Full Script

INTRODUCTION 

I wasn’t expecting that my first exposure to the paranormal would occur in a hotel gym at 6 o’clock in the morning in Taipei, Taiwan. I’d just arrived the evening before, and my morning had started in a typical fashion, typical at least for a morning when I’m on the opposite side of the world and 6am still feels like 4pm at home. Exercise is my preferred way of dealing with jet lag. Well, exercise and plenty of Diet Coke.

Jet lag and treadmills can be a dangerous combination, so as I slowly warmed up, I was texting with my family, primarily with one of my brothers. We were confirming that we would still meet in Tokyo later that week. It was all routine, the chatter on family text threads that can fill up screen after screen with only a minimal exchange of real information.  

But my brother, who has lived in Asia for the last 20 years, asked where I was staying and I answered the Taipei Hyatt.

There was a pause in his response….followed by a simple question: “Did I tell you about my ghost story there?”

There’s not much that genuinely creeps me out but the question, suddenly and unaccountably made me shiver.

He hadn’t told me the story.  But, as if to clarify that he wasn’t just goofing around, he asked:  “Did you know that hotel is one of the most haunted in the world?”

I had never heard of the hotel having this reputation; it was just where my job was taking me this week. 

But as he told me the story of his stay, of an experience that actually compelled him to check out of the hotel in the middle of the night. My surprise grew.

While we continued to text, I Googled the words “haunted Taipei Hyatt.”  And there it was, listed in multiple travel articles as one of the most haunted hotels in the world. And then my sense of surprise evolved into dread. Because I had begun to realize that what my brother was describing from a year ago, had just happened to me the night before.

I had written them off as the contrivances of a travel-weary brain, but now the experience came rushing back. There, on the treadmill in the morning sun in Taipei, I realized I had seen a ghost. 

***

Hi, my name’s MF Thomas; I’m an author and a lifelong fan of strange stories from the dark corners of the world. Growing up, I was enthralled by any hint of exciting, forbidden knowledge that waited behind the names and dates we learned in school.  And these days, as I travel the world, there’s nothing I enjoy more than to get off the traditional tourist map and find a story that has been overlooked, dismissed or ignored.

This is the My Dark Path podcast. In every episode, we explore the fringes of history, science and the paranormal.  

Every topic, every story includes a place I’ve personally explored.  I combine this personal on-location research with insights from experts, scholars and historians.

We will explore unique topics that will intrigue and excite; and every once in a while, send a shiver down your spine.  So, if you geek out over these topics….you’re among friends here at My Dark Path.  Please let me know your thoughts via email at explore@mydarkpath.com.  I’d love to hear from you.

To see content related to every episode, visit MyDarkPath.com.  When you’re there, register for the My Dark Path newsletter and you’ll be entered for frequent drawing for a unique book or other oddities from my personal cabinet of curiosities.  Also, you learn more about the Explorer’s Society, my membership program via Patreon that offers exclusive episodes, curious items, plus access to amazing live events.  Lastly, thank you for listening.  You have more choices than ever about where to spend your time.  I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here, with me, walking the Dark Paths of the world, together.  Let’s get started with Episode 3, the Haunted Taipei Hyatt

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PART ONE

When you travel to Taiwan, you step into a history so complex that some of the simplest things cannot be taken for granted. Is Taiwan a country? The driver who picks me up at the airport – is he Taiwanese? They might say yes; or they might say they’re Chinese. When we talk about Taiwan, referring to it by that name, even referring to it as a country, means stepping into a very current, very fiercely contested dispute that involves over 1.3 billion people.

The centuries of history behind these simple terms can be fascinating, and it can be very ugly, and there’s even a vacuum where some vital history has been erased. Where history leaves a void, legends like the ghost story I experienced can rush in. But before we get there, let’s talk about what we know.

This island has been steadily populated for at least 6,000 years, and it’s widely believed that the indigenous population was part of the same farming and fishing cultures that spread on great boats throughout the Pacific Ocean, to the Polynesian Islands, the Philippines, New Zealand, Hawaii. Researchers refer to these people collectively as the Austronesians.

