Flashback: Demon Dolls

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Monster House Presents.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, they're Monster Talkers. Blake here and I'm hopefully winding
down our summer flashback series. My wife and I made
it successfully through our Skeptoid fundraising crewise and had an
amazing time celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary by traveling
through the Bermuda Triangle, visiting Coral Castle, and of course
going back to Key West to see Robert the Doll
for the second time. I did a little tour where

(00:31):
I introduced Robert with the traditional folklore, and then I
revealed some interesting findings that I had made while prepping
to play docent for these adventurous attendees. So this week
we're going to flash back to October of twenty sixteen,
where we interviewed doctor Corey Conbertido, curator of the Key
West Art and Historical Society, which oversees the Fort East
Martella Museum, which is the home to Robert the Doll.

(00:54):
I re listened to this one it was reminded of
the interesting challenge that she had. Like a lot of
museums and parks, getting funding for such places is increasingly
difficult in public interest, in fact, is often being significantly
diminished in these distracted times, there's much more money to
be made from ghosts and legends if a mystery can
be nurtured. And Robert Didahl is to reference Glengarry Glenn

(01:17):
Ross a closer very soon, possibly even next week. I'll
be bringing you my research findings to supplement this episode
with new info, So stay tuned. We'll be back very
soon with new content. But we really appreciate you guys
sticking around with us while we catch our breath and
deal with the many personal challenges of twenty twenty five.

(01:39):
Oh and I think I'm going to see if I
can get a little Patreon bonus interview with the little girl,
who's terrifying story is in the intro to this episode,
an intro that's generated so many emails and comments more obstrtal.

(02:03):
Throughout history, there have been stories of dolls that were dangerous.
Sometimes such tales come from voodoo legends, or from TV
shows like The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery, or from
films like Child's Play. A few strange occurrences can turn
a child's plaything into an object of terror, changing a

(02:25):
trusted doll into a totem of fear. Let me tell
you a story. And while you may find it hard
to believe the following story is true. This story took
place just a few years ago. There's a little girl
we're going to call her im. Em was a child

(02:46):
who loved to play with her dolls, but she was
also very creative and liked to decorate her dolls with
paint and markers. Now, in her mind, she was just
having fun, but it bothers her parents to see her
dolls transformed and garishly painted and occasionally dismembered creatures. One day,
they found her favorite doll with this haircut and permanent

(03:08):
marker stains on his face. It was missing a leg.
Her parents wanted to teach her a lesson, to teach
her not to mistreat her toys, so they told her
she needed to apologize to the doll. Reluctantly, she did so,
but then came the hard part. They told her she
had to throw the doll away. She didn't want to

(03:29):
do it, but they were insistent and made her take
it to the trash can and put it inside. Later
that day, her parents took the trash out to the
street for pickup. The next day, Em woke up to
find that her doll was back lying on the floor
of her room. Her parents found her there holding the
doll and accused her of getting it out of the

(03:51):
trash can. The trash is dirty and it can make
you sick, they told her. We know you like the doll,
but it needs to go away, So back into the
trash it went. And this time EM's father took the
doll himself and put it in a trash bag while
the girl watched, And then he took the bag out
to the bin and dropped it into the bottom of

(04:11):
the can. You need to stay out of the trash,
you said goodbye to your doll, he chied at her.
Don't let me catch you out here, trying to get
her back. Now. Em denied having touched the trash, but
she agreed that she would not do so. But the
next day the doll was back, and this time it

(04:31):
was in the girl's bed. When she woke up, she
screamed and her parents came running into the room. Her
mother asked the girl why she'd gotten the doll out
of the trash, but she said she hadn't. Oh, we
want to believe you, honey, But dolls don't climb out
of the trash, they told her. Yet she was insistent
she hadn't touched the trash. The doll must have come
back on its own. So the father and the daughter

(04:55):
put the doll into a plastic bag and together they
drove more than a mile away, where the little girl
watched as he threw the bag into a dumpster. This
should solve the problem, he said, and they went home.
A few days later, the whole family was planning to
take a road trip, and as they were preparing to leave,
taking their bags out of the car and loading up

(05:17):
to go, the parents heard a scream. When they went
to the car, there sitting in the car seat was
the doll. Everyone was shaken up by this, but EM's
father insisted there had to be a logical explanation. Still,
everyone was a little relieved as they watched him place

(05:39):
the doll into the trash yet again, before they all
got into their car and drove off on vacation. The
trip was uneventful. They arrived at their hotel, they got
room keys for two rooms with a connecting door, and
the father went to park the car while the rest
of the family made their way up to the new rooms,

(05:59):
where they found the dolls sitting on the bed as
if it were waiting for them when this story began.
I assured you it was true, and it is a
true story. That little girl was my daughter and the terrible,
terrible apple prankster who kept putting the doll back was me.

(06:24):
Coming up next, demonic dolls. It's actually quite unlike anything
we've ever seen before.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
A giant, hairy creature, part ape, part mass in Luckness,
a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake in the
highlands of Scotland, if a creature known as the Luckness Monster,

(07:09):
monster doll.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Welcome to monster Talk.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I'm Karen Stolsner and I'm Blake Smith. Demonic dolls, devil dolls,
monster dolls, creepy dolls. Call them when you want, But
the history of dolls that people have seen as monstrous
is quite long and full of frightening stories of the
type that will make your hair stand up on ann
and give you goose flesh. I'm quite fond of the

(07:34):
episodes of Twilight Zone that features scary dolls, or of
night gallery movies like Child's Play and the movie Magic
fit this motif as well, But many of these tales
aren't considered pure fiction. The self proclaimed demonologists Ed and
Lorraine Warren keep an allegedly cursed raggedy ann doll called
Annabelle in their home museum and claim that the doll

(07:55):
has led to deaths. Voodoo dolls are alleged to help
enable else the heck. Some heads, while seeming to be
mundane in origin, somehow are alleged to have inspired lycanthropic activity.
But perhaps no alleged the evil Doll is more famous
than Robert the Doll. There are links to some of
the stories about Robert in our show notes at monster

(08:15):
talk dot org, and there have been books and movies
made about him as well. Countless TV shows have shown
the doll and legends gather around Robert like spiderwebs in
an attic corner. As you might guess, I'm a fan
of other podcasts, and the very popular show called Lore
covered Robert in episode fifteen. I enjoy Lore. Although the host,

