The Paranormal Project Radio show, Gary, Your hosts Scott Allen and Christina Bowen.
Hello, good evening, everybody. Welcome back to The Paranormal Project.
How are you Christina? Do you have a good week? Had a great
week it's been is he? Yeah? Yeah, we have a fun show.
I don't want to spend a whole lot of time chatting between you and
I today because we have a great guest. I really have been wanting to
talk to David for quite a while. He is I get to the lack
of a better word, the handler for Robert the doll. And for those
of you who haven't heard about Robert, you've been learning about him tonight and
all the shenanigans that have been going on with him. So welcome to the
show. David Sloan, how are you great? Thanks so Sarious, I'm
doing great. Thanks, Thanks, that's great. Thank you for coming on.
I greatly appreciate it. How did you get involved with Robert? I
kind of feel like the universe kind of put me around where he was.
I came to Key West to start ghost tours in nineteen ninety six, and
I ended up I found an article that said Anne Otto was honing the artist
house, and nobody was talking about ghosts in town at the time. So
I knocked on the door and I said, hey, I'm here to talk
to you about your ghost. And the guy said, oh, you want
to hear about Robert. I said, no, I want to hear about
Anne. He said, no, you want to hear and he started telling
me these stories about a haunted doll and I thought he was absolutely crazy.
But then he invited me up to the attic where Robert the doll used to
live, and it was still furnished with Robert's little chairs and tables. Oh
my gosh. And I've been in a lot of atticts in my life,
but I have never felt one like this. I thought I was going to
be physically ill. There was something up there with us. It was insane,
and I told him, thank you, I've got to go. And
he told me that Robert was up at this museum and that he wasn't on
display, that he had to call up if you wanted to see him.
So I called the museum and after after about a week of trying, there
was someone who said, okay, I'll show him to you. Nobody wanted
to do it, and I went up there, and I remember she came
out and she was criddling the doll and she was talking to him like a
little kid, and I thought everybody in this town is insane. She set
him down so that I could take photos, and almost immediately I had camera
problems. Ok. I took some basic photos, but then I wanted to
get a picture of the doll with his hat off. And if anybody hasn't
seen Robert, he's the size of a small child. You know, He's
about four feet tall. He's stuffed with straw, He's covered and felt,
and termites have eaten away at his face, so he looks like a burn
victim. But when I saw him, I did not feel any presence around
him. There was nothing. It was just a plain old doll as far
as I was concerned. But then I reached to take his hat off of
his head, his little sailor hat, and I tell you, the doll
came alive. The energy of the room changed, The look in Robert's eyes
changed, the expression on his face changed, which sounds really weird for a
doll like that. And that's when I tried to take the pictures so I
could document the change, and the camera would not function, and so I
tried. I shot off three pictures. None of them worked. I could
look at the camera. It shoots the three pictures off in my direction.
As I was turning it around to look at it, and then I try
another picture. It doesn't do it. I turn around to look. It
shoots it again in my direction, and then you could you could almost it
was almost like you could hear chuckling or laughter, and the doll had this
this little laughter look on his face, and then that energy just disappeared,
just like it had entered there. And what I think it is, you
know, the doll moving. I don't think his facial expression is really changed.
I think this one of the spirits is near the doll, and maybe
what I witnessed was that spirit coming out of the doll or going into it,
and it created that illusion of movement, because you could definitely feel the
change. And I swear the look in his eyes changed too. Do you
feel there's more than when you said spirits? Do you feel there's more than
one that come and go through him? I believe there's multiple entities. What
we believe right now is that there's one main spirit, which is a child,
a child who died at a young age. It was the child of
Emmeline Abbot, who was a nanny to the Auto family. And we have
census records that I uncovered that show that she lost a child between nineteen hundred
and nineteen ten when she lost. One of the oldest legends about Robert is
you know that he was given to Gene by an angry nanny, and we
know he was actually created by this stife company. But Emmeline was the nanny
for the autos for Eugene, and I found in nineteen twenty four newspaper legal
listing where she filed a lawsuit against the estate of Jane's father, doctor Thomas
Otto. So she was the angry nanny without doubt connected to the family and
the fact that she lost a child because a lot of people sense that child
energy an innocent child around Robert. So then where's the other stuff come in?
And that's what I grappled with for years. It's like, wait,
if this is a little child. Little children don't follow people home and leave
dead deer on their yard, or cut off their toes with lawnmowers or strike
them with lightning. You know almost something Robert. Oh yeah, yeah,
that and much much more. I mean, he's received close to ten thousand
apology letters. So it took a while to make sense of it. And
then it's done. Man, I'm like, oh, we're not dealing with
just one entity. There's others that don't want that innocent child's story out there,
and those are the darker ones, and they thrive on the negativity people
bring to the museum where Robert is, you know, the people who go
looking for Chucky, the people who look for an evil doll. These ones
thrive on it. And the way we believe it works. You know,
they'll say you have to ask permission to take a picture of Robert. I
believe it's more. No, you don't ask permission because that can be dangerous.