In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers named the island Ilha Formosa – the beautiful island. And as European powers established international trade routes, often at the end of a ship’s cannon, Formosa was occupied by both the Dutch and the Spanish. This is around when the name “Taiwan” starts appearing, possibly in reference to a tribe on the island called the Taivoan.  (tai-vo-an) 

But it was the Chinese, under the Qing (ching) dynasty, who fully conquered and annexed the island, driving out all other occupiers. Their rule over Taiwan was heavy-handed, and not peaceful. A common saying at the time was "every three years an uprising; every five years a rebellion". Ancient languages and cultures were dying out as Imperial China worked to assimilate the population into their own culture. One common Chinese tactic was to either deliberately destroy local monuments and cultural sites; or revise their history to fit a new narrative. There are references which suggest that as the capital city of Taipei took shape, several ancient tombs in the region were leveled. These tombs could have held members of native tribes, or older Chinese migrants; we just don’t know. But let’s remember these destroyed tombs for later.

This tumultuous period lasted for over two centuries, until 1895, and a shock that changed Taiwan forever. The Chinese, having lost the first Sino-Japanese War, surrendered the island to Japanese control. 

For fifty years, Japan colonized, and then industrialized. Rebellion and bloody repression were constant, and Japan, like China before it, was attempting to imprint their culture on the population. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese settlers moved there, and the people that lived there already became second and third-class citizens, pressured to take on Japanese names.

During World War II, it sat along a key transport route for Japan, and was also used for the housing of prisoners of war. Nazi Germany largely respected the Geneva Conventions when it came to prisoners. But the Japanese viewed surrender as an act of mortal cowardice, and the treatment of prisoners was known to be hideous. An Allied prisoner in Germany had a 3% chance of dying in captivity. In Japanese hands, 12% of prisoners died. 

In addition, there is evidence to suggest that thousands of women from Taiwan were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Many records about the so-called “comfort women” were deliberately destroyed, and the Japanese government has, to this day, only admitted to a few isolated elements of this atrocity. While German society has openly acknowledged the Holocaust, and dedicated themselves as a culture to openness and education so that such evil might never be committed again, Japan’s response to its record in World War II has been grudging, piecemeal, and far from complete. Their history of refusing to acknowledge blame for many war crimes, such as biological experiments on prisoners of war and the notorious Rape of Nanking, haunts their relationships with other Asian nations to this day. 

After World War II, the Japanese surrendered Formosa. But China was consumed by a Civil War, and eventually, the Communist forces drove the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek (kai shek) and his followers, the Kuomintang (quo min tang), off the Asian continent. This was 1949.

They consolidated their forces on Taiwan, claiming the name the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek’s government, based in Taipei, claimed the right to rule the entire Chinese nation. Meanwhile, the Communists on the mainland declared themselves to be the “People’s Republic of China”.

The Republic of China is still the formal name for Taiwan. They, and the People’s Republic, both still maintain that they are the legal rulers of all of China. A thin strip of water, the Taiwan Strait, separates them. The greater population, wealth, and military power of the People’s Republic allows them to pressure other countries to minimize their relations with Taiwan. Nevertheless, the United States and others have sold arms to Taiwan for decades, to help preserve their independence.

Taiwan was under martial law for almost 40 years, with only one political party allowed, with  frequent mass arrests and repression. But a process of reform began in the late 1980’s, under the leadership of one of the most important figures in Taiwanese history. While it was the infamous Chiang Kai-shek who established the government of the Republic of China; the man who ushered in a modern age of democracy was Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-Kuo (chiang ching quo).

Chiang Ching-Kuo’s life showed many signs that he might eventually overthrow his father’s vision. When he was only 14, he drafted a proposal to create a night school in a small rural province. He believed literacy would help small populations to organize and become more self-sufficient.  Instead, he was sent to Moscow, to be trained and educated by Soviet Communists, a high-profile student to strengthen ties between the two nations. He married a Belarusian woman there, and started a family; meanwhile his father had become the leader of the anti-Communist forces in China as their Civil War began. The Soviets detained Chiang Ching-Kuo, refusing his return to China. Chiang Kai-Shek was offered a prisoner exchange to get his son back – instead, he wrote in his journal “I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests."

Finally, after 12 years in the Soviet Union, Chiang Ching-Kuo was allowed to leave. His father gave him responsibilities befitting a future leader. The younger Chiang continued finding ways to empower the less fortunate – he banned prostitution in his prefecture, and gave the women factory jobs. He invested resources to fight the spread of opium addiction, and established a children’s village complete with a school in order to get thousands of orphans off the street. 

When Chiang Ching-Kuo followed his father to Taiwan, his personal story becomes much darker. Chiang Kai-Shek put him in charge of the Republic of China’s secret police; and his son took on the job with frightening efficiency and little regard for any kind of human rights. And yet, even as he protected his father's reign from coup attempts and rebellions, Chiang Ching-Kuo was developing a modern highway system for the island. 