(08:36):
Aaron Mankey, has different purposes in mind for his show
than I do, he does tell a good story, and
I think that that episode gives you a good feel
for what people might be thinking when they go to
see Robert the Doll for the first time. A link
to that episode of Laurs in our show notes at
monster talk dot org, along with other fascinating connections. Let's
get to our interview now, but stick around because I

(08:57):
want to do a little bit more talking about Robert
after we've heard from his curator, doctor Corey Convertito, MORS tutor.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Doctor Corey Confortito has a PhD in maritime history, focusing
on the eighteenth century British naval history. Corey is the
curator of the Key West Art and Historical Society, which
oversees the Fort East Martello Museum, which is the home
of Robert the Dole. So welcome to the show, Cory.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Thank you great to be here.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
I bet this time of the year you get a
lot of questions about Robert.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
I see all year along we get questions about Robert.
I mean this same year, yeah, with Halloween, and it's
also his birthday this month, so I think that, oh,
how old is that adds to it his one hundred
and twelve one hundred and twelve.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
I heard that he received a letter from George Bush
when he turned one hundred. Is that true?

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (09:57):
He did, wow, But President Bush and then he also
got one. I think it was the year or two
Leader when Jeb Bush was governor of Florida. He got
one for his birthday as well.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Well, famous guy.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Well, they probably thought they were writting. Bob Dole was
could you tell us the story of Robert the doll
and why he's so famous?

Speaker 5 (10:20):
I suppose I guess we can start with what he is,
and then I guess how he came to be here.
Robert is a Steife doll. It's a German doll company
that's been around. I think they were established a little
bit earlier than Robert was fabricated.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
I'm they're famous. They've made the first Teddy bear for
Teddy Roosevelt.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
So they're quite well known and their production, like their
dolls are and bears are quite valuable. So he was
made and brought to the US. There was a family
that lived in Key Wes called the Atto family. They're
multi generational family that lived on the island and they

(11:04):
were of Prussian descent and Stife being in present day Germany,
there's the connection between the family.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
And the area where Robert was made.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
And so a family member of the Auto family actually
bought the doll. Four of the young boy named Robert
Eugene Auto who lived in Key West and his dad
was a doctor and his grandparents owned a pharmacy here,
so they were quite prominent family in town. They were

(11:36):
very well off family, and their young son came to
have this doll in nineteen oh four, and the doll
and the boy were inseparable for years.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
You know. The doll is quite large.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
It was life sized, but putten close to Robert Eugene
Otto the living boy size when he received him, and
they were just really inseparable. The family remembers Robert bringing
the doll around with him, taking him where he went,
talking to him, and the story goes that Robert the

(12:16):
Boy would blame Robert the doll for things that Robert
the Boy had done wrong, and so this transference possibly
created some kind of energy around the doll. And so people, uh,
you know, believe that Robert is plenty of things either,
you know whatever, Their base has their interpretations of Robert.

(12:38):
But this energy that was projected onto the doll, I
think that's really the base of the story of how
Robert got to Key West. And I'm sure you have
follow up questions, yes, yeah, for that. So I don't
want to I don't want to give away everything right
right now?

Speaker 4 (12:56):
So what are some of the events that have surrounded
the doll, and.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Maybe could if you don't mind, can we do like
what kind of events happened while Robert had the doll
and then and then maybe split that into before and
after Robert.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
Along in the picture the boy started going by Jene,
so that might add some clarity to whatever we, I
guess discussed from from now forward, I'll just call him.
The boy will be Gene and the doll will be Robert,
So that will be that will hopefully listening things usual, right,
you know, his family was, and I think that's a

(13:34):
very it's a different time when when obviously Gene was
a little boy. So I'm not sure that any of
the stories when like the initial stories about the doll,
a sign from the odd relationship that people felt that
Jane and Robert had. I don't think there's many stories
like early on about goings on in the house. Most

(13:55):
of the things start coming out later on in life.
And I think that is a a time frame issue
when people just didn't really divulge their personal business and
talk about things like this, especially.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Really early twentieth century.

Speaker 5 (14:10):
So a lot of the stories about Robert and the
problems that people felt that Robert was causing kind of
came out. I'd say probably in like nineteen twenties. People
would say they would hear noises in the house and
they would hear Jane talk to the doll, but they
would hear in a different voice the doll answer him.

(14:32):
That was usually what the family remembers the most about
the early relationship that and Robert had. Later on, Jane
moved away, moved to France to study art. He was
a really talented artist wanted to follow this as his
life's passion. Went to France, studied art and stayed away

(14:57):
for a while because they met what was to be
his future wife, and so he returned as an adult.
He'd left a teenager late or early twenties and then
had come back and had been married. So the situation,
I think it kind of escalated more once Eugene returned
to Key West with his wife and took possession of

(15:20):
the house, and that's when they started getting a little
bit more pronounced. I think neighbors took notice, and obviously
with other people non family members.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Living in the house, i e.

Speaker 5 (15:31):
Jane's wife, I think that that sort of prompted a
little bit more hubbub about the relationship and potentially what
was going on. A lot of it was two different
voices coming from a room that only contained Eugene and Robert,
So that I think was one of their big concerns,
and that was something that circulated around Key West. The

(15:53):
most people would be at the house and they would
say they would hear footsteps in rooms that were said
to be vacant. Some people said they would see Robert
in one window in the house and in a different window,
you know, within a couple of minutes, and nobody was
in the room. So how would he have moved if

(16:15):
nobody was there? So possibly just on his own. So
I think that was a lot of the strange goings
on in the house.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
So was there malice do you think in the activities
at that point or was it just bizarre?

