Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
Speaker 2: Throughout history, there have been stories of dolls that were dangerous.
Speaker 2: Sometimes such tales come from voodoo legends, or from TV
Speaker 2: shows like The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery, or from
Speaker 2: films like Child's Play. A few strange occurrences can turn
Speaker 2: a child's plaything into an object of terror, changing a
Speaker 2: trusted doll into a totem of fear. Let me tell
Speaker 2: you a story. And while you may find it hard
Speaker 2: to believe, the following story is true, the story took
Speaker 2: place just a few years ago. There's a little girl
Speaker 2: we're going to call her im Em was a child
Speaker 2: who loved to play with her dolls, But she was
Speaker 2: also very creative and liked to decorate her dolls with
Speaker 2: paint and markers. Now, in her mind, she was just
Speaker 2: having fun, but it bothered her parents to see her
Speaker 2: dolls transformed into garishly painted and occasionally dismembered creatures. One day,
Speaker 2: they found her favorite doll with his hair cut and
Speaker 2: permanent marker stains on his face. It was missing a leg.
Speaker 2: Her parents wanted to teach her a lesson, to teach
Speaker 2: her not to mistreat her toys, so they told her
Speaker 2: she needed to apologize to the doll. Reluctantly, she did so,
Speaker 2: but then came the hard part. They told her she
Speaker 2: had to throw the doll away. She didn't want to
Speaker 2: do it, but they were insistent and made her take
Speaker 2: it to the trash can and put it inside. Later
Speaker 2: that day, her parents took the trash out to the
Speaker 2: street for pickup. The next day, Em woke up to
Speaker 2: find that her doll was back, lying on the floor
Speaker 2: of her room. Her parents found her there holding the
Speaker 2: doll and accused her of getting it out of the
Speaker 2: trash can. The trash is dirty and it can make
Speaker 2: you sick, they told her. We know you like the doll,
Speaker 2: but it needs to go away, So back into the
Speaker 2: trash it went. And this time EM's father took the
Speaker 2: doll himself and put it in a trash bag while
Speaker 2: the girl watched, And then he took the bag out
Speaker 2: to the bin and dropped it into the bottom of
Speaker 2: the can. You need to stay out of the trash.
Speaker 2: You said goodbye to your doll, he chied at her.
Speaker 2: Don't let me catch you out here, trying to get
Speaker 2: her back now. Em denied having touched the trash, but
Speaker 2: she agreed that she would not do so. But the
Speaker 2: next day the doll was back, and this time it
Speaker 2: was in the girl's bed. When she woke up, she
Speaker 2: screamed and her parents came running into the room. Her
Speaker 2: mother asked the girl why she'd gotten the doll out
Speaker 2: of the trash, but she said she hadn't. Oh, we
Speaker 2: want to believe you, honey, But dolls don't climb out
Speaker 2: of the trash, they told her, Yet she was insistent
Speaker 2: she hadn't touched the trash. The doll must have come
Speaker 2: back on its own. So the father and the daughter
Speaker 2: put the doll into a plastic bag, and together they
Speaker 2: drove more than a mile away, where the little girl
Speaker 2: watched as he threw the bag into a dumpster. This
Speaker 2: should solve the problem, he said, and they went home.
Speaker 2: A few days later, the whole family was planning to
Speaker 2: take a road trip, and as they were preparing to leave,
Speaker 2: taking their bags out of the car and loading up
Speaker 2: to go, the parents heard a scream. When they went
Speaker 2: to the car, there sitting in the car seat was
Speaker 2: the doll. Everyone was shaken up by this, but EM's
Speaker 2: father insisted there had to be a logical explanation. Still,
Speaker 2: everyone was a little relieved as they watched him place
Speaker 2: the doll into the trash yet again before they all
Speaker 2: got into their car and drove off on vacation. The
Speaker 2: trip was uneventful. They arrived at their hotel well, they
Speaker 2: got room keys for two rooms with a connecting door,
Speaker 2: and the father went to park the car while the
Speaker 2: rest of the family made their way up to the
Speaker 2: new rooms, where they found the dolls sitting on the
Speaker 2: bed as if it were waiting for them. When this
Speaker 2: story began, I assured you it was true, and it
Speaker 2: is a true story. That little girl was my daughter
Speaker 2: and the terrible, terrible appl prankster who kept putting the
Speaker 2: doll back was me. Coming up next, demonic dolls. It's
Speaker 2: actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, hairy creature park Ape Park Mass in Larkness,
Speaker 3: a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake in the
Speaker 3: Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 4: Get the creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 3: Monster doll.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Monster Talk.
Speaker 6: I'm Karen Stolsner and I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 2: Demonic dolls, devil dolls, monster dolls, creepy dolls. Call them
Speaker 2: what you want, but the history of dolls that people
Speaker 2: have seen is monstrous, is quite long and full of
Speaker 2: frightening stories of the type that will make your hair
Speaker 2: stand up on ann and give you goose flesh. I'm
Speaker 2: quite fond of the episodes of Twilight Zone that features
Speaker 2: scary dolls, or of night gallery movies like Child's Play
Speaker 2: and the movie Magic Fit thiss Motif as well, but
Speaker 2: many of these tales aren't considered pure fiction. The self
Speaker 2: proclaimed demonologists Ed and Lorraine war l'urn keep an allegedly
Speaker 2: cursed raggedy ann doll called Annabelle in their home museum
Speaker 2: and claim that the doll has led to deaths. Voodoo
Speaker 2: dolls are alleged to help enable magic spells the heck
Speaker 2: some heads, while seeming to be mundane in origin, and
Speaker 2: somehow are alleged to have inspired lycanthropic activity. But perhaps
Speaker 2: no alleged the evil doll is more famous than Robert
Speaker 2: the Doll. There are links to some of the stories
Speaker 2: about Robert in our show notes at monster talk dot org,
Speaker 2: and there have been books and movies made about him
Speaker 2: as well. Countless TV shows have shown the doll, and
Speaker 2: legends gather around Robert like spiderwebs in an attic corner.
Speaker 2: As you might guess, I'm a fan of other podcasts,
Speaker 2: and the very popular show called Lore covered Robert in
Speaker 2: episode fifteen.
Speaker 6: I enjoy Lore.
Speaker 2: Although the host, Aaron Mankey, has different purposes in mind
Speaker 2: for his show than I do, he does tell a
Speaker 2: good story and I think that that episode gives you
Speaker 2: a good feel for what people might be thinking when
Speaker 2: they go to see Robert the Doll for the first time.
Speaker 2: A link to that episode of Laws in our show
Speaker 2: notes at monster talk dot org, along with other fascinating connections.
Speaker 2: Let's get to our interview now, but stick around because
Speaker 2: I want to do a little bit more talking about
Speaker 2: Robert after we've heard from his curator, doctor Corey Convertito,
Speaker 2: Mors tutor.
