B (4:31)

Hardware to grow food in space, either on different space stations. We're working with some of the commercial space stations now.

B (4:41)

And also long term habitation, like on the moon or Mars, for example. So I actually started at Cornell University. I was studying plant science, which is incredibly niche, most people think. And I had been, I think, talking to one of my friends or one of my professors, and they talked about kind of the rich history of plant science that NASA has been doing for the past maybe 60 years, kind of in this long term effort for terraforming and being able to provide food in space. Because life support systems are basically the biggest limiting factor in space in long term space travel. Right Now.

B (5:29)

I know how we phrase it like we have the vehicles to get to Mars, but by the time they get there, people will not be alive because we can't feed them. So, yeah, one of my professors had told me about this internship opportunity, so I applied for it, I ended up getting it. So. So I worked as an intern at the Kennedy Space center in Florida for a summer and got into their space plant research. This was all while I was still in school. Then when I graduated, I.

B (6:11)

Actually did an analog mission, which is where you basically opt to heavily cosplay. You're in a space environment for a certain duration of time. They do this for research and for people, you know, preparing or wanting to be astronauts. So I did an analog mission at the. What's called the ILMA facility at the University of North Dakota. So it's called an analog habitat. So it is a habitat built for a celestial surface that is on earth for people to study and practice living in these conditions. Imagine, I guess, five giant metal tubes that are all connected to make a fake space habitat that's sitting in the middle of North Dakota. And this was during the winter also. So during the snowy North Dakota winter, where me and three other people just had to live and complete the tasks as astronauts as if we were actually doing them for real as a simulation. Researchers will study participants Brains. I was a part of a brain study, and this lasted for 30 days. And I was the unofficial mission manager, or crew leader, I guess, But I was in charge of the plant production module, is what they called it. So I was growing plants and hydroponics in these. In this. Basically just a tube. It's just five tubes connected together with all the exit points locked.

B (8:03)

It kind of sucked in a way because they're studying our cognitive decay and memory decay over time and isolation in the environment. So as part of a program on how they will train future astronauts and how. How they'll basically present lessons to astronauts over time during the transit to Mars. So the concept is, as an astronaut, you won't be launched to Mars with all the information you need. You'll be taught it in transit because of how cognitive decay and memory loss kind of occurs in those isolated environments.

A (8:44)

So they were studying you and your brain for cognitive decay and memory loss?

B (8:49)

They were.

A (8:51)

And I mean, you're about to tell me a very weird paranormal story. I have to ask. Did you perform well on these tests.

A (9:03)

In terms of your brain?

B (9:04)

No, I did do well. And of the four people there, I did do the best as far as learning a task the quickest. And my recall and memory. Yes.

A (9:14)

Okay. This is great.

B (9:15)

This is great.

A (9:16)

Great to know. Thank you, Michael.

B (9:17)

You're welcome.

A (9:18)

Sorry to ask.

B (9:19)

No problem.

B (9:21)

So, yeah, I did this analog habitat, wanting to pursue being an astronaut, wanting to pursue bioregenerative life support, which is, you know, I guess to dumb it down is. Is providing food and medicine for people in space. So I went to grad school at Purdue University under someone who I don't want to name, but he's a predominant kind of figure in the bioregenerative life support world. And I did my master's there. And so now, yeah, I interface with different government agencies and private partners to build hardware to grow plants and food in space for a living. Growing up, I was not religious. I wasn't raised in a religious household at all. I remember going to church with a friend maybe once when I was a kid and was just so confused. Didn't know what people were talking about.

B (10:24)

I was always very like, kind of math and science oriented. I never really saw science as a religion or a belief system. I do see it as that now a little bit. But, yeah, I believed in the empirical, measurable world. I guess I would hear ghost stories. I never believed in ghosts. I was never scared of ghosts.

B (10:52)

Yeah, I mean, I still believe in the empirical, measurable world and just like kind of in concept, I don't think supernatural exists because if something exists it's natural, right? So 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.