Speaker 1 (16:28):
I mean, I think it's more bizarre, and I don't know.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
I mean I should probably just say that, you know,
I try to learn about and obviously I'm for what
I do. I look for facts for things and trying
to understand, well, being a story and we kind of
rely on that.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
So there's a lot of speculation, a lot of stories,
and you can find it.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
You know, so many things on the Internet about Robert
and these you know, it goes from docile to completely
you know, insane what you can find out there about
him and what people have written and said that they've
experienced or they heard this happened. And there's lots of
different stories about how he was created. And I think
that if you dial back to what Robert really is

(17:13):
and where he was from, I meaner stories about him
being possessed or having voodoo because he was made by
a Behamian servant working for the Auto family.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, like, I know that's not true because he is
a stif doll.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
We've had We've had multiple discussions with Stife's company historians
that have validated that Robert is part of a series
that was done in the year that he was purchased
for Eugene Auto. So, you know, once you kind of
remove those voodoo stories, a lot of the more crazy antics,
I think also become removed as well, because it's the

(17:51):
same folks and the same bits of information that are
basing it on voodoo that have like the more Robert
you know.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Sets things on fire. Well, you know, we've we've.

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Never found anything to substantiate any of that. Nobody's ever
called and complained that Robert has set their house on
fire or people. I mean one story was a person
was set on fire by Robert and they had to
run to the ocean and jump in to put themselves out.
I mean, it's it's borders on a little insanity.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, you know, straw men typically avoid fire. I don't
know what he's stuffed with, but you know.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, yeah, usually they too.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
Well that's interesting.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
You know, it really depends, I think on what version
of the story you're listening to and what has actually.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Been complained about.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
I mean a lot of people complain about him, and
there's definitely people that lived in Key West that have
been interviewed that felt uncomfortable in the house, felt unco
that felt a very uncomfortable spirit. What that is attributed to,
I mean obviously to Robert, yes, But what exactly it is?
I mean, it is it malice? Is it just a

(19:01):
bit of bizarre behavior. Is it a child impish like
behavior to do mischief? You know, people have their own
theories and it's you know, I think I think it
probably dials back from malice specifically because they seem to
be more outrageous stories that nobody can actually substantiate.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
So we kind of the museum.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
Likes to say, or we we think he has. There's
obviously an energy about him. That's that's an absolute. What
that energy is and how it affects different people, I
think it depends on people's attitudes toward Robert, how they
treat him, and then what response they get from him
varies because some people have a very good experience with them.

(19:47):
Some people have horrible experiences and say, you know, terrible
things happen as soon as they leave him. So it's
you know, I think it's all in his interpretation of
the encounter and the experience.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
Well, it's very interesting to hear that Robert was part
of a series. I wonder if there are other Robert
the dolls in existence somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, there are, there is one.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
Basically what he was was he was made for stife.
They made smaller versions of Robert, but I mean Robert
wasn't made as a Robert.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
He was made as a court gesture.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
That's the series was very circus like court jestery.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
He would have originally had on something similar to.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
A court gesture with a multi colored almost Harlequin looked
to him rosy cheeks had on. There was another one
that the Stife Company historian came across. He Robert would
have been a window decoration alongside other dolls of the
same size. They were just meant as a window display,

(21:00):
and then Stife was selling much smaller versions for sale.
So we think, and the Stife historian has kind of
led us. I mean, that's where we've learned a lot
about the origins of the doll. We think that because
the family was very well off, and because it was
meant for a birthday present, that either of the series

(21:21):
was ending and they were going to change out the
window display, that those dolls became available, or somebody came
in and just offered a lot of money for the
doll because they wanted to bring it back.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
So there are other dolls, not very many of that size.

Speaker 5 (21:36):
Most of them are much smaller, and by appearance, he
honestly wouldn't recognize them. Robert's face has faded quite a
bit over the years, so like he's lost his rosy cheeks,
and he would have had color like not I want
to say lipstick because it seems not nice to say,
but he would have had some color in his lips
where he doesn't now, so a lot of that stuff

(21:58):
has faded away.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Would have been a court jester stroke harlequin.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
That's interesting because a lot of people think that he's
a sailah from the outfit what's left of it.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
Yeah, that that is an outfit that Eugene had to
have put on him, and we think that that was
probably Eugene's own clothing from one he was younger.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Is that big?

Speaker 5 (22:21):
Yeah, No, he's the size of before. He's the size
of a four year old child. I mean he's almost
four feet tall. Yeah, that's not that's not an original
costume for him. That would have been We think it
was probably Gene Autos. There's a picture that his Jeene's
sister had el Spith, I think her name is of
Gene in a sailor suit and it's it's he's kind

(22:44):
of far in the distance. So we've tried to make
it looks very very similar.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
In appearance.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
So we think that was probably at one point Jeane's
clothing that then he put on the doll.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I am. I'm just delighted that you're sort of popping
the balloon of some of these stories, right off the bat,
because that's kind of where our show tends to skew.
But from a historical perspective, I'm wondering these stories themselves.
Are they mostly from an oral tradition or is there
actually written testimony of anyone who saw something strange, newspaper
stories or any like, what historical documentation do you have

(23:21):
for this sort of attitude that there was something bizarre
about the doll or the relationship that Robert Eugene had
with the doll.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Some people are still alive.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
I mean, Gene only died in the seventies, so there
are still a lot of folks who you know, lived here,
very long standing families in this town. I mean, in fact,
the next stort of the neighbor that lived across the
street from the autos, they i mean they've owned that
house for you know, forty fifty years. I mean they

(23:50):
remember Anne still being alive and living there. I mean
the guy across the street was very good friends with Anne,
who was Jean's wife, so they remember them very vividly.
I mean he's very elderly now, but there's I mean,
there's always been an interest in Robert, and especially when
he came to the museum in the nineties, I think
people started digging around for information. I mean, there's the

(24:13):
people that purchased gene Auto's house after he passed away
and left the premises they inherited the doll because the
doll was still in the house and did not take
the doll with her.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
When she moved.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
And the son of the people that purchased the house
is still alive, and I mean he remembers things, so
you know, while he doesn't remember Jene specifically, he lived
in the same house with Robert for a time before
his mother donated the doll to the museum, so he
felt something.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
So you know, we do.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Have we have people that we can probe for information
on Robert, their experiences Robert, what they remember. I mean,
of course there was some newspaper, but that was later
on after Jean died. I think people always thought him
to be an odd duck, and when he died, I

(25:11):
think a lot of people sort of becoming more vocal
about how bizarre they felt his behavior was. You know,
he moved in pretty influential circles because his family had money,
but also because he was a very accomplished artist. And
Anne was actually a concert pianist. I think she you know,