Speaker 5: Doctor Corey Confortito has a PhD in maritime history, focusing
Speaker 5: on the eighteenth century British naval history. Corey is the
Speaker 5: curator of the Key West Art and Historical Society, which
Speaker 5: oversees the Fort East Martello Museum, which is the home
Speaker 5: of Robert the Dole. So welcome to the show, Corey.
Speaker 7: Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 6: I bet this time of the year you get a
Speaker 6: lot of questions about.
Speaker 4: Robert I see all year along we get questions about Robert.
Speaker 4: I mean this time of year, Yeah, with Halloween, and
Speaker 4: it's also his birthday this month, so I think that,
Speaker 4: oh how old is?
Speaker 7: That adds to it. He's one hundred and twelve, one
Speaker 7: hundred and twelve.
Speaker 5: I heard that he received a letter from George Bush
Speaker 5: when he turned one hundred. Is that true?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: He did, wow, both President Bush and then he also
Speaker 4: got one. I think it was the year or two
Speaker 4: leader when Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, he got
Speaker 4: one for his birthday as well.
Speaker 5: Well, famous guy.
Speaker 2: Well, they probably thought they were writing Bob Dole. Could
Speaker 2: you tell us the story of Robert the doll and
Speaker 2: why he's so famous?
Speaker 7: I suppose.
Speaker 4: I guess we can start with what he is, and
Speaker 4: then I guess how he came to be here. Robert
Speaker 4: is a Steife doll. It's a German doll company that's
Speaker 4: been around. I think they were established a little bit
Speaker 4: earlier than Robert was fabricated.
Speaker 7: I'm they're the famous.
Speaker 4: They've made the first Teddy bear for Teddy Roosevelt, so
Speaker 4: they're they're quite well known and their production like their
Speaker 4: dolls are and bears are quite valuable, so he was
Speaker 4: made and brought to There was a family that lived
Speaker 4: in Key West called the Auto family. They were a
Speaker 4: multi generational family that lived on the island and they
Speaker 4: were of Prussian descent and stife being in present day Germany,
Speaker 4: there's the connection between the family and.
Speaker 7: The area where Robert was made.
Speaker 4: And so a family member of the Auto family actually
Speaker 4: bought the doll four of the young boy named Robert
Speaker 4: Eugene Otto, who lived in Key West and his dad
Speaker 4: was a doctor and his grandparents owned a pharmacy here,
Speaker 4: so they were quite prominent family in town. They were
Speaker 4: very well off family, and their young son came to
Speaker 4: have this doll in nineteen oh four, and the doll
Speaker 4: and the boy were inseparable for years.
Speaker 7: You know, the doll is quite large.
Speaker 4: It was life sized, but putten close to Robert Eugene
Speaker 4: out of the living boy size when he received him,
Speaker 4: and they were just really inseparable. The family remembers Robert
Speaker 4: bringing the doll around with him, taking him where he went,
Speaker 4: talking to him, and the story goes that Robert the
Speaker 4: boy would blame Robert the doll for things that Robert
Speaker 4: the boy had done wrong, and so this transference possibly
Speaker 4: created some kind of energy around the doll. And so people, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, believe that Robert is plenty of things either,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever, their base has their interpretations of Robert.
Speaker 4: But this energy that was projected onto the doll, I
Speaker 4: think that's really the base of the story of how
Speaker 4: Robert got to Key West. And I'm sure you have
Speaker 4: follow up questions, yes, yeah, for that, So I don't
Speaker 4: want to I don't want to give.
Speaker 7: Away everything right right now.
Speaker 5: So what are some of the odd events that have
Speaker 5: surrounded the doll?
Speaker 2: And maybe could if you don't mind, can we do
Speaker 2: like what kind of odd events happened while Robert had
Speaker 2: the doll and then and then maybe split that into
Speaker 2: before and after Robert along in.
Speaker 4: The picture the boy started going by Jene, so that
Speaker 4: might add some clarity to whatever we I guess discussed
Speaker 4: From from now forward, I'll just call him. The boy
Speaker 4: will be Gene and the doll will be Robert. So
Speaker 4: that will be that will hopefully listening things usual, right,
Speaker 4: you know, his family was and I think that's a
Speaker 4: very it's a different time when when obviously Gene was
Speaker 4: a little boy. So I'm not sure that any of
Speaker 4: the stories when, like the initial stories about the doll
Speaker 4: a sign from the odd relationship that people felt that
Speaker 4: Gene and Robert had. I don't think there's many stories
Speaker 4: like early on about goings on in the house. Most
Speaker 4: of the things start coming out later on in life,
Speaker 4: and I think that is a time frame issue when
Speaker 4: people just didn't really divulge their personal business and talk
Speaker 4: about things like this, especially really early twentieth century. So
Speaker 4: a lot of the stories about Robert and the problems
Speaker 4: that people felt that Robert was causing kind of came out.
Speaker 4: I'd say probably in like nineteen twenties. People would say
Speaker 4: they would hear noises in the house and they would
Speaker 4: hear Jane talk to the doll, but they would hear
Speaker 4: in a different voice the doll answer him. That's usually
Speaker 4: what the family remembers the most about the early relationship
Speaker 4: that and Robert had. Later on, Jane moved away, moved
Speaker 4: to France to study art. He was a really talented
Speaker 4: artist wanted to follow this as his life's passion. Went
Speaker 4: to France, studied art and stayed away for a while
Speaker 4: because he met what was to be his future wife,
Speaker 4: and so he returned as an adult. He'd left a
Speaker 4: teenager late or early twenties and then had come back
Speaker 4: and had been married. So the situation, I think it
Speaker 4: kind of escalated more once Eugene returned to Key West
Speaker 4: with his wife and took possession of the house, and
Speaker 4: that's when they started getting a little bit more pronounced.
Speaker 4: I think neighbors took notice, and obviously with other people
Speaker 4: non family members.
Speaker 7: Living in the house, i e.
Speaker 4: Jean's wife, I think that that sort of prompted a
Speaker 4: little bit more hubbub about the relationship and potentially what
Speaker 4: was going on. A lot of it was two different
Speaker 4: voices coming from a room that only contained.
Speaker 7: Eugene and Robert, So that.
Speaker 4: I think was one of their big concerns, and that
Speaker 4: was something that circulated around Key West. The most people
Speaker 4: would be at the house and they would say they
Speaker 4: would hear footsteps in rooms that were said to be vacant.
Speaker 4: Some people said they would see Robert in one window
Speaker 4: in the house and in a different window, you know,
Speaker 4: within a couple of minutes, and nobody was in the room.
Speaker 4: So how would he have moved if nobody was there?
Speaker 4: So possibly just on his own. So I think that
Speaker 4: was a lot of the strange goings on in the house.