B (11:20)

That being said, of all the experiences I've had, I know that at least science as an industry and how we do it now is not working so well to explain some of these things. Five years ago, if you asked me, you know.

B (11:39)

I don't know, does God exist? Are aliens real? I would say no. And I statistically believe in aliens being a real thing but have seen no convincing evidence of it. Or you know, a question if, if something's real and if it's here are different, I would have said aliens are not here. But like, you know, the universe is massive, there probably are. I wouldn't have been that passionate about saying something like non human intelligence is a reality that has completely 180. And I think, you know, I'm still very skeptical. But if you're a true skeptic, you're not dogmatic, right? So I, that's why, that's what prompted me to do certain experiments and try different things. Just being. That's how you have to be as a scientist. You have to test things you don't maybe think are real. You have to try to measure things that go against your biases. And that's what I tried to do. And it was incredibly surprising. And I would say kind of world changing for me. Definitely.

B (12:55)

The first thing that happened that was strange probably was this time I was in high school, I was sleeping and was just kind of woken up and in the middle of the night, probably around 3am or something, I would usually sleep with a TV on. And I woke up, couldn't move. And this was pretty jarring, but I wasn't. I remember not being scared, strangely enough. I was just very disoriented. I was like, what's going on? And I'm able to move my eyes and I kind of roll my head over and I look at my TV and I was watching Family Guy actually. And funny enough, and this kind of black swirling, you know, I can only describe as like a portal or something starts kind of spiraling and growing in my tv and you know, I'm just looking at it like, okay, you know, here, here we go. I don't know. And these four like very amorphous but kind of discernibly humanish figures come out of it and they're these kind of like shadowy black figures. I can't see facial features. I can see like arms, legs and head, that kind of stuff. And they crawl out and they're not really paying attention to me at all, which was strange, I guess. And I remember thinking that they were looking through my things and I had like a dresser drawer open and they're kind of like looking over there. They were in my closet. They're kind of walking around my room.

B (14:49)

And I just turn to them, you know, as much as I can move. And I go to speak, but it just kind of comes out in my head and I'm like, hey, can I like help you guys? Can I like help you find something? Which is so funny. I'm like, just such a mild mannered guy to be. Someone comes out through a portal and I'm like, hey, can I help you with anything? And when I did that, they all looked at me. They just like all their heads turned and were just looking at me, stared for a little bit and then just went back to doing what they were doing. I was like, okay, you know, let me know if you need anything.

B (15:29)

And eventually they crawled back into this black spiraling whatever that was in the middle of my tv and then it shrunk and disappeared and I was back to watching Family Guy and I could move again. So that was cool. I went right back to bed after that. The next morning I'm like, you know, a little more sober minded and I'm like, what happened last night? And 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. I was like, okay, I guess I have an explanation of that now. And it's sleep paralysis.

A (16:15)

How long.

A (16:17)

Were the guys in your room? Like, how long of a experience was that?

B (16:21)

Oh, time, Time's a weird thing, but I would say it felt maybe like 20, 20 minutes. 20, 30 minutes. I was just watching them just wander around my room for, for a while and then kind of seeing this full, like they came and they left. Like they came through this portal. They left through this portal. I remember thinking I was in high school, I had no experience with any substances of any kind. And I remember thinking, I'm like, did someone drug me? And still I wasn't scared. For some reason. I was like, this is just a crazy thing that's happening.

B (17:00)

They were.

B (17:03)

Not overly tall, maybe 5, 10, 6 foot.

B (17:09)

Humanoid shaped, kind of, kind of silhouettes.

B (17:15)

They, they were this like amorphous black kind of smoke is what they were made of. There was no discernible like facial features or, or anything. I could see arms, legs, head. I could tell where they were looking based on their movements.

B (17:40)

But just this, this, what they were made of, this smoky.

B (17:46)

Kind of staticky substance is not something I've, you know, seen anywhere else.

