Episode Overview

Podcast: Otherworld
Host: Jack Wagner
Episode: The Plant Scientist [Patreon Preview]
Date: December 3, 2025

This episode of Otherworld begins a two-part series exploring the bizarre and unsettling experiences of Michael, a plant scientist working at the forefront of space agriculture. Renowned for his scientific rigor and skepticism, Michael finds his deeply rational worldview challenged by a series of inexplicable—and at times paranormal—events. Through an honest recounting, Michael details how these encounters began to erode his certainty in the strictly empirical, raising profound questions about the unknown.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to Michael and His Work

• Background: Michael is the mission manager at a space program company, with expertise in “bioregenerative life support systems” for space—meaning he helps figure out how to grow food and potentially terraform planets (04:16).
• Career Highlights:
  • Started with an internship at the Kennedy Space Center working on space crops (05:29).
  • Completed an "analog mission" in North Dakota that simulated living conditions on another planetary body (06:11).
  • Graduate work at Purdue under a leading figure in bioregenerative systems (09:21).
• Self-Description: Michael grew up non-religious and always trusted scientific, empirical explanations (10:24).

The Analog Mission: Testing Human Limits

• Michael describes life in the isolated test habitat:
  • Lived for 30 days in a sealed, tube-like research module (06:11).
  • Tasked with managing hydroponics and crop production, simulating space missions.
  • Notes on psychological testing for “cognitive and memory decay” under isolation (08:03).
  • Michael performed exceptionally well on cognitive tests:

    "Of the four people there, I did do the best as far as learning a task the quickest. And my recall and memory. Yes."
    — Michael (09:04)

Michael’s Scientific Worldview and How It Shifts

• Always held an empirical perspective, was “not scared of ghosts,” and dismissed supernatural tales (10:24).
• Defines his skepticism:

  "If something exists it's natural, right? We call supernatural things supernatural because we can't explain them. But if it is a fact that these are real, then it's just a part of the natural world that we don't understand."
  — Michael (10:52)

• Admits that after his experiences, “science as an industry and how we do it now is not working so well to explain some of these things.” (11:20)
• Notes his view on aliens did a “complete 180”—now considers the reality of non-human intelligence plausible but remains skeptical (11:39).

Michael’s First Paranormal Experience: The Shadow Figures

• Incident Description:

  • Happened in high school, around 3am. Michael experiences sleep paralysis, unable to move, and witnesses a portal opening in his TV (12:55).
  • Sees four amorphous, shadowy, human-like figures emerge, rummaging through his things but ignoring him (14:49).
  • Attempts to communicate:

    "Hey, can I like help you guys? Can I like help you find something?"
    — Michael (14:49)

  • The figures briefly look at him, then return to searching, later disappearing back through the portal as he regains movement (15:29).

• Interpretation and Aftermath:

  • Michael rationalizes the event as sleep paralysis:

    "I'm just on the family computer googling, hey, dark shadowy things walking around your room at night, can't move. And it was like, oh, sleep paralysis."
    — Michael (15:57)

  • Recalls the figures as made of “amorphous black kind of smoke... not something I’ve seen anywhere else.” (17:15)

Experimenting with Meditation and Strange States

• Exploring Philosophy and Meditation in College:
  • A guided meditation produces vivid mental imagery: two colored, pulsating dots on a map resembling Michael’s campus, which he doesn't immediately understand (19:46).
  • Host Jack Wagner notes for listeners: “This brief story may seem kind of random, but it actually comes back in the next episode.” (21:12)

Out-of-Body Experiences

• The Nap Incident:
  • During an unusual daytime nap, Michael repeatedly finds himself “above [his] body looking down at it,” able to steer his perspective (21:39).
  • Tries to leave the room by shrinking through a keyhole, snaps back into his body each time—this repeats three times, leaving him “very fully awake” after each reentry (23:29).
  • Marks these episodes as “the beginning of a series of strange experiences of that likeliness.” (23:48)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being a reluctant witness:

  “As a scientist, Michael was always very fact driven. Not exactly the type of guy who would have imagined himself on a paranormal podcast ... But that started to change when weird things began happening to him.”
  — Jack Wagner (00:38)

• On seeking explanations:

  “If something exists it's natural, right? ... if it is a fact that these are real, then it's just part of the natural world that we don't understand.”
  — Michael (10:52)

• On scientific skepticism:

  “If you're a true skeptic, you're not dogmatic, right? ... you have to test things you don't maybe think are real. ... And it was incredibly surprising. And I would say kind of world changing for me.”
  — Michael (11:39)

• The shadow people encounter:

  “Four, like, very amorphous but kind of discernibly humanish figures come out of it and they're these kind of like shadowy black figures. ... And I just turn to them... and I go to speak, but it just kind of comes out in my head and I'm like, hey, can I help you guys?”
  — Michael (12:55 – 14:49)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Setup: 00:06 – 04:16
• Michael’s Background & Space Research: 04:16 – 10:24
• Shifting Worldview / Opening to the Paranormal: 10:24 – 12:55
• Shadow Figures Incident (Sleep Paralysis): 12:55 – 17:57
• College, Meditation, and Unusual Perceptions: 18:22 – 21:24
• Out-of-Body/Nap Experience: 21:24 – 24:02

Takeaways & Preview

Michael’s story sets the stage for deeper, stranger phenomena—hinted at by both the “dot on the map” meditation experience and the promise of a mysterious figure named Raphael in Part 2. The episode is compelling not only for its catalog of uncanny events but also for the genuine, methodical curiosity Michael brings from his scientific background as he navigates the limits of reason and perception.

To hear Michael’s full story and the next developments, including the role of the enigmatic "Raphael," listeners are encouraged to subscribe to the Otherworld Patreon.