Jack Wagner wants you to believe. Or not. Decide for yourself. His podcast Otherworld features guests from around the world divulging their weirdest brushes with the paranormal: UFO sightings, astral projection, benevolent ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, and Celtic fairies. Now two years running, the show has amassed a cult following of hundreds of thousands of listeners looking for a thrill or a fright, one of whom happens to be New Jersey royalty Nicole Polizzi, better known as Snooki. After a run in with a UFO at her mom’s pool, followed closely by a minor abduction at age 13 and a fateful encounter with a ladybug as an adult, Snooki became a lifelong believer and researcher of the paranormal herself. “I feel like the more people who open their third eye,” she explains, “the more we’re going to expand as a human race so we can understand UFOs and all that stuff.” To mark the end of another spooky season, the Jersey Shore star and mother of three jumped on a call with her favorite podcaster to talk about astral projection, dabbling in witchcraft, and dealing with haters.—EMILY SANDSTROM
———
SNOOKI: I got to put my camera on.
JACK WAGNER: Hello.
SNOOKI: Hi.
WAGNER: Nice to meet you.
SNOOKI: Nice to finally meet you.
WAGNER: By the way, do you prefer Nicole or Snooki? How does that work?
SNOOKI: You can introduce me as Snooki, but then I like Nicole.
WAGNER: You don’t identify day-to-day as Snooki?
SNOOKI: No, it’s more of a character now. Especially as a mom. I’m not Snooki as a mom.
WAGNER: I believe that. Well, I’m very excited about this. I do have to say, I’ve seen you in the comments of my show. I’ve had a lot of surreal experiences in the process of making Otherworld, but finding out that you’re a listener has been one of the craziest things for me.
SNOOKI: Really?
WAGNER: Yeah. It’s funny, you never really know who listens to the show.
SNOOKI: I was just listening to you this morning because I was going to Trader Joe’s. Your voice is soothing.
WAGNER: That’s amazing. How long have you been interested in the paranormal?
SNOOKI: My whole life.
WAGNER: Really?
SNOOKI: I felt things my entire life. I saw a UFO when I was 13. My husband thinks I’m crazy, but eventually I opened up my third eye to really feeling things and hearing things.
WAGNER: I want to hear about this UFO sighting.
SNOOKI: I was laying out by my mom’s pool and it was a gorgeous day, no clouds in the sky. I was just looking up and all of a sudden I saw this little spark wiggling back and forth. It was bouncing here and bouncing there and then suddenly, it stopped. And I was like, “Oh, I think that’s a UFO.” But I wasn’t scared and it felt like we were saying hi to each other. Then it stared at me for another five seconds and then disappeared. It went like, “Boom!” And then a few weeks later I had a dream that I was on the ship and I was just laying there and there were three beings. They were gray–
WAGNER: Gray aliens?
SNOOKI: Yeah. I wasn’t scared. I was chilling, we were talking. Then all of a sudden, it was so freaking real. They touched the back of my head and I felt like I was going through a crazy portal. And the way I woke up was so dramatic, like in the movies.
WAGNER: What did the portal look like?
SNOOKI: Did you ever do the Avatar ride at Disney?
WAGNER: I haven’t, but I’ve actually heard amazing things about that.
SNOOKI: So right before the ride starts, it’s like you’re going through a black portal, and then–
WAGNER: Like a tunnel?
SNOOKI: Yes. They touched my neck, and it was like a chill went down my body. I went through the tunnel and then I woke up, like, “Oh, my god!” I was really itchy after, and I realized that I had a hole in my back where they touched me in my dream. It’s a perfect circle hole.
WAGNER: You have a hole?
SNOOKI: A hole in my back, yeah.
WAGNER: Is it still there?
SNOOKI: Yeah. It’s been there since the dream. Everyone’s always like, “Where is that from?” And I don’t want people to think I’m crazy, so I say, “Oh, I just picked something.”