(25:32):
she played in New York and they wrote music together,
so they were they moved in quite affluent circles, and
so you know, you don't find that people are very
vocal about the affluent.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
You know, it's only after they died they start making
comments because of course they don't want to fall out
of favor with their friends who have money, so they
would never you know, typically say something.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Negative.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
So you know, you're finding a lot of these stories
later on, after Gene died and the house changed hands and.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know, Robert.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
Was moving into you know, in with a different family
and then ultimately with the museum. So that's when a
lot of this comes out. But a lot of people
do remember and they're still alive.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Episode.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Is there a book in the works at all? Because
it sounds like it would be interesting while these people
are still alive to get their stories and too, because
you have certainly a lot more information than you can
find online. A lot of it seems to be just
a folklore and myth.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:36):
David Sloane, who run the Ghost Tour a QS, he
actually started the original Ghost Hour because QS is I
guess by all intents and purposes considered quite haunted. There's
quite a lot of houses there was, you know, with
belts of yellow fever. So we had huge losses of
life at times. So David Sloane actually started a ghost

(26:58):
tour company down here. I would say, I don't even
know an He did that probably the mid nineties. And
David always had some affinity for Robert. He was when
he Robert got donated to the museum. David was very
inted in finding out a lot about the doll and
has actually I think it's been about two years the

(27:19):
book's been out now.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
David wrote a book.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
We gave him access to a lot of our archival
material and he did the leg works. The museum is
just we're a small museum. We don't have the manpower
to do that. And David and I've known each other
for years, so it made sense for David to take
the lead on that to find things. So he spent
you know, days at the library contacting family members, contacting

(27:45):
folks who would have remembered Jane and Anne living down here,
and interviewing people and asking for photographs. So David did
a lot of leg work and David did put out
a book must be almost two years ago now that
David did. So he did and it's not something the
museum could have undertaken.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
So we're very happy and we gave it.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Like I said, we gave him access to anything that
we had to make sure that the book was as
thorough as possible.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
We'll put a link in the show notes. I know,
people who actually are quite afraid of Robert are very
deferential to him, even from afar, and I wonder there's
this habit of sending letters of apology or something like
that is can you explain that or talk about that
or what's that about?

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (28:31):
You know again, I think this goes back to people's
experiences and everybody who interacts with Robert, whether it's you know,
some people don't even interact with him in perse and
some people feel that they've interacted with him online by
learning his story or watching videos on YouTube or wherever
they can find them. And each person obviously has a

(28:54):
very different experience with Robert, and they whatever it is,
the Robert I suppose, I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
This is something that's been long standing.

Speaker 5 (29:06):
Even before I was at the museum, apology letters started
filtering in from folks who had visited and felt that
they had done something incorrect to Robert and needed to
apologize to something because they were experiencing a string of
bad luck, you know, and that varied in the degree.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I mean sometimes it was just as simple as our
flights were delayed when we were leaving Key West to Okay.

Speaker 5 (29:31):
We came home from Key West and we found like
a dead bat in.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Our washing machine, you know, just weird things.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
And so we get letters, emails, people contact him, honestly.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I mean, Robert has his own Facebook page and his own.

Speaker 5 (29:46):
Twitter page, So people contact him anyway that they can,
from all over the world and just apologize or want
to know why they're having bad luck because they just
will watched a video or felt that they were very
respectful to Robert when they visited, but they still are
having these horrible things happened to them and want Robert

(30:08):
to lift whatever it is, whatever negative energy surrounding these people.
So we get all sorts of letters and I mean
full call, people call.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
You know, it's incredible.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Isn't there a particular protocol that some people believe in
for taking photographs?

Speaker 5 (30:33):
Yeah, I mean there is, and people are meant to
ask permission of Robert to take his photo.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
He doesn't.

Speaker 5 (30:42):
He's classically not enjoyed his photo being taken. He has
really messed with people's cameras. And Travel Channel was down
and they actually their main camera that they brought with
them broke, so they had to use their backup camera
to film them mysteries at the museum.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
I think it was okay, come down and done it
from the Travel.

Speaker 5 (31:01):
Channel, and you know, their camera was messed ups, and
these are professional people then know how to operate their equipment.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
So they actually all.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
Sent apology letters to Robert after they left because they
they were completely convinced that Robert had done something to
their equipment.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
So it sounds like Robert is them an apology.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
I'm not sure that's how it works. Make it the
other way around.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Can you can you apologize via Twitter or does it
strictly have to be a letter or how does that work?

Speaker 6 (31:36):
Mean? You know?

Speaker 5 (31:37):
I mean, you know, in this day and age, I
think Robert has to be slightly adaptable to people's apologies.
And like I said, sometimes it comes from people that I.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Have never even met him.

Speaker 5 (31:46):
I mean, he has a woman in Indonesia who believes
that Robert is going to come kill her and her
family and sends things privately, and that's not something the
museum would necessarily like to her. Letters are not you know,
we try to be selective with what we put out
there because I think people feel that they are really

(32:06):
writing to Robert and put anything out, you know, and
on on the internet.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's not necessarily.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
Something that they would like because it's a private letter
to an entity. And so, you know, we we have
this person Indonesia who is completely apparently convinced, and so
she's she emails him at least three or four times
a day and has done, for gosh, the last five

(32:34):
or six months, and then actually went to the museum
social media page started emailing to the point that, you know,
the museum staff who checks the social media said.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Oh my god, you know, do we need to be
concerned about this because of the.

Speaker 5 (32:48):
Town and she's never met him, She's never she's never
left Indonesia, so I mean, he's very far reaching. So
he gets messages from people who I don't don't have
access or don't have the ability. I mean, there's no
way that she can write this many letters per day
and actually post them. So you know, the museum is
adaptable to how he receives any kind of correspondence right here.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
He's got a Facebook page too, doesn't he.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Ya, he does, He's got his own, Yeah, he does, well,
he does.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
It's fortunate. I guess they don't have an unlike button, right, so,
I mean, no one can offend him too much on Facebook.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Got an angry button, I.

Speaker 5 (33:27):
Guess, Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, some some people say
things that they don't believe in him on his Facebook page,
and you know, Robert typically doesn't have to respond to
any of that because anybody else who's very supportive of
Robert and and follows him will just take up Yeah,

(33:47):
yeah he does.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
He really does.