After Chiang Kai-Shek’s death, Chiang Ching-Kuo became the President of the Republic of China in 1978. He immediately made major investments in construction and development, to help bring Taiwan into the modern world. It set loose an economic boom called the “Taiwan Miracle”. He loosened travel restrictions, so people on the island could visit family members on mainland China. He opened up roles in the government for Taiwanese citizens, and, for the first time in its history, allowed the formation of other political parties. And he did away with restrictions against the native language of the Taiwanese; for the first time Taiwenese Hokkien could be used in schools and in the media.

When Chiang Ching-Kuo passed away in 1988, he had laid the groundwork for a new nation, one with a greater sense of the shared history of the people that live there. After centuries of subjugation and exploitation by conquerors, there is a pause in the suffering. The people can draw on a unique culture that incorporates all the influences that have touched them along the way – Austronesian, Chinese, Japanese, and more. 

There’s a park now in Taipei, called 228 Peace Memorial Park. It’s there to acknowledge an atrocity Chiang Kai-Shek’s government long denied, a mass killing of thousands of civilians during an uprising in 1947. It’s known as the February 28 Massacre, and the government finally acknowledged, and formally apologized for it, in the new era of democracy and education initiated by Chiang Ching-Kuo. 

This park has something that I think best underlines Taiwan’s commitment to a more peaceful future – it’s a sculpture called the 228 Memorial Monument. A powerful, graceful spire rising out of rough, dark, cubes, it was designed by a Taiwanese dissident named Cheng Tzu-Tsai (cheng sue sai). When he submitted his winning design, he was in prison, as he had been several times over the years. His first prison sentence came in 1971, after he and other dissidents tried to assassinate Chiang Ching-Kuo. A nation that would dedicate an honored public space to a statement of peace made by a would-be political assassin is one that knows just how much peace is worth striving for. And from this park, you can see the luxurious, modern, Taipei Hyatt.

I haven’t forgotten that we came here to talk about a Hotel with a reputation for haunting. Now that we have taken the long journey to Taiwan, and understand better what has come before; let’s talk about how a luxurious international hotel from a prestigious American brand ends up in the capital city of Taipei.

***

PART TWO

The period after World War II saw an explosion in air travel for Americans. The aircraft manufacturers who had built cutting-edge bombers for the military were now connecting the world with long-range, jet-powered airplanes. In the 1950’s, people with the means to take recreational trips using these fast, new airplanes were known as “the jet set”. New travelers flocking to major world cities opened up a booming new market – a need for hotels conveniently located near airports.

In 1954, a pair of entrepreneurs named Hyatt Robert von Dehn and Jack Dyer Crouch opened a motel they called Hyatt House near Los Angeles International Airport. The House did a decent business, but it was just one small location, and the name Hyatt might have been forgotten to history, if it hadn’t been for a rumor whispered at a fancy party one night, thousands of miles away.

A 1987 article in the archives of the Los Angeles Times tells the story. Jay Pritzker, one of many heirs to the Pritzker family fortune in Chicago, was about to leave on an overnight flight to Los Angeles. Someone at a party told him that Hyatt Robert von Dehn, co-founder of Hyatt House, was a notorious figure in the Los Angeles social scene, with a string of high-profile marriages and divorces under his belt, and that he might be looking to sell the motel to make some much-needed cash. 

When he arrived in L.A., Jay Pritzker went directly to the Hyatt House. The sun hadn’t come up yet, so he passed the time having a meal in the motel coffee shop. The place didn’t look fancy, but he had a feeling there was a good deal to be had here. He made a couple of phone calls, and by 8am he was having a breakfast meeting at von Dehn’s home in Bel-Air. Pritzker wrote out a proposal to buy the motel for $2.1 million right there in von Dehn’s kitchen; and a few days later, he was the owner of Hyatt House. He kept the original name – he thought travelers would like the sound of it more than the name Pritzker.

In mid-20th century America, with people traveling more than ever both by plane and on the new federal highway system, a familiar brand could bring comfort in a strange place. Whether it was the Golden Arches of McDonald’s, or the highway sign poetry of Burma Shave, leading companies were making their names and logos a part of the shared cultural landscape of America, right at the moment it was becoming the undisputed leader of the free world.

Hyatt hotels soon popped up near the airports of San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago. Pritzker’s vision was to make Hyatt one of those names you could count on for quality and familiarity when you were far from home.