You don't ask any entity for permission. You just be respectful. And
that's what I find to be the common theme with people who have misfortune from
Robert. They've been disrespectful, and it's that disrespect and then they go home
or they leave and things happen. Yeah, it's almost as if the child
feels hurt. So the child it's like they tag, they tag that person
with like a sticky tar that sticks to them, and then the other.
The other entities come out of that portal and latch on, and there's two
main ones that we've identified. I mean, they're like eight foot tall creatures
and they seem to be the main ones that people see, so they seem
to latch onto the people and follow them home. People have seen those around
their houses after disrespecting Robert. But there's others in there too, and that
kind of explains how there can be dozens or hundreds or even thousands of people
who are experiencing a curse from Robert at the same time. Yea, So
are you frightened? I mean, do you ever get weirded out or nervous
or do you think you're in a good place? You do? Oh yeah?
And you know, it's it's been a roller coaster relationship with the doll
as I learned more and more, and I'll get cocky a lot of times,
you know, because I really try to give the energy to the child
and nurture the child, and sometimes I think that I'm protected from the other
stuff. And there's been three major times that I've been reminded that that nobody's
safe. So, you know, so tell us, is it as bad
as you hear? About I mean, obviously people getting their their toes run
over is pretty bad. But yeah, the worst that I had it was
when I started working on the book about Robert, because we had uncovered all
of this factual information about the Auto family and the dolls origins, so we
wanted to publish that. And when I first writing the book, I lost
four hard drives in the process. And after the first one, you know,
I have everything backing up, you know, we're covered every single way,
and I lost the fourth hard drive. And when I had all the
all the data sent to me is that recorded every keystroke on my computer.
Everything was there except the book on Robert the Doll. Oh my god.
So it's stuff that stuff that I can't explain away. And at first it
was little things like with electricity, uh and and you know, first lights
going on off the house. And then I remember I reached into a bowl
of bike lights. You know, everybody rides their bikes in Key West,
and as I reached in to grab one, the entire bowl turned on every
light in there. And then it went to where like I tapped my hand
against the side of my truck, you know, listening to music kind of
hit it a bolt of electricity came out of my fingers that almost dislocated my
shoulder. It pushed my arm up so hard, Oh my god Lord,
And then the best wagon describe it. It felt like there was like a
if somebody dropped a pizza dough over your head. It was like there was
a gray pizza do that was trying to get into my brain. And I
started sleeping behind the church. It would attack me wherever I was. I
was walking my dog and there was a huge palm front you know in Key
Wesk we're talking. These are like ten or twelve feet long, and it
had been raining, so it was wet and heavy on the ground. This
thing lifted up several feet in the air and charged towards us and dropped at
my feet. The dog ran away, kind of like yelping, you know,
telescoping leash. I go back with the dog. It lifted up and
did the same thing a second time. So there was something very clearly letting
me know what kind of power it has and that it didn't like what I
was doing? So why invite people to come in and see it? You
know? I mean, are you afraid for people? Do you warn them
when they come in. We warned them, we get people rules beforehand.
And I do feel like in my case, I was under attack because of
what I was trying to review about the doll. And at this time I
didn't understand there were multiple entities. I couldn't understand why the child spirit didn't
like that I was sharing that true story, you know that we had found
out about a child who was the true spirit in there. You know.
Most recently there was a shock doc on Robert the Doll, and they sent
a psychic down and she took it a step further and said, ah,
yeah, so Emmaline sought out a voodoo practitioner when her child died because she
wanted to seek revenge on the father, you know, the doctor, for
not saving her child. And they said that this voodoo practitioner opened up a
portal inside of the doll. So I was dealing with multiple things there.
I ended up I put out a plea on Facebook because I was yanked out
of my bed. I yanked up and out of my bed, which sounds
insane. It sounds absolutely insane. And so I put out a plea on
Facebook and I said, I said, I desperately need help. I'm under
attack from a spirit I can't handle. If you can't help me, do
not comment. I'm dead serious. And somebody put me in touch with local
Santa Rea priest and a couple of weeks later him and some of his family
from Miami, they came and did what they call a mesa, a spiritual
which is basically a spirit mass. It's century is an African religion that came
over with slaves through Cuba and then mixed with Catholicism to disguise their gods,
but it's tied to the African religion. And they did a ceremony that lasted
several hours and removed multiple spirits that were attacking me. That's frightening. Yeah,
yeah, it was terrifying, But I don't feel like most people who
go into the fort are going to experience that. You know, I was.