Speaker 5 (33:49):
People people just you know, they gravitate toward him, good
and good and bad.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
So, so Robert has been in the museum a while now.
And then he was on that TV show with Zach
Maggin's Yeah, so what was that like?

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Interesting?

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, interesting?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Robert. Robert never left Florida after he arrived.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
We cannot find any documentation that once Jean's family members
brought Robert to Florida, that Robert has ever left the
state of Florida since, and so travel Channel reached out
to us asking if we would be keen on this
bringing Robert to this program, and you know, we were

(34:33):
obviously very apprehensive about doing that because you know, he's
he's fragile, and you know, from the angle that I
have to come at it.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
I'm the curator.

Speaker 5 (34:42):
I have to make sure that if objects are moving around,
that they are very well protected, that they're safe to
do that, that they're in such a fragile condition, you know.
Never mind that he's in a very human environment and
I'm taking him to a very dry environment of Las Vegas.
That we're not compromising a museum artifact, because I know
we all, I.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Mean and all of us are guilty of it.

Speaker 5 (35:03):
Even at the museum we refer to Robert as a human,
you know, we call him him. We don't call it it,
but you know, we I have to have some realization
that Robert actually is a museum artifact and so he
has to be treated as such.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
So that was our big concern.

Speaker 5 (35:17):
Uh, And the Travel Channel people actually were super about it,
and you know, I'm not sure, you know, I know,
they of course they have an angle about what they
were wanting to portray Robert as and what we were
hoping I guess what they were hoping to to get
their viewership to believe about him, and you know it,

(35:39):
it was an interesting It was an interesting experience. I'm
sure we get a lot of pr traction out of
it for the museum and for Robert. So, I mean,
we saw his Facebook numbers jump and people were paying
a lot more attention and people, I mean people were
calling the museum to tell us how upset because they thought,
you know, they just saw Robert in Las Vegas and

(35:59):
they just thought with the museum had sold him, or
the museum had our museum had moved him to Vegas permanently.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
And we got some really.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Rude correspondence from people in phone calls saying.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
How dare we, you know, how dare we move him
to Vegas?

Speaker 5 (36:16):
And how he's meant to be in Key West and
how we're all going to be cursed because of it.
So it was really I found that probably more fascinating
than anything, were people's response to Robert leaving Key West,
even if it was only temporary.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
He was going to get his.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Own Vegas Act.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
And whatever's cursed in Vegas stays in Vegas, so that's
all good.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Yeah, right, Well, we made sure a lot of it
hit his social media pages.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I actually got him.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
We took him because I mean he's huge, to be fair,
you know, he's the size of a child. So we
were uh we took him into one of the casinos
and asked if we can actually put him at a
slot machine and take his photo nice and uh yeah,
because you know, when in Vegas he might as well.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Uh And it was. It was absolutely insane people. I
had to go talk to.

Speaker 5 (37:06):
The pit boss about it, and we had security around
us because you know, the guy said, you have a
one because he traveled in a body bag effectively, so
he could I mean really he was in a big
suit bag because we couldn't take the chance of anybody
spilling anything on him. So we walked into the casino with,

(37:28):
you know, holding like a kid a body bag, and
so people are obviously staring at you and are going,
what is going on?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
How did he? How did he do? Did he do?

Speaker 1 (37:38):
No? He wasn't allowed to play, that was the rule.
We could only take a photo.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
Well, he's quite over age, I think because he wasn't.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
God forbid, you know, he won and he's I guess
I guess the I R S probably couldn't come after
him for for.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
His winnings their share of the winnings, so they said,
just you know, a couple photos, and the pit boss
had to stand behind us, and we had security flanking
us to make sure that nobody came up to us,
and we didn't actually do anything that we.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
I mean, you know, who knows what we're up to?
Me what a great story?

Speaker 5 (38:12):
Sure, I'm carrying han to Dollar around and he's playing
slot machines. I mean, we could have that could have
been some kind of ridiculous story to do something else that.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
We were heavily guarded when we were there.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
So you were talking about the agendas of these TV
shows and the angles that they take. Do you feel
like there's a lot of pressure for you guys there
at the museum to play up the supernatural aspects of
Robert's story.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
I think so.

Speaker 5 (38:40):
I think so, And you know, and of course we
have to be very conscientious of not putting people off,
because you know, it's we're the museum has to deal
in fact. But we also don't want to discourage people
feeling that the way, you know, the way that they
would naturally feel. So you know, we we do not
say for anybody like whatever our personal beliefs are, whether

(39:02):
or not. I mean there's staff members who really believe
in Robert and talk to him all the time when
they're in the museum, and there are staff members that
just say, you know, really, this is you know, it's
it's a doll. So you know, we can't let our
personal beliefs come into that and what the museum allows
out there.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
I mean, you know, my take on it is.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
There's there has to be something to it because all
these people can't be wrong. I mean, he's contacted by
so many individuals talking about so many things, and how
he affects so many people's lives. Like who is the
museum to say yes or no that you're right or wrong.
So the museum has to be very ambiguous. But we

(39:48):
certainly will not make up something just to to follow
through with an agenda, let's say, for a program like that.
I mean, we've been contacted by a lot of programs.
I don't want to single them out like they're the
only ones. I mean, you know, he's been to paranormal conference,
and you know, I know that they were some people

(40:11):
there were very much trying to push something, and then
the other people were just like, Okay, I'm just curious
and I want to learn somethings. So we just try
to be very middle of the road and let people
make their own decisions.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
I'm sure it can be a good gateway to history
in many ways too.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Would people still come see Robert if Eugene had just
been an adult with an attachment to a doll? I mean,
like if if he had a mundane doll history, except
that his owner had been peculiar without the supernatural elements.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
I you know, who knows. I don't know what the
fascination is for people. I can't say.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
I mean, some people are attracted to the Roberts story,
the sort of the Eugene story more because I don't
know if that's something that they can identify with. I
don't know if it's like a lonely little boy thing
that people you know growing up and you have an
attachment to, you know, other people or objects. So some
people find the fascination and the attachment and not necessarily Robert,

(41:16):
where other people are just fascinated by the supernatural and
by Robert, and you know who, I don't know, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
What people come in.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
People come to the museum because specifically because they don't
believe in Robert and they just want to prove something
that nothing will happen to them, so, you know, who knew.
I can't really say whether or not people would still come.
I think that they would because they do now for
all sorts of reasons. So if the circumstance changed but

(41:47):
Robert was still on display, yeah, of course people would
probably come to see them because they still have their
own justifications for that and reasonings to visit Robert.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
It's kind of not really a follow up, but I
just thought of it, honest, ask is is anyone who
has been interviewed about what they've heard with Robert and
Eugene talking to each other? Did they describe the voice
that they heard?

