound only made the emptiness more noticeable.
- 27:08Shadows gathered in the corners of the room, deepening with each
- 27:12passing minute. Then came a sound, the door
- 27:19creaking open somewhere upstairs.
- 27:22Marissa's heart stuttered. She glanced towards the
- 27:26staircase, its banister vanishing Into Darkness.
- 27:31She called out to her parents, asking if they had forgotten
- 27:35something, her voice trembling. But there was no answer, only
- 27:41the hollow echo of her own words.
- 27:45Then footsteps came, measured and heavy, descending the
- 27:51stairs. The young girl backed away,
- 27:55clutching the edge of the sofa, calling out again to see if it
- 27:59was her parents. The living room door swung open
- 28:03with a sudden force. A cold rush of air swept in,
- 28:08carrying with it the unmistakable presence of someone
- 28:13or something unseen. And then it was upon her.
- 28:20Invisible hands shoved her backwards.
- 28:23She gasped, stumbling to the floor, but it didn't stop there.
- 28:29Something pressed against her chest, heavier, stronger, until
- 28:35she couldn't breathe. Her body convulsed, as if this
- 28:40something was trying to force its way into her.
- 28:45Terror swallowed her. She felt her limbs go weak, her
- 28:50mind pulled into a darkness it was not her own.
- 28:54Whispers clawed up the edges of her thoughts, hungry, desperate,
- 29:01and human. For a heartbeat, she wasn't
- 29:05herself. She was them.
- 29:10And then, silence. Marissa collapsed onto the
- 29:13floor, trembling, covered in sweat, and the house loomed
- 29:18above her, silent once more, as though satisfied.
- 29:24When Candace and Dennis returned, they found their
- 29:27daughter sprawled on the floor. Candace dropped to her knees,
- 29:31scooping Marissa into her arms, asking baby, what happened,
- 29:35what's wrong? Marissa's eyes darted around,
- 29:39wild and glassy. Her voice was hoarse.
- 29:44Someone came in and pushed me. She broke into sobs, clinging to
- 29:49her mother. Dennis's face drained of color.
- 29:54He had doubted, rationalized, resisted in every suggestion
- 30:00that something unnatural plagued their home.
- 30:03But this was different. His daughter's trembling, the
- 30:07sheer panic in her voice. He could not be dismissed.
- 30:12That night, the family huddled together in terror, with every
- 30:16light in the house blazing. Candace sat upright with a knife
- 30:21in her lap, too afraid to close her eyes.
- 30:26Marissa lay against her, shivering, whispering again and
- 30:30again that something had been inside her.
- 30:35By morning, she seemed eerily calm.
- 30:39She insisted that she felt fine, brushing off her mother's word.
- 30:43Questions, she said. I I don't want to worry or think
- 30:47about it anymore. Seeming detached, but Candace
- 30:52knew better. Something had touched her
- 30:54daughter, and this was something that could not be undone.
- 31:00The attack on Marissa left no more room for denial for Dennis.
- 31:04Once the firm skeptic, he could not shake the image of his
- 31:08daughter trembling on the floor, insisting that something had
- 31:13entered her, a foreign entity, something not of this world.
- 31:20Candace's fear had now become his own.
- 31:23The house was not simply strange, it was dangerous.
- 31:27Candace reached out to a friend, Bob Patton, an American
- 31:32journalist in Taipei with connections deep into Taiwan's
- 31:36spiritual circles. If anyone could point them to
- 31:39help, it was Bob. And he did.
- 31:44He told Candace of a respected Taoist priest, a man experienced
- 31:49in dealing with restless spirits, a man he himself had
- 31:54interviewed years before. When the priest arrived at the
- 31:57Bishop home, he carried himself with quiet authority.
- 32:02He was elderly, robed simply, with eyes that seem to Pierce
- 32:08through stone. From the moment he crossed the
- 32:11threshold, his demeanor darkened.
- 32:16He moved slowly through each room, pausing as if listening to
- 32:21something that the others could not hear.
- 32:25Finally, he gathered the family, and his words came measured,
- 32:30deliberate. This house, he said through
- 32:34Bob's translation, has very dangerous Feng shui.
- 32:39No Chinese architect would design it this way unless he
- 32:43wished to curse the inhabitants. Dennis frowned, still unused to
- 32:49the concept. He asked.