Speaker 2: So was there malice do you think in the activities
Speaker 2: at that point or was it just bizarre.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think it's more bizarre, and I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean I should probably just say that, you know,
Speaker 4: I try to learn about and obviously I'm for what
Speaker 4: I do. I look for facts for things and trying
Speaker 4: to understand, well, being a story and we kind of
Speaker 4: rely on that. So there's a lot of speculation, a
Speaker 4: lot of stories, and you can find it, you know,
Speaker 4: so many things on the internet about Robert and these
Speaker 4: you know, it goes from das filed to completely you know,
Speaker 4: insane what you can find out there about him and
Speaker 4: what people have written and said that they've experienced or
Speaker 4: they heard this happened. And there's lots of different stories
Speaker 4: about how he was created. And I think that if
Speaker 4: you dial back to what Robert really is and where
Speaker 4: he was from, I meaner stories about him being possessed
Speaker 4: or having voodoo because he was made by a Behamian
Speaker 4: servant working for the Auto family. Well, like I know
Speaker 4: that's not true because he is a stife doll. We've
Speaker 4: had We've had multiple discussions with Stife's company historians that
Speaker 4: have validated that Robert is part of a series that
Speaker 4: was done in the year that he was purchased for
Speaker 4: Eugene Auto. So, you know, once you kind of remove
Speaker 4: those voodoo stories, a lot of the more crazy antics,
Speaker 4: I think also become removed as well, because it's the
Speaker 4: same folks and the same bits of information that are
Speaker 4: basing it on voodoo have like the more Robert, you know,
Speaker 4: sets things on fire.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, we've.
Speaker 4: Never found anything to substantiate any of that. Nobody's ever
Speaker 4: called and complained that Robert has set their house on
Speaker 4: fire or people. I mean one story was a person
Speaker 4: was set on fire by Robert and they had to
Speaker 4: run to the ocean and jump in to to put
Speaker 4: themselves out. I mean, it's it's borders on a little insanity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, straw men typically avoid fire. I don't
Speaker 2: know what he's stuffed with, but you know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, usually they do. Well that's interesting.
Speaker 4: You know, it really depends, I think, on what version
Speaker 4: of the story you're listening to and what has actually.
Speaker 7: Been complained about.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of people complain about him, and
Speaker 4: there's definitely people that lived in Key West that have
Speaker 4: been interviewed that felt uncomfortable in the house, felt unco
Speaker 4: that felt a very uncomfortable spirit. What that is attributed to?
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously to Robert, yes, but what exactly it is?
Speaker 4: I mean, is it is it malice? Is it just
Speaker 4: a bit of bizarre behavior? Is it a child impish
Speaker 4: like behavior to do mischief? You know, people have their
Speaker 4: own theories, and it's you know, I think it I
Speaker 4: think it probably dials back from malice, specifically because they
Speaker 4: seem to be more outrageous stories that nobody can actually substantiate.
Speaker 7: So we we kind of the museum likes.
Speaker 4: To say, or we we think he has. There's obviously
Speaker 4: an energy about him. That's that's an absolute. What that
Speaker 4: energy is and how it affects different people, I think
Speaker 4: it depends on people's attitudes toward Robert, how they treat him,
Speaker 4: and then what response they get from him varies because
Speaker 4: some people have a very good experience with them. Some
Speaker 4: people have horrible experiences and say, you know, terrible things
Speaker 4: happen as soon as they leave him. So it's you know,
Speaker 4: I think it's all in his interpretation of the encounter
Speaker 4: and the experience.
Speaker 5: Well, it's very interesting to hear that Robert was part
Speaker 5: of a series. I wonder if there are other Robert
Speaker 5: the dolls in existence somewhere else.
Speaker 7: Well, there are there is one.
Speaker 4: Basically what he was was he was made for Stife.
Speaker 4: They made smaller versions of Robert. But I mean Robert
Speaker 4: wasn't made as a Robert. He was made as a
Speaker 4: court gesture. That's the series was very circus like court jestery.
Speaker 4: He would originally had on something similar to a court
Speaker 4: gesture with a multi colored almost Harlequin looked to him
Speaker 4: Rosy Cheeks had on. There was another one that the
Speaker 4: Stife company historian came across. He Robert would have been
Speaker 4: a window decoration alongside other dolls of the same size.
Speaker 4: They were just meant as a window display, and then
Speaker 4: Stife was selling much smaller versions for sale.
Speaker 7: So we think in the study historian has kind of
Speaker 7: led us.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's where we've learned a lot about the
Speaker 4: origins of the doll. We think that because the family
Speaker 4: was very well off, and because it was meant for
Speaker 4: a birthday present, that either of the series was ending
Speaker 4: and they were going to change out the window display,
Speaker 4: that those dolls became available or somebody came in and
Speaker 4: just offered a lot of money for the doll because
Speaker 4: they wanted to bring it back.
Speaker 7: So there are other dolls, not very many of that size.
Speaker 4: Most of them are much smaller, and by appearance, he
Speaker 4: honestly wouldn't recognize them. Robert's face has faded quite a
Speaker 4: bit over the years, so like he's lost his rosy cheeks,
Speaker 4: and he would have had color like not I want
Speaker 4: to say lipstick because it seems not nice to say,
Speaker 4: but he would have had some color in his lips
Speaker 4: where he doesn't now, So a lot.
Speaker 7: Of that stuff has faded away.
Speaker 4: But he would have been a court gesture stroke harlequin.
Speaker 5: That's interesting because a lot of people think that he's
Speaker 5: a sailah from the outfit what's left of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that is an outfit that Eugene had to
Speaker 4: have put on him, and we think that that was
Speaker 4: probably Eugene's own clothing from one he was younger.
Speaker 7: Is that big?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, he's the size of before he's the size
Speaker 4: of a four year old child. I mean he's almost
Speaker 4: four feet tall. Yeah, that's not that's not an original
Speaker 4: costume for him. That would have been. We think it
Speaker 4: was probably Gene Autos. There's a picture that his Jeene's
Speaker 4: sister had el Spith I think her name is of
Speaker 4: Gene in a sailor suit and it's it's he's kind
Speaker 4: of far in the distance, So we've tried to make
Speaker 4: it looks very very similar.
Speaker 7: In appearance.
Speaker 4: So we think that was probably at one point Jeane's
Speaker 4: clothing that then he put on the doll.
Speaker 2: I am I'm just delighted that you're sort of pop
Speaker 2: the balloon of some of these stories right off the bat,
Speaker 2: because that's kind of where our show tends to skew.
Speaker 2: But from a historical perspective, I'm wondering these stories themselves.
Speaker 2: Are they mostly from an oral tradition or is there
Speaker 2: actually written testimony of anyone who saw something strange, newspaper
Speaker 2: stories or any like. What historical documentation do you have
Speaker 2: for this sort of attitude that there was something bizarre
Speaker 2: about the doll or the relationship that Robert what Eugene
Speaker 2: had with the doll.
Speaker 7: Some people are still alive.
Speaker 4: I mean, Gene only died in the seventies, so there
Speaker 4: are still a lot of folks who you know, lived here,
Speaker 4: very long standing families in this town. I mean in fact,
Speaker 4: the next stort of the neighbor that lived across the
Speaker 4: street from the Autos. They i mean they've owned that
Speaker 4: house for you know, forty fifty years. I mean they
Speaker 4: remember Anne still being alive and living there. I mean
Speaker 4: the guy across the street was very good friends with Anne,
Speaker 4: who was Jean's wife, so they remember them very vividly.