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Did?

Speaker 2 (42:11):
I mean, I'm just curious whether it was the voice
of you know how sometimes kids, you know, or even
like almost like a ventriloquism, or was it a completely
different alien you know, I don't mean like from another planet,
I mean alien as not the voice of Eugene. Does
that make sense?

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah? It does. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (42:29):
David Sloan again, who's the one who authored the book
on Robert, carried out those interviews. I sat in on
a couple of them, and he taped them, so he
shared some of those with me. I don't remember if
it was mentioned. I don't remember personally, and I know
he interviewed people that heard either Robert talking or Eugene

(42:52):
throwing his voice, whichever the case is, that you know
you believe, I don't remember. David Is would be a
better person to ask for that. I'm not sure what
the voice would have sounded like. I mean, for the
fact that people would follow up to say that they
thought there were two people in the real My gut
instinct is that the voice was quite different, because wouldn't

(43:15):
you just think it was Eugene talking to himself if
the voice was similar.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
Yeah, yeah, And certainly when these stories are passed on,
they become embellished and it's very difficult to know what
really happened.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Right.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
So you were talking about Eugene's art and how accomplished
and well known he was, and is do you actually
have any of his artworks on display in the museum.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
We don't. We own some of his artwork, we don't
have it on display. Some of the pieces.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
It's we think it's probably it's probably best security wise
that they're not, because they're smaller and people are I mean,
of course whenever we would never accuse of me. But
you know, we certainly are more cast with Eugene's artwork
because of its size and because of the information circulating

(44:07):
around about Robert, and if somebody had an attachment to Robert,
which they do, I mean, he gets love letters and
presents and all sorts of things. So the museum feels that.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
It's probably for the best that we don't.

Speaker 5 (44:21):
Leave original artwork out because the museum is busy, but
it's not fully I mean, it's supervised, but it's not
like we don't have security guards in that room twenty
four hours a day.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
I think we'd actually like to talk a little bit
about the museum itself too. But I have one more
sort of Robert question, which is I've heard that Chucky
from Child's Play was based on Robert. Do you know
if there's any truth in that?

Speaker 5 (44:47):
No, absolutely not, even that the I don't remember the
director's name of the film. I mean, he even came
up because he's obviously been asked this question over and
over again.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
He said now, awesome, that's really interesting.

Speaker 5 (45:00):
He said no, And I know David tried to follow
up with him who's writing the book, because that's something
that David and I have like a real bugbear about,
is this. And I understand. I get it because they're
dolls and they have owners, and you know, Chucky killed
people and Robert didn't. But I understand it being based
on something. But even the movies directors come out and said, no,
there's no basis for that. Yeah, I know it's out.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
I mean it's everywhere.

Speaker 5 (45:22):
I mean people, it's is it is, and there's you know,
the museum says it isn't, but you know there's.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
There's plenty of other websites that do.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
So okay, well, we wanted to ask you a bit
more about the museum. So what kind of work does
curating a museum entail.

Speaker 5 (45:40):
I'm responsible for all the objects in our collection and
writing all of the didactic information that gets put out there,
as well as doing the displays, so kind of kind
of a kind of it keeps me extremely busy. So
that's that's kind of my job in Nutshell and doing

(46:02):
all sorts of dealing with inquiries and it's fascinating work.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
I mean, Robert is one.

Speaker 5 (46:09):
Of you know, we've we probably have at least thirty
thousand objects in the collection, so he's one of So
he's uh, I mean, he's a big responsibility because he's
one of our more well known objects. So he does
get we have a bias toward him because of course.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
You know, he is he is more social than some
of the other ones. He is pretty special, so we
do a bias. But that's that's my job. Usually.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
What sort of other objects do you have in the museum,
What what notable historical type things, What do you like
to highlight besides Robert.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Well, so Robert is in forty Smartella Museum.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
The historical society that I work for, actually we have
three museums, so Robert is at the Fort. There are
we tend to each one has its own identity. Each
of the museum sites has its own identity. We run
the lighthouse as well, so that has a completely separate
identity and attracts a completely different set of visitors. And

(47:11):
then we operate another museum that's the Museum of Art
and History.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Of Key West.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
So there's a little bit of crossover between the Fort
and the Museum of Art and History. So each one
we try to highlight different objects in each place because
let's say, for instance, the lighthouse attracts people that are
more interested in military history usually or nautical history, or

(47:37):
you know, people just love lighthouses, so they go there.
A lot of visitors to the fort are really interested
in Robert. I mean, he is one of the big
drives for people to go to the fore. I mean
there's a lot of other objects there, and that's what
we tend to find with visitors. They'll come for Robert
and they learn so much more because we try to
talk about the history of Key West in there. In

(47:59):
that museum, we talked about all the different industries. The
museum itself is a Civil War era fort that was
used through the Civil War. It was used through the
Spanish American War. They used it during World War one
and two. They also because Key West is the closest
to Cuba, when there was the Cuban Missile crisis, that

(48:19):
actually that fort is the closest building to or one
of the closest buildings to Cuba. So when Kennedy actually
came to Key West during the Cuban Missile crisis, you know,
there was a lot going on the fort militarily, so
people liked that fort in particular because of its military
draw So we highlight a lot of that history. What

(48:41):
that also means is it when you have a military history,
especially civil war, and especially before disease prevention and disease
control was much more mainstream, A lot of the soldiers
that were stationed in Key West, you know, died because
we're in a very tropical environment, allow fever outbreaks happened

(49:01):
a lot, and they would quarantine at the fort. So
I think there's always been this idea of death and
a little bit of a darkness surrounding it. And so
Robert was a natural fit for the fort when he
was donated because I kind of had that connotation anyway,

(49:22):
And I think a lot of it is because the
history and history you're looking in the past, it's gone,
so it has that sort of error of not being
here anymore, because it's like industries that are that are defunct,
So you have I think that kind of that same mindset.
So Robert was a natural fit to be out there.
And then other objects started filtering in.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
I mean, once you have I guess.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
One haunted object, everybody calls you to donate or talk
to you about other objects.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Actually, before Robert was there, we had a.