I was really shaking things up by digging so deep into this and extracting
this information because you have to understand the negative energy. You probably do understand
the negative energies. They thrive on negativity, and I was putting that at
risk. So do you feel like I mean, you know, we talked
about when they go into the ford, but what about what about like this.
You're doing an interview and someone chimes in and they're disrespectful. Do you
think being disrespectful here in this forum is dangerous? I'm not sure what I'm
going to do that, by the way, but you know, I'm not
sure what to think about it. You know, Robert was featured on the
Sam and Colby YouTube channel earlier this year, and they have a huge following
with a younger demographic, and you know, they they said, you know,
we're warning you before we put this up, don't look into Robert's eyes.
And I received over the over the next several weeks, we received calls
and emails people who were feeling physically ill and manifesting pro problems after looking at
the doll. Now, how much of that was Robert and how much of
that is a thought that was planted in their head? I can't answer that,
but I can tell you that most of the people who experience a curse
around him, it's not just from looking at a picture of him on the
internet. It's not from anything like that. It's people who are there in
person disrespecting him. And that's what I believe. But you know, his
more and more people come to see him. Is that making the spirit stronger?
That's certainly something to consider. Is that a thing? Don't look into
his eyes? Is that a thing? Or is that just something that they
said? You know, more people seem to be having issues with it.
But you know, the rules with Robert, I think the only rule that
you can really say is be respectful. You know the one spread about you
have to ask permission to take a photo. And I always thought that was
stupid because come on, how's he going to say yes or no or tell
you if he's given you permission? Right? You know, this one all
stemmed from he used to drink, well, he still does. He drains
batteries, but batteries used to be in cameras, you know, before everybody
had their cell phones, so it was really pacemakers and cameras having problems,
and more people had cameras than pacemakers. So the story starts going around,
Oh, Robert messes with cameras all the time. And so with those stories,
somebody said, well, we should probably ask him for permission to take
his picture of that, And then that just kind of took on a life
of its own and snowballed. And it's even it's even written on the on
the wall at the fort. You know, they've got a sign that says,
remember you must ask Robert for permission. You know, as as someone
involved in the paranormal, I don't like. I don't think it's good because
it does open up the possibility you're going to put yourself below them, you
know, Oh, can I do that? Yeah? Can I do that?
So I think you open yourself up to inviting them in a little more
when you ask permission. That makes sense, that makes sense. But being
respectful and you know, I don't know. I mean my own question is,
you know, if it's something that's dark anyway, do they really care
about respect I mean, is that going to appease them if you're respectful or
are they just looking to do harm? You know? It seems to me
like the child is like the gatekeeper there, and it's if the child's having
issues, then then you know, then then the other problems happen. So
I think we've upset the hounds from hell. It's the were wolf. What
kind of dog you have? You have a pops obviously at least no,
it's that's just one. He's a hound. Oh I just oh my gosh,
yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a he's a he's a big old
hand. And that wasn't Robert that just ran behind you, right, just
you know it very it very well could have been. It's it's like maybe
maybe maybe when you asked that the spirits can come through to wherever we are,
maybe maybe they were showing their true colors. Maybe maybe, Oh my
gosh, I don't know. It's frightening though. I mean, you know,
when I think of the Annabelle doll, I mean, and I don't
know how much you know about annabel do you do you do you think of
any similarities and in how they how they affect people. I think I think
with haunted dolls today, there are a lot. You know, Robert's really
the original haunted doll. And then of course you had the the Twilight Zone
episode the Living Dolls where they had talking Tina and I wonder if if she
helped inspire annabel a little bit. The mom's name in that episode was was
Annabelle, and you had and that came out at about four years before the
annabel Does. But you know, but that name could have you know,
that name could have just come into that area because of things like that,
right, But but Annabel's fascinating because there are certainly people who have experienced strange
phenomena around Annabel, but with her being in the museum, that really has
limited access right now. You know, it's not like anybody can go see
Annabel. People can go see Robert. So you can count on one hand
the number of people who have been cursed by Annabel, where if you want
to do that with Robert, you're going to need thousands of hands. Yeah,
so I think so. I think there are parallels, but but there's
big differences too. Is there an issue with touching him? Because I thought
I saw a picture and that now I can't remember if it was you or
not actually holding him? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
held him before, you have held him. Is there an issue with that?
Do you think? I mean, I didn't find any issues with it,
you know now today the big issue is he's fragile. He's one hundred
and nineteen years old, of course, so you know, the less he's
handled the better, which is why he's kept behind the protective glass. And
you know, so that that whole box that he is in that's alarmed,
and that has the different humidity controls and all the things necessary to make sure
that he lasts a long time. And you know, he's traveled a few
times in his life, but he really doesn't travel anymore just because, of
course with his increased popularity too, there's there's security issues with that, but
also just moving him, it's every time you movement, what's the dollar risk?