WAGNER: How old were you?
SNOOKI: 13.
WAGNER: So this was all before you were on Jersey Shore?
SNOOKI: Yeah.
WAGNER: So was there UFO talk going on during that show that was edited out? Was that part of your personality during that era?
SNOOKI: No, because then I just turned 21. I just wanted to party and have fun. We weren’t really having in-depth conversations. But then once I became a mom I wanted people to know more about who I am as a person, so that’s when I started to talk about it.
WAGNER: This is blowing my mind.
SNOOKI: Yeah. Even before this happened, I was terrified of the windows at night, because I always felt like people were looking at me, before I even saw the UFO. To this day, if my kids’ blinds are open in their room, I freak out because I feel like they’re staring at us.
WAGNER: That is wild. Have you experienced anything else besides the UFO stuff?
SNOOKI: I’ve felt ghosts before. I don’t know if I’ve seen a ghost, but I saw light beams that looked like a camera flash. But it was seven feet tall, blue and white, and it was just there right in front of me.
WAGNER: Like a camera flash that didn’t disappear, I assume?
SNOOKI: Right, exactly.
WAGNER: You’re way deeper in this than I thought. Wait, I selfishly want to know what your favorite episodes of Otherworld are?
SNOOKI: I like your ghost stuff. I love your UFO stuff, obviously. The recent one I wasn’t really into, but I love-
WAGNER: Which one?
SNOOKI: It was a lady. I forget. But I love just hearing people’s experiences and hearing the fear. And then you get the other side, the friends and the people that were with them in these experiences.
WAGNER: Everybody has their own thing. I try to space things out a little bit, so that it’s not one thing over and over again. It’s interesting though, I’ve had to get used to people having strong opinions about something that I make.
SNOOKI: People have had strong opinions about me my entire life.
WAGNER: Yeah, what is that like? This is new for me, and it’s not even remotely the same. I’m not used to people thinking one thing or the other about what I make. How do you deal with that?
SNOOKI: In the beginning it was really bad, because people were saying such awful things about us. It was very dramatic. We were just young on a reality show, having fun. Also, I was bullied in school, so I’ve been through the whole thing. So at this point, it’s just strangers having an opinion about you. They have no idea who you are personally–they’re just fans.
WAGNER: Are you able to move through the world peacefully now, without getting recognized?
SNOOKI: No. Anywhere I go, people recognize me and take pictures. But it’s not like the Kardashians, where you can’t go to CVS without the paparazzi following you. I’ll go to Target and I’ll take a couple of pictures with people. I think it’s because of my height that people are like, “I think that’s Snooki.”
WAGNER: What’s your actual height?
SNOOKI: I always say I’m 4′ 10″, but I think I’m 4′ 8″ or 4’9″.
WAGNER: Really?
SNOOKI: Yeah. And I’m shrinking, so I’m going to be like Strega Nona when I’m old. I’m so small.
WAGNER: That is wild. Are you spiritual?
SNOOKI: Yes. I grew up Catholic. I was an altar girl, I went to church every Sunday. So it’s weird, because when people do believe in spirits, UFOs, universe things, they’re not considered strongly Catholic and I am. I believe in everything. I believe in God, I believe in angels, I believe in demons and aliens and the universe stuff. I feel like I’m different in that sense, because I believe it all. I believe in vampires. I believe everything.
WAGNER: You believe in vampires?
SNOOKI: Yeah.
WAGNER: Also, do you have a favorite episode?
SNOOKI: I have the worst memory, but there was an alien one that was awesome. I do love ghosts and you have your Ouija board episode now that I’m excited to listen to on my walk today.
WAGNER: Wait, that came out three hours ago. You’re really on top of this.
SNOOKI: I know, I’m on it. I listen to podcasts every single day. I forget how I even found you. I think I put in “paranormal podcasts” in the search bar.
WAGNER: Okay. That’s great. I’m still new.