These days, there are almost 900 Hyatt Hotels around the world. It was the author and columnist Thomas Friedman who proposed the theory that no two countries with a McDonald’s had ever gone to war with one another. This has proven false on several occasions, but his underlying idea was that the economic ties of global business can be a sign of normalization between countries, one that reduces the possibilities of military conflict. And so perhaps it isn’t a surprise, that as Taiwan moved towards a more open society, as they reorganized the central district of Taipei to include a World Trade Center complex and cultural institutions for international tourists, that their first luxury hotel, opened in 1990, would be a Hyatt. The Hyatt I stayed in. The one where I, my brother, and many other travelers, have reported strange and unsettling experiences.

We have ghost stories dating back just about as far as we have recorded history. Pliny the Younger, the Roman Magistrate whose letters give us a unique first-person glimpse into the inner workings of the Roman Empire, wrote one letter that tells a story of a haunted house in Athens. Anyone staying in the house, he wrote, would be awakened by the sound of rattling chains, and see the specter of a disheveled, emaciated man. The shock of the experience could be severe enough to kill someone. A philosopher who was visiting the town doubted the stories and, to take advantage of a bargain, rented the house no one else would stay in. The ghost appeared to him, too, and, beckoning him to the courtyard, showed the philosopher a patch of unmarked Earth. The philosopher ordered the patch dug up, and there discovered an ancient skeleton of a man in chains. When the body was re-buried outside the city with the proper ceremony, Pliny claims, the specter never appeared again.

So many of these details sound uncannily like haunted house stories we still tell today. A newcomer arrives without much knowledge of the local history. They’re skeptical, not the sort of person to believe in ghosts. Then, through an extraordinary, terrifying experience, they discover an old evil, hidden away and buried, a wrong that was never made right.

The Romans had strong beliefs about the proper handling of dead bodies, both for spiritual reasons and medical reasons; as do most cultures. The Apache believed that the spirits of the dead were innately dangerous, so they buried their deceased as far from their homes as they could. Meanwhile, the ancient Sumerians believed the opposite, that if a body wasn’t buried right on the property of its own relatives, the spirit would haunt the family for generations to come.

When I was in the Wuhan province of the People’s Republic of China, I noticed that all of the door frames were raised up from the ground, and you could trip and fall on any attempt to enter a building if you weren’t looking carefully. In this part of China, I was told, the belief is that spirits and ghosts are actually very small, and so you can’t let your doorway reach all the way to the ground, or else they will slip into your house.

Most so-called “haunted hotels” are older buildings with colorful pasts, and owners who are happy to play up the rumors about a place in order to draw in curious travelers, sell a little merchandise. It’s not what you expect from a large-scale hotel, just 30 years old, owned by a global corporation and catering to international businesspeople and high-end travelers. I can tell you that there was no ghost merchandise in the gift shop.

Occasionally, the Hyatt Corporation has put out a statement to the effect that they have investigated the claims and found no evidence of any ghostly presence. But when I started reading the stories reported by other travelers, there were startling similarities to my own experience.

***

PART THREE

I’m not a professional ghost hunter, nor am I a professional skeptic. I’m just a traveler with a healthy dose of curiosity and a hunger for a good story. But this I can, with certainty, declare: my brother and I both had spooky, unusual, and startlingly similar experiences, one year apart, at the Taipei Hyatt.

And so with a minimum of drama, here’s my story.

My airport taxi pulled up at the hotel in the early evening. I checked in and took the elevator to my room. I opened the door, flicked the entry light on, and quickly dropped my roller bag and backpack. Yes, I still use a backpack, some habits from my nerdy teenage years have stayed with me. The room was large and deep – with light from the city peeking through the semi-transparent blinds covering the windows at the opposite end of the room. My first impression was that it would be a very pleasant room for my 2-night stay. 

Although I was anxious to unpack, shower, eat and get to bed, I wanted to check on the preparations for the meeting I was there for, which was kicking off the next morning.  I would be giving a speech to open the meeting and then facilitating from there. The meeting planner showed me the conference space and assured me that everyone’s flight was on time.

We chatted for a few more minutes, and then I excused myself to head back to the elevator and my room.

Although I’d only been gone for thirty minutes, I was momentarily surprised when I opened the door and discovered that the entry light was off. My surprise didn’t last long…hotels find all sorts of ways to save money by automating the shutoff of lights.  So, I stepped inside. Without the entry light, the only illumination was provided by those same city lights glowing through the sheer curtains.