Speaker 4: I mean he's very elderly now, but there's I mean,
Speaker 4: there's always been an interest in Robert, and especially when
Speaker 4: he came to the museum in the nineties, I think
Speaker 4: people started digging around for information. I mean, there's the
Speaker 4: people that purchased gene Auto's house after he passed away
Speaker 4: and left the premises they inherited the doll because the
Speaker 4: doll was still in the house and did not take
Speaker 4: the doll with her.
Speaker 7: When she moved.
Speaker 4: And the son of the people that purchased the house
Speaker 4: is still alive, and I mean he remembers things, so
Speaker 4: you know, while he doesn't remember Jane specifically, he lived
Speaker 4: in the same house with Robert for a time before
Speaker 4: his mother donated the doll to the museum, so he
Speaker 4: felt something.
Speaker 7: So you know, we do.
Speaker 4: Have we have people that we can probe for information
Speaker 4: on Robert, their experiences Robert, what they remember. I mean,
Speaker 4: of course there was some newspaper, but that was later
Speaker 4: on after Jean died. At people always thought him to
Speaker 4: be an odd duck, and when he died, I think
Speaker 4: a lot of people sort of becoming more vocal about
Speaker 4: how bizarre they felt his behavior was. You know, he
Speaker 4: moved in pretty influential circles because his family had money,
Speaker 4: but also because he was a very accomplished artist. And
Speaker 4: Anne was actually a concert pianist. I think she you know,
Speaker 4: she played in New York and they wrote music together,
Speaker 4: so they were they moved in quite affluent circles, and
Speaker 4: so you know, you don't find that people are very
Speaker 4: vocal about the affluent.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, it's only after they died they start making
Speaker 4: comments because of course they don't want to fall out
Speaker 4: of favor with their friends who have money, so they
Speaker 4: would never you know, typically say something.
Speaker 7: Negative.
Speaker 4: So you know, you're finding a lot of these stories
Speaker 4: later on, after Gene died and the house changed hands
Speaker 4: and you know, Robert was moving into you know, in
Speaker 4: with a different family and then ultimately with the museum.
Speaker 4: So that's when a lot of this comes out, but
Speaker 4: a lot of people do remember and they're still alive.
Speaker 5: Episode, is there a book in the works at all,
Speaker 5: because it sounds like it would be interesting while these
Speaker 5: people are still alive to get their stories, and too,
Speaker 5: because you have certainly a lot more information than you
Speaker 5: can find online. A lot of it seems to be
Speaker 5: just folklore and myth.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: David Sloane, who run the Ghost Tour a QS, he
Speaker 4: actually started the original Ghost Hour because QS is I guess,
Speaker 4: by all intents and purposes, considered quite haunted.
Speaker 7: There's quite a lot of houses there was.
Speaker 4: You know, with belts of yellow fever, so we had
Speaker 4: huge losses of life at times. So David Sloane actually
Speaker 4: started a ghost tour company down here. I would say, well,
Speaker 4: I don't even know any did that probably the mid nineties.
Speaker 4: And David always had some affinity for Robert. He was
Speaker 4: when he Robert Gart donated to the museum. David was
Speaker 4: very inted in finding out a lot about the doll
Speaker 4: and has actually I think it's been about two years
Speaker 4: the book's been out now. David wrote a book. We
Speaker 4: gave him access to a lot of our archival material
Speaker 4: and he did the leg works. The museum is just
Speaker 4: we're a small museum. We don't have the manpower to
Speaker 4: do that. And David and I've known each other for years,
Speaker 4: so it made sense for David to take the lead
Speaker 4: on that to find things. So he spent you know,
Speaker 4: days at the library contacting family members, contacting folks who
Speaker 4: would have remembered Jane and Anne living down here, and
Speaker 4: interviewing people and asking for photographs. So David did a
Speaker 4: lot of leg work, and David did put out a
Speaker 4: book must be almost two years ago now that David
Speaker 4: so he did, and it's not something the museum could
Speaker 4: have undertaken.
Speaker 7: So we were very happy and we gave it.
Speaker 4: Like I said, we gave him access to anything that
Speaker 4: we had to make sure that the book was as
Speaker 4: thorough as possible.
Speaker 6: We'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: I know people who actually are quite afraid of Robert
Speaker 2: are very deferential to him, even from Afar, And I
Speaker 2: wonder there's this habit of sending letters of apology or
Speaker 2: something like that is can you explain that or talk
Speaker 2: about that or what's that about?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 4: You know, again, I think this goes back to people's
Speaker 4: experiences and everybody who interacts with Robert, whether it's you know,
Speaker 4: some people don't even interact with him in perse and
Speaker 4: some people feel that they've interacted with him online by
Speaker 4: learning his story or watching videos on YouTube or wherever
Speaker 4: they can find them. And each person obviously has a
Speaker 4: very different experience with Robert, and they whatever it is,
Speaker 4: the Robert I suppose, I mean, I don't know. This
Speaker 4: is something that's been long standing. Even before I was
Speaker 4: at the museum. Apology letters started filtering in from folks
Speaker 4: who had visited and felt that they had done something
Speaker 4: incorrect to Robert and needed to apologize to something because
Speaker 4: they were experiencing a string of bad luck, you know,
Speaker 4: and that varied in the degree. I mean, sometimes it
Speaker 4: was just as simple.
Speaker 7: As our flights were delayed when we were leaving in
Speaker 7: Key West to Okay.
Speaker 4: We came home from Key West and we found like
Speaker 4: a dead bat in our washing machine, you know, just
Speaker 4: weird things, and so we get letters, emails, people contact him, honestly,
Speaker 4: I mean, Robert has his own Facebook page and his
Speaker 4: own Twitter page, So people contact him anyway that they can,
Speaker 4: from all over the world and just apologize or want
Speaker 4: to know why they're having bad luck. Because they just
Speaker 4: watched a video or felt that they were very respectful
Speaker 4: to Robert when they visited, but they still are having
Speaker 4: these horrible things happened to them and want Robert to
Speaker 4: lift whatever it is, whatever negative energy surrounding these people.
Speaker 4: So we get all sorts of letters and I mean
Speaker 4: full call people call.
Speaker 7: You know, it's it's incredible.
Speaker 5: Isn't there a particular protocol that some people believe in
Speaker 5: for taking photographs?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there is, and people are meant to
Speaker 4: ask permission of Robert to take his photo.
Speaker 7: He doesn't.
Speaker 4: He's classically not enjoyed his photo being taken. He has
Speaker 4: really messed with people's cameras. The Travel Channel was down
Speaker 4: and they actually their main camera that they brought with
Speaker 4: them broke, so they had to use their backup camera
Speaker 4: to film them mysteries at the museum. I think it
Speaker 4: was had come down and done it from the Travel Channel,
Speaker 4: and you know, their camera was messed ups, and these
Speaker 4: are professional people that know how to operate their whipment.