SNOOKI: Are you?
WAGNER: Yeah. I’ve only been doing this for two years.
SNOOKI: Also I was just listening to your last episode, and you’re actually using meditation music to open your third eye. Do you know that?
WAGNER: What do you mean?
SNOOKI: You’re using music that would help you open your third eye and meet your spirit guides and all that stuff. I was like, “I know that song.”
WAGNER: Really? What song do you think it is? Because we make original music for the show.
SNOOKI: Oh. It sounds just like my meditation song. It’s called “Moses Code Meditation” by Dr. Wayne Dyer.
WAGNER: That’s insane. Let me listen to this. [Plays the song] Oh, it does sound similar.
SNOOKI: Yeah. I’m like, “Is he secretly trying to open everyone’s third eye while listening?”
WAGNER: That would be a good idea if I thought I could do that.
SNOOKI: I thought you did that on purpose.
WAGNER: If I thought I could manipulate people, I’d get them to leave positive reviews on the show.
SNOOKI: Oh. Well, I feel like the more people who open their third eye, the more we’re going to expand as a human race so we can understand UFOs and all that stuff.
WAGNER: Yeah. What do you think aliens are?
SNOOKI: I do believe some are from different planets, and I think there’s a universal one that controls all of the universe. And I do believe that some of the aliens are us in the future, and we just turn into them, because we’re fucked up and we all kill each other.
WAGNER: I like that theory. A lot of times I hear stories from people who have some kind of strange contact, and then they’re given a warning or a lingering of some kind of apocalyptic paranoia.
SNOOKI: Yeah, the warning is always: no war, love each other, respect each other. It’s always that.
WAGNER: Also the environment, and that we’re destroying the planet.
SNOOKI: Yes. And of course we are. We’re horrible.
WAGNER: No matter what you believe in, it’s frightening when you talk to somebody who has a vision, or they believe that they were in contact with an extraterrestrial.
SNOOKI: Well, I’ve actually wanted to try and do the CE5 meditation.
WAGNER: Is that where you try to summon a UFO?
SNOOKI: Yeah. It’s a meditation to call for them. And Dr. Greer actually does these group meditations to do that in Arizona or something in the woods.
WAGNER: I don’t do any of that stuff, by the way. I try to stay pure. I just do the interviews. I’m scared, Nicole.
SNOOKI: What are you scared of?
WAGNER: I feel like I could see myself going off the deep end, or having people think that I went off the deep end. Or what if something happens and then everything becomes so much more real?
SNOOKI: Yeah. You would go into a depression to be like, “What is life?”
WAGNER: Yeah. What about the Monroe tapes? Do you know about those?
SNOOKI: No. What’s that?
WAGNER: He’s the one who coined the term “out-of-body experience,” but he has these audio recordings that they made that he believes can induce an out-of-body experience and astral projection by making the brain oscillate at a certain frequency.
SNOOKI: Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of that. I astral projected when I was sleeping, twice.
WAGNER: What happened?
SNOOKI: And it was both because of people that passed that I loved. Recently it happened with my grandmother who passed away in February.
WAGNER: Oh, I’m sorry.
SNOOKI: No. It’s okay. She was suffering, it was her time. I always prepped her for death, but I didn’t want to scare her. But I was like, “Nanny, you’re going to come back as a ladybug and you’re going to talk to me, because I’ll be able to hear you.” I was prepping her on what to do to come back to me and show me that it’s real, because obviously I believe in heaven and stuff. So I’m like, “Where the hell’s the ladybug? She’s supposed to come to me right away to let me know she’s okay.” And it was three days after she died, I’m sitting there on the toilet in the middle of the night and I’m like, “Where’s this goddamn ladybug?” And then I see something moving, and it’s this bug that’s on its back that can’t get up. And then I look over and it’s a freaking ladybug.
WAGNER: In your house?