And because the museum Roberts owned by the Key West Art and Historical Society,
which is the oldest non profit museum or organization in Key West, and
they're great. So what they do though, is they protect as an artifact
and they obviously know about the paranormal side of things. And I'd been researching
Robert before he was on display and found out a lot. So I've worked
in conjunction with the Art Historical Society. You know, my business does ghost
tours and things like that, but so so I do the paranormal side of
things with Robert, and they take care of him as an artifact, and
they try to make the museum accessible to everybody who wants to experience the doll.
Do they have other things like that in their museum or is it just
is he kind of the one paranormal thing. There's a lot of really incredible
stuff. One of my favorite artifacts is the is the tombstone of Elena Hoyos,
and she's the one that an X ray technician in Key West who was
much older, fell in love with. She didn't want to be with him.
She was she had she had consumption. But I think he murdered her.
I think he poisoned her so she'd die a little quicker, and then
he removed her from the grave, rebuilt her body, and lived with her
for seven years, so her tombstone. When he was they found him not
guilty, and when he left town, he blew up the tomb that he
had built for her, and the museum has her original tombstone from there,
which is pretty incredible. But they also have I mean, it's an old
Civil War for it was built on a native burial ground. It was it
never saw active battle. It was a union for it, but it was
used as a yellow fever hospital, so you had a lot of death from
disease in there, and that's a large number of the spirits you'll find are
Civil War soldiers. But it's also a collection of Key West artifacts. It's
the first museum in Key West, so this is when the locals were donating
their cool stuff. So there's you know, there's Native American dugout canoes,
there's old Spanish treasure chests, there's rafts, the refugee rafts from Cuba that
people lost their lives on. So you have all these fascinating artifacts that have
these energies and we don't know were those energies there when they arrived or is
it other spirits that fill in around them. But it's one of USA today,
I think for the last four years in her own named it one of
the ten most haunted locations in the United States. Really, Now, do
you investigate the museum or is that just we do? We do ghost tours
there every night and people can do the regular guided tour and then if they
want, they can add on an extra hour where we give them all the
cool ghost honey equipment and they get to they get to go around and do
their own investigation. Wow, I bet you. With that kind of energy
in there, though, it must be incredible. It's it's truly insane,
And you know, I think some people are tuned into the spirits and some
are not. But it's one of the most active places that I've been,
and people regularly come out. A lot of people get the same name,
you know that with the spirit boxes, they we'll get the same name again
and again and again. Something really interesting. There was a soldier named Charles
Knoll and he was killed in Key West by friendly fire during the Civil War.
He was collecting seashells on the beach and he was shot. He was
he was part of the Pennsylvania forty seventh Regiment Regiment and he was killed by
somebody from the New York ninetieth. They weren't supposed to have bullets in their
guns and it went off and it went right through his head. And we
had been getting his name through the spirit box, and that's why I looked
him up and was able to uncover the story. But then the strangest thing.
I was with my wife up in Pittsburgh and I had found on eBay
one of a piece of his history. It was his uniform requisition, and
so I scooped that up on eBay and I'm like, this is really weird.
And then after it arrived, we went to get our tarot cards read
and it was in this really cool shop in Pittsburgh and I was in the
back room getting my cards read and you know. I think it was a
thirty minute reading, and towards the end, she said, is there anything
else you want to ask? I feel like you have a question, and
I'd beget angry for no reason. And I said, why am I getting
angry? And she pulled out some cards and then she goes, oh,
my god, you have a spirit attached to you. And she said that,
and there was a crash in the main store and she turned around and
I said, I said, you just scared that spirit out of me.
This is interesting. So we go my session. She says, well,
there's nothing else I can do for you now, and so my wife goes
in for her reading. I go down the block to a little brewpub and
there were only three people in there, and I told them, I said,
I said, I just found out I've got a spirit attachment. I
said, let's see if we can get rid of it. The door of
the of the bar opened up. The side door just opened all the way
one hundred percent, and everybody just kind of looked over and they're like,
that was weird. And I told them I was from Key West. The
bartender said, oh my god, I used to live in Key West.
And then both of the people in the bar. There were only four of
us. They said, Oh my god, my parents are in Key West
right now. Wow. So fast forward. I go back to the to
the place where the reading was, and I asked the girl to register because
nobody else was in there. I said, what happened when there was that
crash? She said, it was the weirdest thing. Your wife wasn't even
standing by any of this stuff, but these two vials of oil just flew
off the shelf and onto the floor. I said, well, that's I
said, that's really weird. I said, where did they land? And
she points down the floor there was a statue. It was like a little
toy doll of a soldier. Really, so I think that this might have
been that spirit of Charles Knolf saying I'm glad you found my story or something
like that. So I don't know that's that's that's who, or who knows.