Speaker 7: So they actually.
Speaker 4: All sent apology letters to Robert after they left because
Speaker 4: they they were completely convinced that Robert had done something
Speaker 4: to their equipment.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like Robert is them an apology.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure that's how it works. It make its
Speaker 7: the other way around.
Speaker 2: Can you apologize via Twitter or does it strictly have
Speaker 2: to be a letter or how does that work?
Speaker 8: Mean?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, in this day and age, I
Speaker 4: think Robert has to be slightly adaptable to people's apologies.
Speaker 7: And like I said, sometimes it comes from people that
Speaker 7: I have never even met him.
Speaker 4: I mean, he has a woman in Indonesia who believes
Speaker 4: that Robert is going to come kill her and her
Speaker 4: family and sends things privately, and that's not something the
Speaker 4: museum would necessarily share, like to her letters or not.
Speaker 4: You know, we try to be selective with what we
Speaker 4: put out there because I think people feel that they
Speaker 4: are really writing to Robert. I didn't put anything out,
Speaker 4: you know, and on on the internet. It's not necessarily
Speaker 4: something that they would like because it's a private letter
Speaker 4: to an entity. And so, you know, we we have
Speaker 4: this person Indonesia who is completely apparently convinced, and so
Speaker 4: she's she emails him at least three or four times
Speaker 4: a day and has done for gosh, the last five
Speaker 4: or six months, and then actually went to the museum
Speaker 4: social media page started emailing to the point that you know,
Speaker 4: the museum staff who checks the social media said.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, you know, do we need to be.
Speaker 4: Concerned about this because of the town And she's never
Speaker 4: met him, She's never she's never left Indonesia, so I
Speaker 4: mean he's very far reaching. So he gets messages from
Speaker 4: people who I don't have access or don't have the ability.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's no way that she can write this
Speaker 4: many letters per day and actually post them. So, you know,
Speaker 4: the museum is a actable to how he receives any
Speaker 4: kind of correspondence right here. He's got a Facebook page too,
Speaker 4: doesn't he He does, He's got his own Yeah, he does, well,
Speaker 4: he does.
Speaker 6: It's fortunate.
Speaker 2: I guess they don't have an unlike button, right, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, no one can offend him too much on Facebook.
Speaker 5: Got an angry button, I.
Speaker 7: Guess, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, some some people say things that
Speaker 4: they don't believe in him on his Facebook page, and
Speaker 4: you know, Robert typically doesn't have to respond to any
Speaker 4: of that because anybody.
Speaker 7: Else who's very supportive of.
Speaker 4: Robert and and follows him will just take up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, he does.
Speaker 4: He really does people people just you know, they gravitate
Speaker 4: toward him, good and good and bad.
Speaker 2: So, so Robert has been in the museum a while now,
Speaker 2: and then he was on that TV show with Zach Baggin's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so what was that like?
Speaker 7: Interesting?
Speaker 6: Okay, interesting?
Speaker 7: Robert. Robert never left Florida after he arrived.
Speaker 4: We cannot find any documentation that once Jean's family members
Speaker 4: brought Robert to Florida, that Robert has ever left the
Speaker 4: state of Florida since. And so Travel Channel reached out
Speaker 4: to us asking if we would be keen on this
Speaker 4: bringing Robert to this program. And you know, we were
Speaker 4: obviously very apprehensive about doing that because you know, he's
Speaker 4: he's fragile, and you know from the angle that I
Speaker 4: have to come at it.
Speaker 7: I'm the curator.
Speaker 4: I have to make sure that if objects are moving around,
Speaker 4: that they are very well protected, that they're safe to
Speaker 4: do that that they're in such a fragile condition, you know.
Speaker 4: Never mind that he's in a very human environment and
Speaker 4: I'm taking him to a very dry environment of Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: That we're not compromising a museum artifact because I know
Speaker 4: we all I mean and all of us are guilty
Speaker 4: of it. Even at the museum, we refer to Robert
Speaker 4: as a human, you know, we call him him. We
Speaker 4: don't call it it, but you know, we I have
Speaker 4: to have some realization that Robert actually is a museum
Speaker 4: artifact and so he has to be treated as such.
Speaker 7: So that was our big concern. Uh.
Speaker 4: And the Travel Channel people actually were super about it.
Speaker 4: And you know, I'm not sure, uh, you know, I
Speaker 4: know they of course they have an angle about what
Speaker 4: they were wanting to portray Robert as and what we
Speaker 4: were hoping I guess what they were hoping to to
Speaker 4: get their viewership to believe about him. And you know,
Speaker 4: it was it was an interesting It was an interesting experience.
Speaker 4: I'm sure we get a lot of pr traction out
Speaker 4: of it for the museum and for Robert. So, I mean,
Speaker 4: we saw his Facebook numbers jump and people were paying
Speaker 4: a lot more attention and people, I mean people were
Speaker 4: calling the museum to tell us how upset because they thought,
Speaker 4: you know, they just saw Robert in Las Vegas and
Speaker 4: they just thought with the museum had sold him, or
Speaker 4: the museum had our museum had moved him to Vegas permanently.
Speaker 7: And we got some really.
Speaker 4: Rude correspondence from people in phone calls saying.
Speaker 7: How dare we you know, how how dare we move
Speaker 7: him to Vegas?
Speaker 4: And how he's meant to be in Key West and
Speaker 4: how we're all going to be cursed because of it.
Speaker 4: So it was really I found that probably more fascinating
Speaker 4: than anything, were people's response to Robert leaving key West,
Speaker 4: even if it was only temporary.
Speaker 5: He was going to get his own Vegas act.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, and whatever's cursed in Vegas stays
Speaker 2: in Vegas, so that's all good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, Well, we made sure a lot of it
Speaker 4: hit his social media pages.
Speaker 7: I actually got him.
Speaker 4: We took him because I mean he's huge, to be fair,
Speaker 4: you know, he's the size of a child, so we
Speaker 4: were uh we took him into one of the casinos
Speaker 4: and asked if we can actually put him at a
Speaker 4: slot machine and take his photo nice and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: because you know, when in Vegas he might as well.
Speaker 7: Uh. And it was it was absolutely insane people.
Speaker 4: I had to go talk to the pit boss about it,
Speaker 4: and we had security around us because you know, the
Speaker 4: guy said, you have a whate because he traveled in
Speaker 4: a body bag effectively, so he could I mean really,
Speaker 4: he was in a big suit bag because we couldn't
Speaker 4: take the chance of anybody spilling anything on him. So
Speaker 4: we walked into the casino with, you know, holding like
Speaker 4: a kid a body bag, and.
Speaker 7: So people obviously staring at you, and they're going, what
Speaker 7: is going on?
Speaker 6: How did he? How did he do? Did he do?
Speaker 7: No, he wasn't allowed to play, that was the rule.
Speaker 7: We could only take a photo.
Speaker 4: Well, he's quite over age, I think because he wasn't
Speaker 4: God forbid, you know, he won.
