As Halloween night approaches, tales of hauntings and ghostly apparitions are everywhere. But in today’s hyper-connected world, the supernatural isn’t just found in dark hallways and creaky old mansions. Some spirits seem to have taken up residence in more modern haunts: our phones, computers, and even our wifi connections.
From unexplained notifications that arrive in the dead of night to screens that flicker with cryptic messages, stories of haunted technology are becoming more common. Jack Wagner, a content creator and host of the Otherworld podcast, tells stories from real people who have experienced something paranormal or unexplained. He said that “the spirit world is learning to use new tools.”
Halloween is like the Super Bowl for paranormal content creators. Wagner has spent months preparing for the season, vetting hundreds of stories that come through via submissions. He launched the show around Halloween two years ago in 2022 and published his 100th episode this month.
Wagner said that he hopes to expand Otherworld into live events and explore adapting some of the stories he’s hosted on the podcast into more longer form content, like a show or movie.
In the course of producing his show, Wagner has interviewed a wide variety of interesting characters, including a woman who survived an attempted murder and became a star in the true crime universe, an Irish author who studies fairy culture named Eddie Lenihan, and a local Los Angeles psychic named Wendy.
He also does deeper dives into the history of the paranormal on his Patreon. A recent episode investigates the history of the Ouija board.
Wagner has also collaborated with researcher and artist Josh Citarella to look into the mythical city of Tartania, interviewed the journalist Chris Wiley, who wrote about UFOs for the New Yorker, and had a discussion with Philip Cozzolino, an associate professor of research in the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, about his work studying near-death experiences.
Otherworld was born out of a previous comedy podcast Wagner hosted with comedian Brandon Wardell. Every year, they’d do a Halloween special where listeners would send in their spooky stories. The special became such a hit that Wagner decided to make the show a spinoff.
Wagner said that he was never super into the paranormal before his show began, but added, “The idea that maybe there’s more than what we experience on the day to day, that excites me.” His show is for those who might consider themselves skeptics, but are paranormal-curious. He describes it as an otherworldly “This American Life.” Ultimately, it’s about the storytelling.
Wagner said that he tries to select guests who seem relatable to his audience. He likes finding people who didn’t believe in the paranormal before having an experience themselves, rather than dipping into the pool of people who frequently collaborate with paranormal content creators.
“I realized that there are so many of these stories out there, and people try to forget about them and move on,” he said. “Most people don’t even talk about them, and I think it’s because of how these stories are treated. They end up on these shows that sensationalize them.”
Wagner said he prefers a good story to hard evidence of unexplained or paranormal activity. He said that given the rise of AI, he’s skeptical of some of the content he sees out there used as evidence or proof of otherworldly beings. “I’m not necessarily a believer,” he said. “But I’m also not a skeptic. I’m just a person who talks to a lot of people who have experienced this stuff.”
On social media, paranormal “evidence” is ubiquitous, and Wagner is frank about the digital landscape. “Probably 98% of the stuff on TikTok is fake,” he said. “Photographic evidence is becoming less and less relevant,” he said, especially in the age of AI. “If someone sent me a crystal-clear photo of Bigfoot, it’d be almost less believable than if they just told me the story. I’d assume it was AI.”
But for Wagner, there is more to this world than meets the eye. “Most people [who encounter the paranormal] are paralyzed in fear,” he said. “No matter what you think of this stuff, it’s a fight or flight response at a level you couldn’t comprehend.” Some paranormal enthusiasts like Wagner even speculate that our cameras aren’t able to capture images from the otherworldly plane that they believe ghostly apparitions exist in.
“Ever try to take a picture of the moon with your phone? It’s almost impossible,” he said, “but we all know the moon is real.”