- 32:51What do you mean? The priest gestured towards the
- 32:54open windows, the dripping walls, the unnatural damp that
- 33:00seemed to ooze from every corner.
- 33:03The mountains, water and wind bring energy, but this house
- 33:07does not flow with it. It traps it, it feeds yen the
- 33:13negative energy, it strengthens the dead.
- 33:17Candace shuddered, remembering the priest's choice words.
- 33:21It's been designed to kill. Then came the most chilling
- 33:26revelation. The priest closed his eyes,
- 33:30breathing deeply. When he spoke again, his voice
- 33:34was heavier. There are two spirits here, and
- 33:38they're hungry. A man and a woman.
- 33:43Candace gasped. Her mind leapt to the apparition
- 33:46Thomas had seen in the upstairs window.
- 33:50She turned to their driver, who had lived in the valley his
- 33:54entire life. Do you know what was here before
- 33:57this house was built? She asked.
- 34:00A Chan hesitated. His face tightened as though
- 34:05even Speaking of it was dangerous.
- 34:09At last, he said quietly, Pig farm.
- 34:13It burned, and the farmer and his wife were trapped.
- 34:18They died in the fire. The words clung heavy in the
- 34:23air. Candace's heart sank.
- 34:28The flickering lights, the voices calling names, the woman
- 34:33at the window, all of it pointed to those lost souls.
- 34:38They had not moved on. They had remained hungry, angry,
- 34:44seemingly tethered to the land where they had perished.
- 34:49The priest's face was grim. Hungry ghosts, he said.
- 34:54They do not have what they need in the afterlife, food, money or
- 35:00offerings, so they take energy from the living.
- 35:05They feed off of fear, particularly from your daughter.
- 35:11Marissa's face was pale with tears burning in her eyes.
- 35:15The family drew closer together, with fear thick between all of
- 35:20them. The priest rose.
- 35:24He said I'll help you, but you must understand what is bound
- 35:29here is strong. I will need some time to
- 35:32prepare, and even if I succeed, it will not last.
- 35:37And if you remain, they will return.
- 35:41This warning was clear. The house was not a home.
- 35:45It was a trap built on ashes, feeding the dead.
- 35:51For the bishops, the nightmare had finally been given a name.
- 35:56The night of the ritual arrived, heavy with anticipation.
- 36:00The bishops had spent the day in uneasy silence, waiting.
- 36:05Marissa had been sent to stay with neighbors.
- 36:08The priest would not risk her presence.
- 36:11The hungry ghosts had already singled her out once.
- 36:15If they were provoked again, she might not survive.
- 36:20Inside the mansion, the air felt charged, as though the house
- 36:25itself knew what was coming. The Taoist priest returned to
- 36:29dusk robed, simply carrying a bundle of tools, incense sticks,
- 36:37Joss paper folded into stacks of money, a basket of fruit.
- 36:42He instructed Dennis to open every door and window in the
- 36:46house. The spirits must have a way out,
- 36:50he said. As the last window was
- 36:53unlatched, a strange wind moved through the house, though the
- 36:58air outside was still. Curtains billowed, and Candace
- 37:03clutched Stacy's hand. The priest lit incense, smoke
- 37:09curling upward into thin, wide trails.
- 37:13He began to chant, his voice low and rhythmic, filling the halls
- 37:20with words the family could not understand.
- 37:23Yet they felt their meaning deep in their bones.
- 37:27Almost immediately, the house seemed to react.
- 37:32A pressure settled on the family, heavy and suffocating,
- 37:38Candace later recalled. It was a force that shook our
- 37:42clothes and our hair. Everything was moving and it
- 37:47became hard to breathe. Lights flickered violently.
- 37:52Upstairs, a door slammed shut with a deafening crack.
- 37:56The air was alive with unseen motion, as though invisible
- 38:00figures were rushing past and raged by the intrusion.
- 38:06Despite this, the priest did not falter.
- 38:09He raised his voice, commanding, demanding, calling upon heavenly
- 38:16forces to guide the spirits to peace.
- 38:20Then he turned to Stacy and his hands was the basket of
- 38:24offerings, Oranges, rice, bundles of paper money, all
- 38:31burning slowly with incense smoke.
- 38:35You, he said firmly. You must take this to the back,
- 38:41to the graves. Terror gripped her.
- 38:45Her legs trembled. She didn't want to go.
- 38:50The priest's eyes locked on hers, and he told her, You must
- 38:57be brave. They will follow you, but they
- 39:00must be fed. Her mother's hand squeezed hers.