Speaker 5 (49:52):
Donation I think it was in the fifties, maybe early
nineteen sixties of a horse drawn hearse from the funeral
Pollard down here, one of them down here.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
The funeral director donated it.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
Because they obviously moved into a vehicle for their funeral
processions and they had this horse drawn hearse that had
carried you know, God who knows how many bodies, and
that was donated to us in the sixties. So we've
always had that as an organization and that's always been
on display.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Then we had Robert. Then there was a.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
Very really creepy, horrible story about a guy that stole
a woman out of the Keys Cemetery. The marker because
there was no headstone per se, because it was an
entire above ground mausoleum.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Built for her. There was a marble sign.

Speaker 5 (50:52):
That had her name on it and you know, her
birth date and her death date, and one that the
mausoleum floated. Somebody salvage the this plaque, this sign, marble
stone sign, and the museum actually has it.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
They donated it to the museum.

Speaker 7 (51:10):
So I'm curious.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Is anyone ever offered to buy Robert?

Speaker 5 (51:14):
Absolutely, we've had phone calls from people offering all, you know,
insane amounts of money for you know, truthful or not,
who knows.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
I I don't know.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
I usually get lucky enough to field these phone calls.
And yeah, I mean, you know, a million, a billion dollars. Okay,
she's not for sale. Yeah, he's not for sale as
a museum objects. You know, we don't we're not in
the habit of selling museum objects. We had a woman
call saying that.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
She was she was the I don't know the somehow related.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
Oh, she was Eugene Auto's daughter, and she wanted the
doll and I said, okay, you know, obviously I'll entertain
the phone conversation.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
So I said, oh, okay, so what are you proposing?

Speaker 5 (52:05):
And she said, a whole bunch of numbers, and I
just said, well, you know, they didn't have children, so
I don't.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Know how you know you're possibly the daughter if they
didn't have children. And so then she said something really.

Speaker 5 (52:16):
Nasty to me on the phone and told me I
would be cursed and hung up on me.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
So, you know, we get all we get all sorts.

Speaker 5 (52:22):
I mean, I don't think we've ever had a legitimate
offer for Robert that people can follow through with, but
we get a lot of phone calls allegedly offering to
purchase him.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Well, if we go to Key West and want to
see the museum, I mean you said there's more than
you've actually got three locations, But can you buy like
one pass and it covers all three or how does
that work?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah, yeah you can.

Speaker 4 (52:45):
Great, Okay, go to get out there someday.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
I've always wanted to go down there, and there seems
like there's a lot of things to see, so that
sounds nat Yeah. And there's a beach too, apparently I had.
If you haven't heard that, that's a just one.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Yeah, it's it's tough. It's tough living here.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
They're that that interesting cemetery as well, with all of
the witty epitaphs and some strange music.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
The QS Cemetery is I think it's one of the
most underrated things to do down here. You know, you
go to places like New Orleans and they have special
tours all the time for and people are just so
engaged with the cemeteries, and here they do as good
a job as they can because it's still an operational cemetery.

(53:37):
Uh So they you know, they can't do like regular tours,
and they just encourage people to go through on their own.
And they have wonderful maps online, so they don't want
to you know, disrupt services or tell people, you know,
run tours while families are grieving, So you know, they
encourage you to do it on your own. And I
don't know that enough people do that. I mean, there's

(53:58):
some really areas headstones, there's some really interesting people that
are that are buried here, and you have I think
one of the more fascinating aspects of it is and
it kind of I think speaks to Key West uh
in general historically, is you know you've got everybody's in

(54:18):
one cemetery, so you've you know, you have the Jewish population,
of the Catholic population, you have blacks, you have white
wo Hispanics.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
I mean, they're all buried in and amongst each other.
So it's a really neat I think, cultural comment.

Speaker 5 (54:34):
But also I think it gives you a really good
idea of who lived here in a lot of the
history in Q West and some of the humor that
goes with it. I mean, somebody has their pet deer. Actually,
the Auto family has their deer buried with them. They
had a pet deer and they had you know, somebody

(54:54):
has on a woman wrote like a see I told
you I was sick on her headstone.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
So there's lots of little funny.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
That's really funny. But you know, I think it's kind
of lamentable that to some degree a lot of these
ghosting TV shows seem to have played up the idea of,
you know, haunted graveyards and cemeteries. I think historically there
are places where you remember the people and it's historical.
You remember the history of the people. People you might not.

(55:24):
You might stop and see something interesting and like want
to find out more about that person who did this
thing or who was remembered for this thing, or or
at least think about them right in the context that
they had and you know all the other things that
come with that, which you know, the brevity of life
and so on. But they're underrated. They're underrated. I think
our listeners probably like them, but you know, well, I

(55:45):
think a lot of.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
Them were Historically you treated it as parks and the
people go there and have lunch, and so they didn't
quite have the stigma that they often have today. Corey,
we have a question that we like to ask all
of our guests, so our final question, and that is
what's your favorite monster?

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I I don't know.

Speaker 5 (56:03):
There's just so many to pick from. I would say,
I don't know. I'm kind of since I'm a historian.
I think I'm a little old school, and I would
just stick to like a good classic like Frankenstein.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
It's nice, can't go wrong.

Speaker 5 (56:18):
I mean, yeah, I think I'm just you know, I'd
like to keep it simple, and I think we've had before,
so that's good.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Well, I think someone will throw something at their iPod
if I don't say, well, technically Frankenstein was not the monster,
but you know, it depends on how you look at it,
and certainly within the Hammer films and their interpretation of it,
the doctor Frankenstin did become the monster in many ways.
But I actually just came back from watching a young
young Frankenston on a special one night big screen presentation

(56:46):
last night. I just the whole idea of reanimating the dead.
It ties in nicely with this episode. Anyway. Definitely, I
think it's a great choice.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, excellent. Thanks, but yeah, I think thank you so
much for coming on the show. We've been talking about
wanting to do a rob at the Doll Show for
years now, so we're very very happy and we're really
excited about this one.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
And thank you so much for your work in preserving
history and making it available to people. That's really important.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Yeah, thank you. That's really what we do it for.