SNOOKI: Yes. On the floor, right where I was peeing. It just sat on my hand for five minutes, not moving. And I’m like, “Oh my god! It’s my grandma.”
WAGNER: And when was that?
SNOOKI: February.
WAGNER: February. I could be wrong, but it seems a little early for ladybugs in Jersey?
SNOOKI: Oh, yeah. There was snow on the ground. It was freezing. There was no way there should have been a ladybug.
WAGNER: That’s really fascinating, actually.
SNOOKI: I know. I have signs like that all the time, and everyone’s like, “Oh, no. That’s just a coincidence. That’s just what you want your brain to think.” I was like, “No, this is why you’re small-minded and don’t understand things.”
WAGNER: Yeah.
SNOOKI: Have you experienced anything yourself?
WAGNER: I have before, a couple little things. But I will say this: Once it becomes work, for better or for worse, the magic goes away. When I stop working on Otherworld and go home, it’s the last thing I want to think about. So even if a ghost appeared before me, I would probably just be like, “Leave me alone. I’m off the clock. I just want to watch Friday Night Lights and go to bed.”
SNOOKI: Got it. Also, how did the show come about in the first place?
WAGNER: Well, I do not have a background in the paranormal, but I went to make a Halloween episode of my old show one time and just asked if anybody had experienced something.
SNOOKI: What was your old show?
WAGNER: It was a comedy show where I interviewed people.
SNOOKI: Oh, totally different.
WAGNER: Yeah, so I had zero background in this. But I was just completely blown away with how many of our listeners had experienced something. I started reading all of those submissions and talking to some of them, and they weren’t like simple ghost stories. People had extremely long sagas, intense experiences, and most of these were what I would call “normal” people. I feel like a lot of the shows out there about this stuff portray it as very goofy or far out there, and people are quick to dismiss it because of that. Right?
SNOOKI: As you’re talking, I just remembered one of my favorite episodes was the fairies in the woods.
WAGNER: That was a wild one. Are you a fairy believer?
SNOOKI: I’ve never really thought about it. That was one of my favorite episodes because I like hearing things that I don’t know anything about. Like, I’ve always been intrigued with witchcraft, but it scares me because I am Catholic and I don’t want to cross that line of Satan and evil. But good witches, that’s always been something I was intrigued about.
WAGNER: Yeah. There’s definitely witches that listen to the show that–
SNOOKI: Good witches?
WAGNER: I assume so.
SNOOKI: I actually tried to be a witch when I was growing up. Me and my friend would do spells and one of them worked. It was in middle school, and we were obsessed with The Craft. We ended up getting a spell book, and I did a breakup spell for this guy because I liked him at the time. I had his picture, and then you have to roll up the picture in yarn and tie the knot three times and light it on fire and say what you want to happen. And literally two days later they broke up. It freaked me out. That was the last and only spell that I’ve ever done.
WAGNER: Interesting. You should bring that back. I could see “Snooki the Medium.”
SNOOKI: Well, I already pitched two shows and it didn’t get picked up.
WAGNER: What?!
SNOOKI: Yeah. I pitched a show about practicing my mediumship, going to haunted places, which I’ve done before. Then I pitched a show about UFOs, but nothing’s selling right now.
WAGNER: Really? Snooki, the New Jersey Medium–I feel like that would sell.
SNOOKI: Maybe I’ll do a YouTube series.
WAGNER: I think it would go off. I’ll be your first customer.
SNOOKI: Or you can come to a haunted house with me.
WAGNER: I’m scared, but I will.
SNOOKI: You should do more UFO stories. I love those. And you should see if you can find a witch story or voodoo in New Orleans. That stuff is scary.
WAGNER: Nicole, we have one coming that’s–
SNOOKI: Terrifying?
WAGNER: It’s so messed up that I’m doing some legal checking to make sure.
SNOOKI: Oh my god.
WAGNER: We could get in trouble for it. Because of the death that is involved.
SNOOKI: Spooky. I can’t wait.