It might have been Robert one of the other ones. I'm still kind
of processing the entire thing. But I mean, but yeah, all the
way up to Pittsburgh, you know, yeah, yeah, And I've had
these spirits that follow me from the fort on a couple of occasions, and
I don't know if it's because they feel like I can communicate for them or
maybe understand them a little bit. I'm not sure what it is. You'd
probably know more about that than me. Are you a little are you a
little intuitive? And and do you have a little bit of that sense where
you feel like you you get stuff from spending the reason with it. The
reason I say that is I feel like from my own experience too, is
they know who they can they It's like your light burns a little different.
They know who you are, and they know you by name, and they
did. It's they'll they'll make a racket just to get you to recognize the
fact that they're there. And you know, that's kind of what happened to
me when all of this started years ago. But it's it feels like that,
you know, it's they know who you are and pay attention to me.
I'm trying to get your attention. Yeah. And I think from spending
so much time with them and putting so much energy into the fort, I
think they know that. Do you run the toys yourself? Are the investigations
yourself? You know? I used to for the first couple of years,
I did all of them and then I've got I've got another another great guy,
Dan Rodobsky, and he's our lead investigator. Now, uh, it's
funny. It seems like all of us are from Pennsylvania and the fort was
under the control of the Pennsylvania forty seventh Volunteers, so there's this interesting Pennsylvania
energy going through there. So so he'll do that, and we'll have a
couple of other doll tenders as well, you know, to help out with
a VIPD during busier times. So we do tours every night, sometimes Dan,
sometimes myself. We kind of switch it around. So if I'm in
Miami and I decided to drive because I've heard the drip is beautiful, how
long does it take to get from Miami to keep webs from Miami? It's
about three or four hours, depending on long Wow. Yeah, yeah,
So you know, we're we're really out in the middle of the ocean,
two hundred miles from Fort Lauderdale, and the whole island used to be a
coral reef when you go back far enough, and you know, then then
that was exposed eventually, and then with the erosion, and then they built
the railroad, and then they built the highways. I have a sorry,
go ahead, no, I want to hear what you said. No,
I was going to say, I have an event in uh It's it's not
there. It's in Naples in February. But now I'm thinking I should spend
a couple of days and head to Key West. I know it would be
probably like five hours or six hours now, I don't know from the yeah,
and you know from Naples. Fort Myers has a great ferry. They've
got the Fort Myers Ferry the Key West really, so you can actually just
chill on the boat, have a few beers and and cruise down and get
a way to do it, come and spend the night. That's a great
That's how I recommend people do it. From the west coast of Florida.
I think I'll do that because I was going to try to get in there
on a Wednesday, and then I'm done on you know, I'm done on
Sunday, so I could go right after that or yeh know whatever. I
think that would be great to have a couple of days. I've I've always
wanted to go. Everybody says it's phenomenal. Qy Wes is incredible. It's
not just one of the most vulted places in the United States. But it's
uh, it's unlike the rest of Florida. It's more like a Caribbean island
than it is like Florida. Well, you know, I have a ten
year old so these days we can go to Florida and it involves a mouse
and a few other stuffed characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't
take him to Key West for me. I don't think he's ready for that,
but I think, but I do. It sounds like somebody begs to
different Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly, But well that's sorry today you wanted
to know what viagra was for imagine trying to have that conversation with it all
at all. So that's why I have a dog. You have a dog,
Yes, exactly, Oh my god. But you know, so maybe
I'll take it. Maybe I'll do that, see if I can work that
around. I would love to go down. I certainly love to see the
fort and see what I can. I say, I've never been, so
it's been on my list. Yeah, it's an incredible place. I'd love
to show you around. Yeah, well, you know, I don't know
if you're there at the end of February. You know, I'm literally there
the last weekend of February, and so again right after that before I fly
off to New Orleans. But that would be kind of cool too. Yeah,
And there's some incredible stuff, you know. We just started doing tours
at the Haunted Firehouse. There's a firehouse here. It's one of the oldest
fire stations in Florida. It was built in nineteen oh seven and a lot
of people felt that it was cursed when it was built. They started construction
when and this is another place, you know, Key West. The name
comes from Kyle Hueso, which means island of bones, because the entire island
was covered with bones, and nobody's quite sure the source of them. They
believe they're native bones. Some people say they're from a great battle. Some
people say they're from a hurricane. Some people say it was just a sacred
spot for them. But almost everywhere you go isil over bones, and with
the firehouses on top of this great freshwater reservoir. So that would have been
a spot that people sought out a long time ago. So that's what some
psychics think is that it was built over some graves perhaps, but they finished
the firehouse. Before the fireman even moved in, they had a fire in
the engine row, so mysterious fire does that, Yeah, before anybody was
there. And then when they moved in, it was barely just a little
over a year and a hurricane came through and ripped the roof off and took
down one of the walls. And the interesting thing is, on the night
of that hurricane there were three boys born in Key West. All three of
them went on to lead the firehouse. That station as easier to either an
assistant fire chief or a fire chief, and it was almost like they were
brought here to change things around. And there's just this incredible energy throughout the
place, you know, and most firemen there there they're not you know,
they're not scary, but they've got attitudes and they're practical jokers. And there's
some really interesting stuff that goes on. And of course that then we have
some I mean, there was one fire chief and he lost the election and
so he went out and got drunk and shot a prostitute in the face.