Speaker 5 (57:15):
You know, working for a nonprofits not always the most glorious,
so you know, it's things and just getting out there
and getting people to learn really makes the job so
much more rewarding.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Most you've been listening to Monster Talk, I'm Blake Smith.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
And I'm Karen Stolsner.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
You just heard an interview with doctor Corey Covertito about
Robert the Doll in his Strange History. As you heard,
there's a particular atmosphere surrounding Robert in his exhibit at
Key West. Corey called it an energy. But I want
to talk a little bit about that idea. In his
book The Science of Superstition, psychology professor Bruce Hood tell

(57:54):
us about a fascinating experiment in which people were asked
to try on a sweater. It's a simple experimental idea.
Would people be willing to try on a clean sweater
from a stranger. Most people wouldn't mind, But when Bruce
tells them the sweater belonged to a notorious serial killer,
Suddenly few people are willing to touch the sweater. Why.

(58:15):
It's because we have an idea of tainted items. The
things we experience, even the way we rate the quality
of food and drink, is heavily influenced by expectation and
mood and a number of complicated feelings beyond the immediate
visceral act of experiencing whatever it is we're trying. A
big idea in the study of superstition is that people

(58:35):
attribute agency to particular patterns of events and sensations. Superstitions
come from the very powerful effect of our brain finding
patterns and matching them to a particular cause. If you
wear green socks and your team winds, and then you
wear green socks again later and your team wins, it's
the socks. It couldn't be the skill of the players

(58:57):
or the random variations that happened during a game. No, Clearly,
your footwear choices are really the deciding factor. What else
could explain it? Okay, that's a silly example, but that's
the kind of stuff the superstition's made of. There's a
mental effect called confirmation bias which comes up again and
again when we research why people believe bizarre and unlikely things.

(59:18):
Confirmation bias is a tendency to see things which confirm
to your belief and to ignore things which don't match
the pattern. If you've ever lived with someone who frequently
left the seat up on the toilet, you might find
yourself thinking, he always leaves the seat up, Yet what
if sometimes he doesn't? Would you notice? Why would you?
That's not the pattern you're looking for. Attribution is a

(59:42):
big challenge in researching the paranormal. When something peculiar happens,
was it caused by aliens? Was it a ghost? Could
it have been demons? Did anything even really happen? If
something did happen, was it really peculiar? This whole problem
of attribution, Who are what caused that stranger or that
unusual feeling is something to consider very closely when thinking

(01:00:03):
about Robert the doll and. Another important psychological effect is
called priming, the setting of expectations, whether consciously or unconsciously,
before an encounter takes place, just like listening to creepy
music and seeing other scary trailers primes you for an
experience at a horror film. Imagine hearing Legends and Laura
surrounding this doll Robert before finally coming to see him

(01:00:25):
on display. Robert isn't just a dolly museum, and he's
not just adorned with a sailor outfit and filled with straw.
Robert is decorated with thousands of stories and more than
a century of lore. He's stuffed with meaning as much
as he's stuffed with straw. I don't think it's surprising
that people find Robert frightening, but I hope that listening

(01:00:45):
to these ideas, and perhaps reading some of the material
I've linked to, will help you see that there are
many very plausible reasons to be skeptical of Robert's allege's
supernatural powers. No disrespect intended to Robert, of course. Monster
Talk theme music is by Pete Steally Monkeys. The introduction
segments music is the song Creepy Doll by Jonathan Colton.

(01:01:09):
Stay tuned up to the altro to hear the full
version of that amazing song. Thanks again for listening.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
This has been a Monster House presentation.

Speaker 7 (01:02:11):
Been a town in the woods at the top of
a hill, there's a house where no one lands, so
you take a big bag of your big city money
there and buy it. But at night, when the house
is dark.

Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
And you're all alone.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
There's a noise upstairs.

Speaker 7 (01:02:32):
At the top of the stairs, there's a door, and
you take a deep breath and try it, and.

Speaker 6 (01:02:38):
The flashlight shows you something moving just inside the door.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
There's a tatter dress.

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
And a feeling you have.

Speaker 8 (01:02:49):
Felt somewhere before. And I've a creeping down that bothers
ruined down always.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
And the creamy.

Speaker 8 (01:03:07):
That is Ballad. He's got a pretty bound follow holders.

Speaker 7 (01:03:17):
So you scream and you close the door, and you
tell yourself it was just that dream. In the morning,
you head into town because you want to go antiqueing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
In the store there's a.

Speaker 6 (01:03:32):
Strange old man with a wandering eye and a withered
And when he hands you the old wooden box, you
can hear his old bones creaking.

Speaker 7 (01:03:44):
And you know what you we'll find inside the moment
that you see.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
But some once carved.

Speaker 7 (01:03:53):
Your name into the tarnest silver keys.

Speaker 8 (01:04:00):
I had to creepy di radvoice ballot. It's got a
bruin d it's always oh, I like a creepy di
rat hooice ballot, and it's got a pretty nall you

(01:04:20):
when the gun away the dolls way. When you're fixing,
the doll says it like one to.

Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
Dolls in your house, and your.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Your bad the.

Speaker 8 (01:04:41):
Dolls in your.

Speaker 7 (01:04:59):
Now it's lazy. You head downstairs because you just can't sleep,
so you make some tea, and the doll, disapprovingly asks
if you really need that much money.

Speaker 6 (01:05:12):
You decide that you've had enough, and.

Speaker 8 (01:05:15):
You locked the doll in the wood and box.

Speaker 7 (01:05:19):
You put the box in the fireplace next.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
To your bag of big city money.

Speaker 7 (01:05:25):
As the smoke fills up your tiny room, there's nothing
you can do.

Speaker 5 (01:05:32):
Far too lick, you.

Speaker 7 (01:05:34):
See the one inside the boxes you.

Speaker 8 (01:05:41):
And then a creepy do Row's ballad, He's gotta ruin down,
it's always oh, And then a creepy do Row's ballad,
He's got a pretty boun fum you hold

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