Speaker 7: And he's I guess, I guess the I R S probably.
Speaker 4: Couldn't come after him for for his winnings their share
Speaker 4: of the winnings. So they said, just you know, a
Speaker 4: couple of photos, and the pit boss had to stand
Speaker 4: behind us, and we had security flanking us to make
Speaker 4: sure that nobody came up to us, and we didn't
Speaker 4: actually do anything.
Speaker 7: That we I mean, you know, who knows what we're
Speaker 7: up to? Me what a great story.
Speaker 4: Sure, I'm carrying han to dollar around and he's playing
Speaker 4: slot machines. I mean, we could have that could have
Speaker 4: been some kind of ridiculous story to do something else that.
Speaker 7: We were heavily guarded when we were there.
Speaker 5: So you're talking about the agendas of these TV shows
Speaker 5: and the angles that they take. Do you feel like
Speaker 5: there's a lot of pressure for you guys there at
Speaker 5: the museum to play up the supernatural aspects of Robert's story.
Speaker 7: I think so.
Speaker 4: I think so, and you know, and of course we
Speaker 4: have to be very conscientious of not putting people off
Speaker 4: because you know, it's we're the museum has to deal
Speaker 4: in fact. But we also don't want to discourage people
Speaker 4: feeling that the way, you know, the way that they
Speaker 4: would naturally feel.
Speaker 7: So, you know, we we do not.
Speaker 4: Say for anybody like whatever our personal beliefs are, whether
Speaker 4: or not. I mean, there's staff members who really believe
Speaker 4: in Robert and talk to him all the time they're
Speaker 4: in the museum, and there are staff members that just say,
Speaker 4: you know, really, this is you.
Speaker 7: Know, it's it's a doll.
Speaker 4: So, you know, we we can't let our personal beliefs
Speaker 4: come into that and what the museum allows out there.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, my take on it is.
Speaker 4: There's there has to be something to it because all
Speaker 4: these people can't be wrong. I mean, he's contacted by
Speaker 4: so many individuals talking about so many things, and how
Speaker 4: he affects so many people's lives, Like who is the
Speaker 4: museum to say yes or no that you're right or wrong?
Speaker 4: So the museum has to be very ambiguous. But we
Speaker 4: certainly will not make up something just to to follow
Speaker 4: through with an agenda, let's say, for a program like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, We've been contacted by a lot of programs.
Speaker 4: I don't want to single them out like they're they're
Speaker 4: they're the only ones. I mean, you know, he's been
Speaker 4: to paranormal uh conference, and you know, I know that
Speaker 4: they were some people there were very much trying to
Speaker 4: push something, and then the other people were just like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm just curious and I want to learn something. So
Speaker 4: we just try to be very middle of the road
Speaker 4: and let people make their own decisions.
Speaker 5: I'm sure it can be a good gateway to history
Speaker 5: in many ways too.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: Would people still come see Robert if Eugene had just
Speaker 2: been an adult with an attachment to a doll? I mean,
Speaker 2: like if he had a mundane doll history, except that
Speaker 2: his owner had been peculiar without the supernatural elements.
Speaker 7: I know, who knows.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the fascination is for people I
Speaker 4: can't say. I mean, some people are attracted to the
Speaker 4: Roberts story sort of the Eugene story more because I
Speaker 4: don't know if it's something that they can identify with.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's like a lonely little boy
Speaker 4: thing that people you know growing up and you have
Speaker 4: an attachment to, you know, other people or objects. So
Speaker 4: some people find the fascination and the hatchment and not
Speaker 4: necessarily Robert, where other people are just fascinated by the
Speaker 4: supernatural and by Robert and.
Speaker 7: You know who. I don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 7: people come in.
Speaker 4: People come to the museum because specifically because they don't
Speaker 4: believe in Robert and they just want to prove something
Speaker 4: that nothing will happen to them. I see, so you
Speaker 4: know who knew. I can't really say whether or not
Speaker 4: people would still come. I think that they would because
Speaker 4: they do now for all sorts of reasons. So if
Speaker 4: the circumstance changed but Robert was still on display, yeah,
Speaker 4: of course people would probably come see him because they
Speaker 4: still have their own justifications for that and reasonings to
Speaker 4: visit Robert.
Speaker 6: This is kind of not really a follow up, but
Speaker 6: I just thought of it.
Speaker 2: I want to ask, is, is anyone who has been
Speaker 2: interviewed about what they've heard with Robert and Eugene talking.
Speaker 6: To each other?
Speaker 2: Did they describe the voice that they heard?
Speaker 6: Did?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just curious whether was the voice of
Speaker 2: you know how sometimes kids, you know, or even like
Speaker 2: almost like a ventriloquism, or was it a completely different
Speaker 2: alien you know, I don't mean like from another planet.
Speaker 2: I mean, alien is not the voice of Eugene.
Speaker 6: Does that make sense?
Speaker 7: Yeah? It does. I don't know.
Speaker 4: David Sloan again, who's the one who authored the book
Speaker 4: on Robert, carried out those interviews. I sat in on
Speaker 4: a couple of them, and he taped them, so he
Speaker 4: shared some of those with me. I don't remember if
Speaker 4: it was mentioned. I don't remember personally, and I know
Speaker 4: he interviewed people that heard either Robert talking or Eugene
Speaker 4: throwing his voice, whichever the case is, that you know
Speaker 4: you believe, I don't remember. David Is would be a
Speaker 4: better person to ask for that. I'm not sure what
Speaker 4: the voice would have sounded like. I mean, for the
Speaker 4: fact that people would follow up to say that they
Speaker 4: thought there were two people in the room. My gut
Speaker 4: instinct is that the voice was quite different, because wouldn't
Speaker 4: you just think it was Eugene talking to himself if
Speaker 4: the voice was similar.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And certainly when these stories are passed on, they
Speaker 5: become embellished and it's very difficult to know what really happened.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: So you were talking about Eugene's art and how accomplished
Speaker 5: and well known he was, and is do you actually
Speaker 5: have any of his artworks on display in the museum.
Speaker 7: We don't. We own some of his artwork, we don't
Speaker 7: have it on display.
Speaker 4: Some of the pieces it's we think it's probably it's
Speaker 4: probably best security wise that they're not because they're smaller
Speaker 4: and people are I mean, of course whenever we would
Speaker 4: never accuse me. But you know, we certainly are more
Speaker 4: cautious with Eugene's artwork because of its size and because
Speaker 4: of the information circulating around about Robert, and if somebody
Speaker 4: had an attachment to Robert, which they do, I mean,
Speaker 4: he gets love letters and presents and all sorts of things.
Speaker 4: So the museum feels that it's probably for the best
Speaker 4: that we don't leave original artwork out because the museum
Speaker 4: is busy, but it's not fully I mean it's supervised,
Speaker 4: but it's not like we don't have security guards in
Speaker 4: that room twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2: I think we'd actually like to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about the museum itself too. But I have one more
Speaker 2: sort of Robert question, which is, I've heard that Chucky
Speaker 2: from Child's Play was based on Robert.