- 39:06Her father's nod was solemn. With a SOB, Stacy lifted the
- 39:12basket. The smoke curled into her face,
- 39:16stinging her eyes. She then stepped into the night.
- 39:22The backyard was darker than she had ever seen it.
- 39:26The trees loomed beyond the walls, and every step felt
- 39:31watched. She carried the basket toward
- 39:34the patch of earth the priest had identified, the place where
- 39:39the farmer and his wife had died.
- 39:43Her arms ached, her skin prickled as though someone
- 39:48walked just behind her. She fought the urge to run.
- 39:54At the edge of the yard, she set the basket down and whispered
- 39:58through her tears. Take this please.
- 40:03And leave us alone. For a moment, the air stilled,
- 40:08and then, as if an answer, the night swallowed the offering.
- 40:15Inside, the priest moved room to room, sprinkling holy water,
- 40:21chanting at each corner, and each time he entered the lights
- 40:26would die slowly, flickering back on only as he finished his
- 40:32incantations. Candace and Dennis followed,
- 40:36their hearts pounding. They could feel it, the shift,
- 40:42the weakening of the presence that had plagued them.
- 40:46The chanting rose to a crescendo, smoke thick in the
- 40:51halls as a final prayer echoed through the house, and then
- 40:57silence. The wind ceased, the walls no
- 41:02longer seemed to hum, and for the first time in months since
- 41:08they had arrived, the house felt still.
- 41:13Before leaving, the priest produced a Talisman, a mirror
- 41:18etched with the symbols of the AI Ching.
- 41:22He fixed it above the door, firmly patting it into place.
- 41:28This will keep harmony here. He said, but only for a short
- 41:32time. His eyes were grave.
- 41:36The hungry ghosts are appeased, but only for two, maybe 3
- 41:41months, and after that they will return.
- 41:46You must leave this house or a great tragedy will come.
- 41:52The warning settled deep into their hearts.
- 41:55The house was calm now. The danger, however, was far
- 42:00from gone. The house stood unnaturally
- 42:03quiet in the aftermath of the ritual.
- 42:07For the first time in months, the oppressive weight had
- 42:10lifted. The walls no longer groaned, the
- 42:14air the longer pressed down on their lungs.
- 42:18Candace wept with relief. Dennis, exhausted, finally
- 42:24allowed himself to believe that what had tormented his family
- 42:28was real. He had fought against his
- 42:32beliefs, against fear, clinging to reason and responsibility.
- 42:38But now there was no argument left.
- 42:41He had seen too much. He knew the priest was right.
- 42:47In the days that followed, the mansion remained eerily still.
- 42:52Nights passed without footsteps, without whispers.
- 42:56Stacy slept without hearing her name being called.
- 43:00Candace no longer felt eyes burning into her back, and even
- 43:05Marissa, who had returned from the neighbors, seemed lighter,
- 43:10free of the strange detachment that had followed her from the
- 43:14attack. The Bog Way mirror gleamed above
- 43:17the front door, a silent Sentinel.
- 43:22The family lived in its shadow, aware that the peace was only
- 43:26borrowed time. Candace began to plan.
- 43:31She marked the months carefully, watching the calendar as though
- 43:35it were a countdown to doom. Stacy would finish her schooling
- 43:39by June, and by then they would be gone.
- 43:44Dennis made quiet inquiries about transfers, careful not to
- 43:48draw suspicion from his superiors.
- 43:51Every decision was guided by the priest's warning before the
- 43:55hungry ghosts would return. It was not an easy choice.
- 44:01Dennis's career had brought them here, had promised them
- 44:04prosperity, But what was a promotion compared to the safety
- 44:09of his family? Stacy finished her final term of
- 44:13school that June, and her relief mirrored her mother's.
- 44:18Dennis arranged their departure with quiet urgency.
- 44:22When the time came, the family packed their belongings into
- 44:26crates, and the rooms were emptied one by one.
- 44:32On their last morning in the house, the air was unnervingly
- 44:36still. The jungle outside shimmered in
- 44:39the heat, and for once, no storm clouds gathered on the horizon.
- 44:46Candace stood at the front door, staring at the Bog Way mirror
- 44:50fixed above it. The Talisman glinted faintly in
- 44:54the light. For months it had kept the house
- 44:57calm, but she knew its power would soon wane.