The way the town went, he was able to be let go. I
mean they let him go. He never faced prosecution, so yikes. So
there is there's some interesting energy like that going on too. And are you
from there? I mean, did you grow up and lived there your whole
life or did you move there? No, it's interesting, So I moved
there in ninety six. I was born in Philadelphia, Oh, Okay.
And then only about three years ago, you know, four years ago,
when I really started going into the Civil War history of the fort, I
found out that my great great great grandfather's Civil War regiment was in charge of
Key West during the Civil War. He was Pennsylvania forty seventh. So the
very first David Livingston Sloan he was, he was in Key West and he
might have helped build the fort where Robert the Dall is. That's good.
There are no coincidences. And we say this all the time. There's no
question. It's just like you're supposed to be there, you know, you're
supposed to be doing what you're doing. When I found that out, and
that's that's why in the beginning when I said, I kind of feel like
the universe kind of like sent me there, you know, coming to Key
West to start the ghost tours, Like everything's kind of put me where I
should be at the right time. When I came to Key West. I
researched looking for ghosts for probably about ten days, and I was finding nothing.
And I got to where i'd go into the different bars and I tip
the bartender really well and say, oh, is this that haunted bar?
And they'd say, nope, not or anything. So like nobody was talking
about ghosts, and I was. I had been to the library, of
course, and I was getting ready to leave town because I found nothing.
And uh, you know, I used to I used to manage cruise ships
and I'd seen a ghost tour in Scotland. That's how I got the idea
ghost tours. We were kind of unheard of in the United States. There
might have been two or three of them in existence. So uh, when
I was leaving, I got lost leaving my friend's house and as a small
island and get lost on them, and getting lost in qs is stupid,
and so I I was drying and I was just frustrated and I didn't know
where my life was going. And somebody appeared next to me in my car
and I just remember they're kind of like like they're grayish, grayish kind of
suit, it seemed like to me. And they said, they said go
back to the library. And I looked at him. I go, don't
know where the library is. And I didn't even think that I was yelling
at somebody in my car. And then they were gone, and I look
up and I see a sign that says library parking only. And so I
park and I go in. And this time when I went into the Florida
History Room, the county historian was there. His name's Tom Hambright. And
Tom Tom looks at me, and he's a He was a big, imposing
man, and he says he can I help you with something? And I
said, I'm looking for a book on ghosts of Key West and he said
there are none, and I said okay, thank you, and I started
to leave and he said, hey, hey, don't leave yet. I
got no books, but there's ghosts. And he goes into this walk in
vault. You know, they had built this hurricane proof vault for all the
most important documents of the Florida Keys history. And he came out with a
folder labeled ghosts and it had newspaper clippings from the past thirty years, and
it has stories of voodoo and it had the snippets that have been published around
Halloween, and I started going through and mapping the haunted houses out and you
know, identifying who the ghosts were. And then I went and knocked on
the doors and I was able to talk to the people. You know,
nowadays everything's going corporate in Key West, you know, so it's like the
mom and pop places are less and less and less. But at the time
I arrived, you found people who had owned the bed and Breakfast for thirty
years, and so I was getting thirty years worth of ghost stories from them,
and people were so happy to talk about them. Because ghosts, you
know, it seems like through history, the belief in them increases after times
of suffering or times of war or times of pandemic and things like that.