Speaker 6: Do you know if there's any truth for that?
Speaker 4: No, absolutely, not even that the I don't remember the
Speaker 4: director's name of the film. I mean he even came up,
Speaker 4: because he's obviously been asked this question over and over again.
Speaker 4: He said no, awesome, that's really interesting, he said no.
Speaker 4: And I know David tried to follow up with him
Speaker 4: who's writing the book, because that's something that David and
Speaker 4: I have like a real bugbear about is And I understand.
Speaker 4: I get it because they're dolls and they have owners,
Speaker 4: and you know, Chucky killed people and Robert, but I
Speaker 4: understand it being based on something. But even the movies
Speaker 4: directors come out and said, no, there's no basis for that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know it's out. I mean it's everywhere.
Speaker 4: I mean people, it is. It is, and there's you know,
Speaker 4: the museum says it isn't. But you know, there's there's
Speaker 4: plenty of other websites that do.
Speaker 5: So, Okay, well, we wanted to ask you a bit
Speaker 5: more about the museum. So what kind of work does
Speaker 5: curating a museum entail.
Speaker 4: I'm responsible for all the objects in our collection and
Speaker 4: writing all of the didactic information that gets put out there,
Speaker 4: as well as doing the displays, so kind of kind
Speaker 4: of a lot, kind of it keeps me extremely busy.
Speaker 4: So that's that's kind of my job in nutshell and
Speaker 4: doing all sorts of dealing with inquiries and it's it's
Speaker 4: fascinating work.
Speaker 7: I mean, Robert is one.
Speaker 4: Of you know, we've we probably have at least thirty
Speaker 4: thousand objects in the collection, so he's one of so
Speaker 4: he's uh, I mean, he's a big responsibility because he's.
Speaker 7: One of our more well known objects.
Speaker 4: So he does get we have a bias toward him
Speaker 4: because of course, you know, he is he is more
Speaker 4: special than some of the other ones. He is pretty special,
Speaker 4: so we do a bias. But that's that's that's my job.
Speaker 7: Usually.
Speaker 2: What sort of other objects do you have in the museum,
Speaker 2: What what notable historical type things, what do you like
Speaker 2: to highlight besides.
Speaker 4: Robert Well, so Robert is in forty Smartella Museum. The
Speaker 4: historical society that I work for, actually we have three museums,
Speaker 4: so Robert is at the fort. There are we tend
Speaker 4: to each one has its own identity. Each of the
Speaker 4: museum sites has its own identity. We run the lighthouse
Speaker 4: as well, so that has a completely separate identity and
Speaker 4: attracts a completely different set of visitors. And then we
Speaker 4: operate another museum that's the Museum of Art and History
Speaker 4: of Key West. So there's a little bit of crossover
Speaker 4: between the Fort and the Museum of Art and History.
Speaker 4: So each one we try to highlight different objects in
Speaker 4: each place because let's say, for instance, the lighthouse attracts
Speaker 4: people that are more interested in military history usually or
Speaker 4: nautical history, or you know, people just love lighthouses.
Speaker 7: So they go there.
Speaker 4: A lot of visitors to the fort are really interested
Speaker 4: in Robert. I mean he is one of the big
Speaker 4: drives for people to go to the fore. I mean
Speaker 4: there's a lot of other objects there, and that's what
Speaker 4: we tend to find with visitors. They'll come for Robert
Speaker 4: and they learn so much more because we tried to
Speaker 4: talk about the history of Key West in there in
Speaker 4: that museum, we talk about all the different industries. The
Speaker 4: museum itself is a Civil War era fort that was
Speaker 4: used through the Civil War. It was used through the
Speaker 4: Spanish American War.
Speaker 7: They used it during World War one and two.
Speaker 4: They also because Key West is the closest to Cuba,
Speaker 4: when there was the Cuban Missile crisis, that actually that
Speaker 4: fort is the closest building to or one of the
Speaker 4: closest buildings to Cuba. So when Kennedy actually came to
Speaker 4: Key westerning the Cuban missile crisis, you know, there was
Speaker 4: a lot going on at the fort militarily. So people
Speaker 4: liked that fort in particular because of its military.
Speaker 7: Draw So we highlight a lot of that history.
Speaker 4: What that also means is it when you have a
Speaker 4: military history, especially civil war and especially before disease prevention
Speaker 4: and disease control was much more mainstream, a lot of
Speaker 4: the soldiers that were stationed in Key West, you know,
Speaker 4: died because we're in a very tropical environment. Yellow fever
Speaker 4: outbreaks happened a lot, and they would quarantine at the fort.
Speaker 4: So I think there's always been this idea of death
Speaker 4: and a little bit of a darkness surrounding it. And
Speaker 4: so Robert was a natural fit for the fort when
Speaker 4: he was donated, because I kind of had that connotation anyway,
Speaker 4: and I think a lot of it is because the
Speaker 4: history and history you're looking in the past, it's gone,
Speaker 4: so it has that sort of error of not being
Speaker 4: here anymore, because it's like industries that are defunct, so
Speaker 4: you have I think that kind of that same mindset.
Speaker 7: So Robert was a natural fit to be out there.
Speaker 7: And then other objects started filtering in.
Speaker 4: I mean, once you have, I guess, one haunted object,
Speaker 4: everybody calls you to donate or talk to you about
Speaker 4: other objects.
Speaker 7: Actually, before Robert was there, we had.
Speaker 4: A donation I think it was in the fifties, maybe
Speaker 4: early nineteen sixties of a horse drawn hearse from the
Speaker 4: funeral pollar down here, one of them down here. The
Speaker 4: funeral director donated it because they obviously moved into a
Speaker 4: vehicle for their funeral processions and they had this horse
Speaker 4: drawn hearse that had carried you know, god who knows
Speaker 4: how many bodies, and that was donated to us in
Speaker 4: the sixties. So we've always had that as an organization,
Speaker 4: and that's always been on display.
Speaker 7: Then we had Robert. Then there was a.
Speaker 4: Very really creepy, horrible story about a guy that stole
Speaker 4: a woman out of the Keys Cemetery. The marker because
Speaker 4: there was no headstone per se, because it was an
Speaker 4: entire above ground mausoleum.
Speaker 7: Built for her.
Speaker 4: There was a marble sign that had her name on
Speaker 4: it and you know, her birth date and her death date,
Speaker 4: and one that the mausoleum exploded. Somebody salvaged this plaque,
Speaker 4: this sign, marble stone sign, and the museum actually has it.
Speaker 7: They donated it to the museum. So I'm curious.
Speaker 5: Is anyone ever offered to buy Robert.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, We've had phone calls from people offering a you know,
Speaker 4: insane amounts of money for you know, truthful or not.
Speaker 7: Who knows. I I don't know.
Speaker 4: I usually get lucky enough to field these phone calls.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean, you know, a million, a billion dollars. Okay,
Speaker 4: she's not for sale. Yeah, he's not for sale as
Speaker 4: a museum objects. You know, we don't, we're not in
Speaker 4: the habit of selling museum objects. We had a woman
Speaker 4: call saying that.
