The Plant Scientist [Patreon Preview]

Summary

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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.

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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).

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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)

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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).

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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

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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.

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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.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Otherworld Patreon. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. What you're about to hear is a two part series that covers the very strange story of a plant scientist named Michael, who we have been in communication with for quite some time. In fact, I just looked and he originally emailed the show on November 20, 2023, which is actually oddly close to the date in which I'm recording this. Almost two years exactly. But we've been talking to him for quite some time. As I mentioned, Michael is a scientist and he specializes in what's called bioregenerative life support for space blss and more specifically space crop production. So in other words, Michael studies how to grow stuff in space and perhaps even terraforming a planet one day. I'm sure some of you have seen this type of stuff referenced in movies or video games or something like that. That's actually Michael's job. Although surprisingly funny enough, that is not what he emailed the show about, at least not exactly. What he sent in is something completely different. Although I think his position as a scientist does have something to do with this entire story. As a scientist, Michael was always very fact driven. Not exactly the type of guy who would have imagined himself on a paranormal podcast like this one. But that started to change when weird things began happening to him. At first when I was listening to Michael tell me all of this, I was like, alright, what is this story about? Everything seems so random. But then slowly it started to take shape into a bigger picture. And I think that's exactly what Michael was experiencing while going through this himself. I think at first he was able to write off the little stuff, but eventually it got to the point where it was clear that something was going on with him. And when things felt as if it couldn't get any more strange and confusing for Michael, his sister ended up having a fortuitous and unusual encounter with a mysterious man on an airplane who started asking her a lot of very specific questions about her brother Michael, who he of course does not know. He doesn't even know his sister. Everything is very weird. This is really such a weird and long story. It actually feels a little crazy trying to summarize it. In fact, it's even hard to summarize the story at all because I am genuinely still not quite sure what this story is about yet. And I think Michael feels exactly the same way. But it's a really interesting one with a lot of strange stuff happening in it. So I'd suggest just sitting back listening to this bizarre series of events and taking it in exactly the way I did. This is going to be just a preview of the first part, but if you want to hear both of these episodes, they're going to be available on the Otherworld Patreon. And you could sign [e-mail] Otherworld. This first part is called the Plant Scientist. And you're listening to the Otherworld Patreon.

[B]

My name is Michael. I'm from upstate New York, the Hudson Valley. I am the mission manager of the space program at my company, where we build.

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

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.

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.

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.

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]

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

[B]

They were.

[A]

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.

In terms of your brain?

[B]

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]

Okay. This is great.

[B]

This is great.

[A]

Great to know. Thank you, Michael.

[B]

You're welcome.

[A]

Sorry to ask.

[B]

No problem.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

How long.

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

[B]

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.

They were.

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

Humanoid shaped, kind of, kind of silhouettes.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

And so I went and.

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.

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.

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]

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]

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.

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.

And I have no idea what's going on.

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

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.

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.

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]

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 [e-mail] Otherworld.