But there have been periods of time when it's just not cool to talk about
the bigs because people think you're a weirdo. You know, before all the
ghost shows started coming out, there was a time when people would be like,
oh, I'm not saying anything about that. They're going to think I'm
strange. I agree you, And so we were on the tail end of
that. It was just getting to where people were starting to talk about them
again. Around ninety six, you know, there were horror movies out people
loved those, but if you have told somebody so these people just relished talking
to me about the strange things they had been encountering. And I got some
incredible, incredible stories and was able to really start documenting the haunted history of
the island. And let's face it, you're in Key West, so there's
enough stuff there that's interesting. Shall we say that. You know, I
think it can be a little different. I mean, it's not like you're
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, you know, yeah, kind of like fit
in. I would think they would embrace anything that's kind of different and odd,
you know. And the whole ghost thing. It's true though, it's
just a little bit different, you know, and you just sort of out
there. And I still get that from people. I still yeah, And
and there's you know, I think it's interesting because a lot of the most
haunted places in the United States are the old port towns. So you know,
you look at New Orleans and Charleston and and uh and Key West and
Savannah and Saint Augustine, all the old port towns really have seemed to have
so much And I think part of that's the water. Part of it's the
character and there's some of the you know, some of the oldest places that
people were going and passing through. But so I feel very fortunate there's a
lot of a lot of the great historic structures are still preserved here. So
you've got a lot of a lot of houses from the from the late eighteen
hundreds. Even with the hurricanes that come through, I mean, how is
that living down there on that kind of a I mean, you really,
you don't have anything to block it, really, do you. We have
we have a grotto that protects us from her hurricanes and it's at the Catholic
church here. And back in the early nineteen hundreds, there were two back
to back hurricanes that devastated the island, I mean like hit it hard,
hard heart. So there was a sister there at the church and she built
this grotto and she dedicated it and said, as long as this grotto stands,
Key West will never suffer the full brunt of a major hurricane. Really,
and it's been true ever since then. You know, we've had Category
ones passed through here, We've had Category fours that skirt us and change at
the last minute, and whenever there's a storm ruined. So many people from
Key West will go down to the grotto and they'll light the candles, and
they'll say the prayers and they'll make the offerings. So that's our biggest form
of protection. And that's a bit of a tourist attraction in itself, I
imagine, because of the powers. And then you also had shipbuilders who were
building the houses. So you know, a lot of the early houses had
wooden nails, as you know, as the pegs connecting them, so they
were built strong, and they were built good in the old Dade County pine,
so a lot of them are equipped to hold up to a lot.
Oh that's good. Melissa Blackman, she's been commenting here in the chat.
I guess she's seen you and she's been to Key West. But you need
to have David send you the photos you had at the end of your presentation
in Michigan. I didn't get there this year, so I didn't see you
talk. I was there last year. Hey, Melissa, what were your
photos were they? I mean, obviously I'm not going to ask you to
get them, but well, I'm trying to. I'm trying to think which
ones they could have been. I know we've got somewhere. There's Robert pushing
the ball off of the case. At the fort. We put a ball
on his case, and because my back's to him a lot, and I
tell him, I say, listen, if you don't like something going on,
push the ball. And I've had that ball pushed off of that case
about thirteen times over the course of four years. And that's people. I
always know what is going to happen now too, because you can tell when
there's someone who's just bad energy on the tour. And there was one time
the person who is going to be in a jerk, he'd usually pushed the
ball where it lands like right by the person, but the way the seating
configure issue was set up, they were kind of towards the back, and
so I'm thinking, I'm like, how's he going to do this? And
then the tour is almost over and nothing had happened, and then a lady
sitting right right up front by Robert, she crosses her leg, the ball
goes off the case, It hits her toe and rolls right up to the
feet of the person who was who was being the Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So there's that. There's some other We've had almost one hundred people burned
with their religious symbols at the fort. We've had people burn with their crosses
where the cross burns right into them. So we've just wear across. It
is that dangerous wear a cross? I don't know if it's dangerous. It's
happened close to one hundred times, which is a lot, but you have
to figure we've probably had five thou ten thousand crosses come through in that time,
so it's not like everybody with the cross will have it happen. But
we've had people's glasses fog up for no reason, you know, like just
like out of the blue. We've had glasses pulled off of people's heads.
People get their hair touched a lot, you know, there's people have had
things growl in their ear. There have been a few people who have been
scratched. I was scratched pretty bad. I think that's one of the videos
I showed in Michigan. Yeah, so what about the religious tattoos? People
with religious tattoos, people with religious tattoos, And you know it's interesting too.
I've had three people who had like the uh An Eye of Protection on
them as jewelry, and those have started heating up. But I see the
lista saying, so there's this there's this crazy photo. So okay. Children
with autism, they usually don't see Robert's evil. They usually come in to
see the doll and they're like, they're like, oh, hi, Robert,
I love you. Robert. Oh, Robert, you're my friend.
And they end up sending him birthday cards and pictures of them. And we
had there was a woman came in and her she had a child with autism.
They he had been wanting to see the doll for a long, long
long time. Museum's getting ready to close, and so they go in and
uh so they get up there, they go see the doll. They come
back out and he says, mom, we forgot to get a picture with
Robert. So his mom knocks back on the door and the girl opens and
she's like, can we please just go back for a photo? And the
girls, of course you can, And so they're the only ones in the
entire fort. They get back out to the car and they look at their
photograph. Behind Robert, you can very clearly see the silhouette of a little
girl and she's got her hair and braids, and we think that that may
be the daughter of Emilyine Abbott, the Angry Nanny. So we think that
Robert's actually it's actually a little behaming a American girl. Wow, Melissa says,
I guess the picture you showed was a young adult standing at the side
of Robert's display case. Then off the left there's a child spirit and reflection,
but no child was there. Yeah, yep, that's the one.
