HONG KONG — When the 42-year-old Filipino woman opened the door of her tiny Hong Kong apartment three years ago, two lawyers stood outside with a man she had never seen before. They explained that he needed a place to hide, and they introduced him as Edward Snowden.

“The first time I see him, I don’t know who he is,” the woman, Vanessa Mae Bondalian Rodel, recalled in an interview. “I don’t have any idea.”

Ms. Rodel is one of at least four residents of Hong Kong who took in Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, when he fled the United States in June 2013. Only now have they decided to speak about the experience, revealing a new chapter in the odyssey that riveted the world after Mr. Snowden disclosed that the N.S.A. had been monitoring the calls, emails and web activity of millions of Americans and others.

At the time, governments and news outlets were scrambling to find the source of the leaks, which were published in The Guardian and The Washington Post. In an interview recorded in a hotel room, Mr. Snowden identified himself and revealed that he was in Hong Kong. Then he went into hiding. About two weeks later he turned up in Moscow.