And there, at the window, I saw a figure. I felt surprised, and embarrassed. I remembered a previous experience when a hotel gave me the wrong room number and key, and I walked innocently into someone else’s occupied room. Had that happened a second time? But then I looked down and saw my own suitcase where I had left it earlier. Maybe I’d caught a staff member from the hotel, there for evening turndown service but who paused to appreciate the stunning view of central Taipei. But why would they be doing this in the dark? 

I don’t know how long it took me to process all these thoughts and questions, but by the time I’d finished examining these theories, the figure was gone. Just not there anymore. Another surprise, as strange as the first.

Was it a trick of the light? I remember laughing as I thought of a line from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Was it a bit of undigested beef? That was what Scrooge suggested to rationalize away his meeting with the spectral Jacob Marley.

It was too dark, I was too jetlagged, and at that point, I had zero reason to think it was anything more than the light and curtains tricking my mind. Like the famous image that seems to show a face on the surface of Mars, our brains see images of things they are accustomed to seeing, whether they truly exist or not.

I turned all the lights on, hoisted my suitcase onto the bed, ordered room service and started a shower.  Probably 50 minutes later, the moment the last taste of chicken was spooned from the bowl, I was in bed with the lights out. I double-checked my phone to make sure the alarm was set so I would make my meeting. And then, I was asleep.

I don’t know how long I slept. But I remember the sensation of someone sitting on the bed. We all know that comforting feeling, when, as a child, a parent sits on the edge of the bed momentarily, perhaps placing a cool hand on a forehead if one has been sick.  We know that sensation of weight shifting, ever so slightly, the blankets pulling away from the pressure, the balance of your body on the bed changing. 

This stirred me from my sleep. I didn’t know what time it was, but I was suddenly very sure that someone, or something, was sitting on the edge of the bed. I felt like I was being watched. Studied. Evaluated. It stopped being the soothing impression of a family member checking on you at your bedside, this felt more like a parent staring at you because they just discovered that you wrecked the car. And it was growing more ominous by the second.

I felt a rush of the strangest feelings – fear, and guilt. Like I was being confronted by something that wanted me to confess. But I wasn’t a teenager, there was no wrecked car. I was a successful grown-up, a world-traveler, in a hotel in Taipei that was built in 1990. Ghosts didn’t haunt new hotels, did they? 

That presence was still there, evaluating me. Even when my eyes were shut, I could feel it. This was like childhood, too, the feeling that looking might make the terror even worse, that it was waiting, just waiting, for me to see it, so that it could strike.

But this wasn’t childhood. So I opened my eyes.

I was lying on my back.  The room was pitch black.  I had pulled the full blinds closed to sleep. The presence was there, expectant. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

I flipped on the bedside light. There was nothing on the bed. For a second time that night, I had experienced something intense and unusual, but ultimately fleeting.

I dismissed it again – exhaustion, jet lag, a too soft bed. Lots of things that can make the first night in a foreign land uncomfortable. It was easy to dismiss. I had work to do and, therefore, I needed my sleep. So back to sleep I went.

It was only the next morning, on that treadmill I told you about, that my brother shared his experiences. He had stayed two nights in the Taipei Hyatt. On the first, a strange presence had jolted him out of sleep. Then, on the second, he’d felt something waiting in his room, in the dark, something that was only chased away when he turned on the light. After two nights of these lurking, shadowy sensations, he didn’t stay the rest of the night. He’d packed up and checked out that very moment. And he’d never told me about this until now, when I was in the same hotel, having just experienced something similar. Something he didn’t know about.

It was no longer so easy for me to dismiss what I had experienced. Especially after I started Googling, and learned that others had reported their own sinister and unsettling experiences.

As to the mystery of why it might be haunted, most of the speculation has centered around what sat on the land before it was built – we know it was a warehouse and that it was used by the Japanese military in World War II. The theory is that it must have been the site of some atrocity – a secret mass murder of POW’s, perhaps. 

Official records establish that the warehouse was used by the Japanese for storing munitions. And, later, the Republic of China used it to make and store fireworks. Surviving family members of people who worked in the warehouse corroborate all this. Though I’ve mentioned that the Japanese have obscured the historical record of some of their acts during the war, copious notes do survive about their network of POW camps on Taiwan. And These records do not indicate that the warehouse was used as a part of this network.

This raises the question – does there need to be a reason in order for it to be considered a legitimate haunting? Just what are the ingredients of a ghost story that make it memorable to us, that make it something we want to tell our friends despite the worry that it will make us look superstitious or gullible? Why does the “why?” of a haunting matter?