Thanks for reminding me of that, Melissa. Crazy, it's crazy, it's
it's insanity. I mean, I think it's absolutely fascinating, but you know,
I'm also a little chicken that kind of whether you believe it or not,
I'm just going to be safe about it. I went. My husband
was he's a non believer. He always referred to the paranormal as more of
my ghosty stuff. But I drug him through because I had to see Robert.
And it took, and I was using an actual camera, not just
my cell phone. But it took like seven or eight times before I was
actually able to get the picture. I had the shutter froze, the batteries
just locked, the battery door locked, the SD card was full, just
a lot of craziness before I could actually get the photo. But I did
finally get one. I went in today. They've got these, They've got
these great Robert Christmas dolls because a lot of people want to take a little
piece of Robert home. So they've got the many Robert dolls, and they've
got the many Robert Christmas dolls. And so I went in. I was
taking a bunch of pictures of them around the fort, and I probably took
thirty pictures. I got out and I looked at them. They were like
fifteen of them. And look, I was looking at these pictures when I
took them, they were fine. When I looked at them, about fifteen
of them, there was they were blurred. There was nothing there. And
listen one or two. Okay, maybe I missed it, but to have
that many happen. So, yeah, the camera stuff continues and continues to
happen, Melissa. I'm just reading some of the comments that the people have
started to comment. And then Melissa says there was a girlfriend who wasiah with
was so terrified she made her leave her phone in the car for fear she
might try to take a picture. Thrilled to be in the same room with
them. Yeah, but you say that the photos aren't necessarily the problem.
It's it's the disrespect. Yeah, And I think with the sign up on
the wall, you know, the sign says remember you have to ask permission
to take photos. So if some people read that and think that's the rule
and say I'm not going to do it, well, that's disrespectful, right,
So I think I think it can get in to that. And you
know, you see people who who delete their photos afterwards. There's a lot
of people who don't like seeing a picture of Robert even going through across through
their social media without warning. Yeah, I get it. And I remember
seeing Annabelle in the Warren Paracon a couple of years ago and the woman I
was with said, delete that from your phone, do not take that pick,
do not take them with you in your phone. So people have different
thoughts and beliefs, you know. Yeah, So we have a few minutes
that Robert, I'd really like to let people know how they can find you
if they're in Key West and and buy people, I mean me, but
I want to I can't find you while we get there. Where are your
ghost towards? And I know there's some books too on rock. Yeah,
so there there are tons of ghost tours in Key West and most of them
are really good. If you want to find the one that goes to Robert
the Dalt, we're the only one that does that, you can go to
ghost key West dot com so ghost q West on co. And that's this
for the official Robert tours. And then if you want other haunted stuff,
because there's so much cool stuff in town, I set up a free website
that's like a paranormal vacation guide, and that lists haunted hotels, haunted restaurants,
haunted bars, haunted museums. It lists some of the other great ghost
tours in town. If you're like, hey, Robert's too much for me,
I want to go see I just want a regular walking tour. We
recommend the companies that do good with that. You know, friends of mine
and people who are reputable. So haniqus dot com is a ton of that
that's got information on it Somewhere. There's an entire set of Robert links that
you know, people can buys merch online and that all benefits the museum.
So it all benefits the nonprofit organization. And uh, there's links to my
books and stuff on there. You can buy them through the museum, and
that benefits the museum too, so well, but they're they're on Amazon all
all the good places. Well, David, I hope people check it out.
I know I'm going to do my best, let you know if I'm
going to be able to make it in February. But I want to thank
you for coming on. It has been an absolute pleasure for having you,
and you know, I'm just so glad we're able to work it out next
week. Everybody, I'm gready to be here. I really appreciate it.
Next week we're going to be talking to a gentleman who has been abducted by
aliens since he was a child. That continues to happen two or three times
every month to this day. And he's now and probably his mid fifties.
So we're going to be talking to him next week. And I am done
with my announcement. So David, thank you again. I greatly appreciate you
and it's been a real pleasure. I hope you'll hang on after the show
wraps. I just want to chat with you for one second. Thank you
to everyone who's been here today and joined us on the show, and thank
you for Christina. We've been having some audio trouble since we come on.
So that's why she's sitting here muted and you can't hear her. Most of
the time she wants to say anything. So here we are. Anyway,
next week we will see you. Thank you David, thank you Christina,
and we'll see you next week right here on the Paranormal Project. Have a
great day, everybody. Thanks. Everyone's been listening to The Paranormal Project radio
show with Scott Allen and Christina Boet. Be sure to subscribe so you don't
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We'll be back next week with more exciting guests. Now, go out
there and explore the paranormal