- 45:02As she turned to leave, she glanced up at the 2nd floor
- 45:06window, the same place Thomas had once seen a figure standing,
- 45:12and for the briefest moment, she thought she saw something.
- 45:17The outline of a woman, her face hidden in the shadows.
- 45:22But a blink later, the window was empty.
- 45:28Candace shivered. She would not look back again.
- 45:33The bishops left Taiwan behind, returning to the United States
- 45:38with more than just suitcases. They carried with them the
- 45:41memory of the mansion, the unseen blows, the whispers in
- 45:47the darkness. In the night, Marissa collapsed
- 45:51on the floor, seemingly invaded by something malicious.
- 45:57In interviews years later, Candace admitted that the
- 46:02experience had shattered the boundaries of her world.
- 46:05I had learned that there are powers that we don't understand,
- 46:09she said. Energies, spirits, things that
- 46:14can touch our lives in ways that you can't imagine unless it
- 46:18happens to you. The family never returned to
- 46:23that valley. They never sought the mansion
- 46:26again. Whether the house still stands,
- 46:30whether others live there unaware, no one can say.
- 46:36But in Taiwan or the Hungry Ghost Festival still burns
- 46:41bright each summer, the belief endures.
- 46:45The dead remain among us, if not given rest.
- 46:51And in the shadow of the Yang Ming mountain, where fire once
- 46:55consumed a farmer and his wife, where a foreign family came
- 47:00seeking a home and only found terror, the hungry ghosts still
- 47:06linger, waiting for the living to feed them.
- 47:15So it took some digging, but I was able to figure out what the
- 47:18Bishops are up to these days. I haven't seen or come across
- 47:23any updates on them from other creators, so I decided to try
- 47:27and find out for myself. And to my surprise, I did indeed
- 47:32discover the details. The Bishops case was made famous
- 47:36by the TV show A Haunting, which is one of my all time
- 47:39favourites. Their episode was amply titled
- 47:43Hungry Ghosts. My version is essentially a
- 47:46retelling of their harrowing case with additional details
- 47:50that I could find. With that being said, what are
- 47:53the Bishops up to these days? Well, I'm going to tell you, but
- 47:58I will omit some details as to respect their privacy.
- 48:02It seems like Dennis and Candace are no longer married.
- 48:07I'm not sure what happened to Candace, but I hope wherever she
- 48:10is that she's doing well. Dennis has since remarried and
- 48:16is a COO of a major global company, albeit I'm not sure if
- 48:20it's the same company that he worked for during the family's
- 48:23experiences. But he continues to work abroad
- 48:27in Asia and other parts of the world, and him and his wife seem
- 48:31to have adopted a son. Everyone, from what I can tell,
- 48:35has moved on and returned to a sense of normalcy and seems to
- 48:39be happy and prosperous. I truly hope that is the case.
- 48:43And I don't know about you, but I love a happy ending with me
- 48:47providing those details. Again, please respect the
- 48:51Bishop's privacy and that goes for anyone whose cases I've
- 48:55covered here. Be kind and be respectful and
- 48:59please don't bother anybody. Thank you guys so much for
- 49:03watching this new episode. I took a bit of a different
- 49:06writing approach with this one, but I hope that you still liked
- 49:10it. And if you did, please leave the
- 49:13episode a like. Let me know your thoughts down
- 49:16below in the comments and subscribe if you're new here.
- 49:20All those things help me out a ton on the platform.
- 49:23You can also watch all my content ad free by becoming a
- 49:26channel member by clicking Join Now here on YouTube, or you can
- 49:31become a patron of visiting patreon.com/mystery Archives.
- 49:36If you'd like to check out my books, which each contain 10
- 49:39real and haunting paranormal cases, including my own story,
- 49:44and please visit mysteryarchives.myshopify.com or
- 49:48you can buy them on Amazon. Other than that guys, I truly
- 49:52appreciate you all and your continued support to allow me to
- 49:56do what I do. I, as always, could not be more
- 49:59proud of how amazing this community has become and
- 50:02continues to be. I hope you all are doing well
- 50:06mentally, physically, and spiritually and I'll see you
- 50:11soon with another brand new episode.
- 50:14This has been Cody here at Mystery Archives.
- 50:17Remember to stay safe out there from hungry ghosts and other
- 50:21spectres that may haunt the night, and take care.
- 50:26I'll see you next time.