B (17:57)

Yeah. So, I mean, after this and, and the Google search, the hastily made Google searches in the morning, I quickly kind of settled with the explanation that I had sleep paralysis and that this was something that happens to a lot of people and I was just, you know, seeing things in my sleep and that's, that's what this was. And I was happy with that explanation.

B (18:22)

I mean, after that I went to college and, you know, starting at university, new stage in my life, I'm definitely not thinking about the shadow people or anything else. Right. This is just a dream that's kind of lost to me at this point. But then I, I started getting into, I guess, philosophy and certain meditation practices while I was going to school. And that yielded some, some also very strange, strange occurrences, you could say. My friend Kiara had asked me to join her with, to this guided meditation that one of our other friends was guiding. And I hadn't had much experience with meditation really, but I heard it was a good practice and, you know, it was something fun to do with my friend Kiara.

B (19:20)

And so I went and.

B (19:23)

I don't know, I'm not someone that sits still so easily. I don't focus so easily. So this was certainly new to me. But while I'm doing it, I kind of get caught up in this thing where the guide, the person who's verbally guiding the meditation, you know, I stop hearing their voice.

B (19:46)

I stop feeling my body necessarily. And I'm just kind of having this wild imagery where I'm. I'm looking down at this map and there are two points on this map and it seems to be like a map of the campus.

B (20:08)

To my best estimation. And there's this one pink dot, kind of like pulsating. And then there's this other green dot somewhere else that's just pulsating. I'm trying to figure out what I'm looking at. And I can see like basically the outline of the room that this guided meditation was in. And that's where the pink dot is, this pink pulsating dot. And I assume that that's me. And then I'm seeing this, like, green dot somewhere else. And I had no idea what that was, what it was. I had no idea what any of it was. It was just random imagery, you know, being shown to me while I'm, you know, trying to think about nothing. During this. This first experience meditating, I. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure this out. It was just something I saw while I'm meditating. I didn't care too much about it, I guess.

A (21:12)

All right, quick note. This brief story may seem kind of random, but it actually comes back in the next episode. So just make note of that.

B (21:24)

So there was this. This one day I'm taking a nap in my. In my house, and I never nap. I really just can't nap. So that was already strange enough to be, you know, sleeping in the middle of the day.

B (21:39)

And as soon as. Kind of, I would say, I fell asleep. Although it. The quality of it did not feel like sleep at all because my head basically hit the pillow. And all of a sudden I am above my body looking down at it.

B (22:02)

And I have no idea what's going on.

B (22:07)

I vaguely start to realize that I can kind of steer.

B (22:13)

This point of view that I'm in if. If this, you know, in this dream. And so I try to go. I try to go out my door, but I can't really. And so I shrink and then go. Start to go through the keyhole of my door. And then I. It was like a rubber band just, like, snapped back. I. I lunge forward and I. When I wake up and I'm like, very fully awake, like, the. The transition from seeing my body and then being back in my body, like that visual experience, there was no kind of transition. It was just like I was awake this whole time almost. And so I snapped back, I lunge forward. I'm like, oh, that was very weird. And I lay right back down. As soon as I lay back down, I'm out again. And I'm looking around my room. I make it a little further through the keyhole this time, and then I snap back again and I lunge forward. I'm awake again. And this is, you know, probably 2pm broad day. I'm like, what's going on? This is wild.

B (23:29)

And then for a third time, I pop out. I make it through the keyhole. I'm kind of looking at the stairs in my house. And then, sure enough, the third time, I snapped back, lunged forward, and was not about to try to go to sleep again. I guess.

B (23:48)

Those three times, I didn't want to go for a fourth, I guess. But that kind of is the beginning of a series of strange experiences of that likeliness.

A (24:02)

All right. That brings us to the end of this preview. If you want to hear this episode and the follow up episode about Michael and eventually a mysterious character that enters his life named Raphael, you can hear that on the Otherworld Patreon by signing up@patreon.com Otherworld.