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PART FOUR

This isn’t a theological podcast. I personally believe we are spiritual beings, currently having a mortal experience and destined to be redeemed by a savior. But, thanks to my travels, I also believe that forgotten corners of the world have dark things in them that are beyond our mortal understanding.

When I first sat down with my team to talk about this episode, my story editor Nicholas Thurkettle asked me a strange question. “When you checked into your hotel room,” Nicholas asked, “were there flowers?”

I struggled to picture it. Fresh flowers have greeted me in many hotels, especially in the People’s Republic of China, where the beauty of flowers is widely appreciated and celebrated. But there’s a concept called “confirmation bias”, where your observations, your reasoning, even your memories, can be falsified by your own desire. If flowers offered some explanation for what I had experienced; naturally I hoped that they had been there. But I was determined to be honest, and said after a lot of thought that I couldn’t be sure one way or another. I asked Nicholas why he wanted to know, and this is what he told me.

Our lead historical researcher, Alex Bagosy, found this story. In 1902, early in the Japanese occupation of the island then called Formosa, they offered a truce to the many factions of rebels who were in the mountains and countryside outside Taipei. Amnesty would be given to any rebel, they said, who came to Taipei and identified themselves by wearing a white flower. As the rebels came into the city, rumors spread among the citizens of Taipei – why were all these people gathering with white flowers? Some of the locals put on white flowers and joined the group, believing that they were on their way to collect some sort of prize.

But there was no prize, and there was no amnesty. According to the story, the Japanese led all of the people wearing white flowers into a warehouse, barred the doors, and slaughtered everyone inside.

I can’t think of a story that better captures the cycle of tragedy and betrayal that defines so much of Taiwanese history. Of something beautiful, stained by the dehumanizing cruelty of an oppressor. The story of the white flower massacre stunned and haunted me and I’m still turning it over and over in my mind.

We don’t know where this particular warehouse stood, and we don’t know where the bodies were buried. It could have been anywhere in Taipei, a city of over 100 square miles. But could the presence of flowers – fresh, living, white flowers, draw in the spirits of people who were betrayed and murdered in such cruelty? It sure feels possible, doesn’t it? Possible, yet impossible to know for certain.

Or maybe, buried deeper in the ground below the foundation, are bodies left behind from those ancient tombs we mentioned, that were demolished by the Chinese occupiers from the Qing dynasty. Is the speculation about the Hyatt being built on the grounds of an atrocity just not looking far enough back into the past? Also possible, yet impossible to know for certain.

Or maybe the man who helped build the peaceful, prosperous Taiwan we have now, Chiang Ching-Kuo, got more blood on his hands on the path to democracy than we know, owing to his many years running his father’s secret police force. The February 28 Massacre was not the only time that the Kuomintang quashed an uprising with murderous force; but what responsibility the younger Chiang had for any of it is lost in the darkest of shadows.

Maybe that’s the essence of great ghost stories – the truth always seems just beyond our grasp, that dark thing always gone as our eyes open and our minds wake up. And yet they connect up feelings of memory and of guilt, they make history feel personal in a dreamlike way. Nothing else gives us the same visceral feeling of touching the past of an unfamiliar place as a good ghost story. I hope you’ve enjoyed mine.

This dark path we’ve taken has shown that there are many tragedies here we can’t access through the verifiable record of history. The only memory of them is in the ancient soil of Taipei, on the beautiful island, where a traveler from anywhere might come, and be haunted by the sense that there is more here than meets they eye.

***

Thank you for listening to My Dark Path. I’m MF Thomas, creator and host. 

Please take a moment and leave a My Dark Path a rating and review wherever you’re listening.   I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend some time here, with me, walking my Dark Path together.   And don’t hesitate to reach out via email – explore@mydarkpath.com.  I’d love to hear from you.

In two weeks, we’ll post episode 4 – the Strange Journey of Elmer McCurdy.  Elmer was a man who really had two lives and whose’ career in show business really got started after his death.  I hope you’ll join us!

Also, in February 2021, we’re launch our subscription program, The explorer’s society, which will be hosted on Patreon.  Learn more at MyDarkPath.com. 

Many thanks to the amazing team who works with me on My Dark Path. First, our Story Editor and Show runner, Nicholas Thurkettle and the researcher for this episode Alex Bagosy.  

Again, thanks for walking the dark paths of history, science and the paranormal with me, your host, MF Thomas.  Until next time, good night.