Speaker 7: She was she was the.
Speaker 4: I don't know, the somehow related. Oh, she was Eugene
Speaker 4: auto's daughter and she wanted the doll and I said, okay,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously I'll entertain the phone conversation. So I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: so what are you proposing? And she said a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of numbers, and I just said, well, you know,
Speaker 4: they didn't have children, so I don't.
Speaker 7: Know how you know you're possibly the daughter if they.
Speaker 4: Didn't have children. And so then she said something really
Speaker 4: nasty to me on the phone, told me I would
Speaker 4: be cursed and hung up on. So, you know, we
Speaker 4: get all we get all sorts. I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: think we've ever had a legitimate offer for Robert that
Speaker 4: people can follow through with, but we get a lot
Speaker 4: of phone calls allegedly offering to purchase him.
Speaker 2: Well, if we go to Key West and want to
Speaker 2: see the museum, I mean you said there's more than
Speaker 2: you've actually got three locations, but can you buy like
Speaker 2: one pass and it covers all three or how does
Speaker 2: that work?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah you can.
Speaker 5: Great, Okay, go to get out there someday.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to go down there, and there seems
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of things to see, so that
Speaker 2: sounds neat yeah, and there's a beach too, apparently I
Speaker 2: had If you haven't heard that, that's a just one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's tough. It's tough living here.
Speaker 5: Is there that interesting cemetery as well? With all of
Speaker 5: the the witty epitaphs and some strange music.
Speaker 4: Us Keys cemetery is I think it's one of the
Speaker 4: most underrated.
Speaker 7: Things to do down here.
Speaker 4: You know, you go to places like New Orleans and
Speaker 4: they have special tours all the time for and people
Speaker 4: are just so engaged with the cemeteries, and here they
Speaker 4: do as good a job as they can because it's
Speaker 4: still an operational cemetery. Uh so they you know, they
Speaker 4: can't do like regular tours, and they just encourage people
Speaker 4: to go through on their own.
Speaker 7: And they have.
Speaker 4: Wonderful maps online, so they don't want to, you know,
Speaker 4: disrupt services or tell people, you know, run tours while
Speaker 4: families are grieving, so you know, they encourage you to
Speaker 4: do it on your own. And I don't know that
Speaker 4: enough people do that. I mean, there's some really hilarious headstones,
Speaker 4: there's some really interesting people that are that are buried here,
Speaker 4: and you have I think one of the more fascinating
Speaker 4: aspects of it is, and it kind of I think
Speaker 4: speaks to Key West in general historically. Is you know,
Speaker 4: you've got everybody's in one cemetery, so you've you know,
Speaker 4: you have the Jewish population, of the Catholic population, you
Speaker 4: have blacks, you have white too, Hispanics. I mean, they're
Speaker 4: all buried in and amongst each other. So it's a
Speaker 4: really neat I think, cultural comment. But also I think
Speaker 4: it gives you a really good idea of who lived
Speaker 4: here in a lot of the history in qs and
Speaker 4: some of the humor that goes with it. I mean,
Speaker 4: somebody has their pet deer. Actually, the Auto family has
Speaker 4: their deer buried with them.
Speaker 7: They had a pet deer.
Speaker 4: And they had you know, somebody has on a woman
Speaker 4: wrote like a see I told you I was sick
Speaker 4: on her headstone.
Speaker 7: So there's lots of little funny.
Speaker 6: That's really funny. But you know, Turky, I think it's kind.
Speaker 2: Of lamentable that to some degree, a lot of these
Speaker 2: ghosting TV shows seem to have played up the idea of,
Speaker 2: you know, haunted graveyards and cemeteries. I think historically there
Speaker 2: are places where you were member of the people, and
Speaker 2: it's historical you remember the history of the people.
Speaker 6: People you might not know.
Speaker 2: You might stop and see something interesting and like want
Speaker 2: to find out more about that person who did this
Speaker 2: thing or who was remembered for this thing, or or
Speaker 2: at least think about them right in the context that
Speaker 2: they had and the you know, all the other things
Speaker 2: that come with that, which you know, the brevity of
Speaker 2: life and so on. But they're underrated. They're underrated. I
Speaker 2: think our listeners probably like them, but you know, well, I.
Speaker 5: Think a lot of them were. Historically, you treated it
Speaker 5: as parks and the people would go there and have lunch,
Speaker 5: and so they didn't quite have the stigma that they
Speaker 5: often have today. Corey, we have a question that we
Speaker 5: like to ask all of our guests, so our final question,
Speaker 5: and that is what's your favorite monster.
Speaker 7: I don't know, there's just so many.
Speaker 4: To pick from. I would say, I don't know. I'm
Speaker 4: kind of since I'm a historian. I think I'm a
Speaker 4: little old school, and I would just stick to like
Speaker 4: a good classic like Frankenstein.
Speaker 6: It's nice, can't go wrong.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I think I'm just you know, like,
Speaker 4: I'd like.
Speaker 7: To keep it simple.
Speaker 5: I think we've had before, so that's good.
Speaker 2: Well, I think someone will throw something at their iPod
Speaker 2: if I don't say, well, technically Frankenstein was not the monster,
Speaker 2: but you know, it depends on how you look at it,
Speaker 2: and certainly within the Hammer films and their interpretation of it,
Speaker 2: the doctor Frankenstin did become the monster in many ways.
Speaker 2: But I actually just came back from watching young Young
Speaker 2: Frankenston on a special one night big screen presentation last night.
Speaker 2: I just the whole idea of reanimating the dead. It
Speaker 2: ties in nicely with this episode anyway. Definitely, I think
Speaker 2: it's a great choice.
Speaker 7: Yeah, excellent.
Speaker 5: Thanks, but yeah, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 5: the show. We've been talking about wanting to do a
Speaker 5: rob at the Doll Show for years now, so we're
Speaker 5: very very happy and we're really excited about this one.
Speaker 2: And thank you so much for your work in preserving
Speaker 2: history and making it available to people.
Speaker 6: That's really important.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thank you. It's that's really what we do it for.
Speaker 4: You know, working for a nonprofits not the most glorious,
Speaker 4: so you know, it's things and just getting out there
Speaker 4: and getting people to learn really makes the job so
Speaker 4: much more rewarding.
Speaker 6: Monstertle, you've been listening to Monster Talk. I'm Blake Smith
Speaker 6: and I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 2: You just heard an interview with doctor Corey Covertito about
Speaker 2: Robert the Doll in his Strange History. As you heard,
Speaker 2: there's a particular atmosphere surrounding Robert in his exhibit at
Speaker 2: Key West. Corey called it an energy. But I want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about that idea. In his
Speaker 2: book The Science of Superstition, psychology professor Bruce Hood tells
Speaker 2: about a fascinating experiment in which people were asked to
Speaker 2: try on a sweater. It's a simple experimental idea. Would
Speaker 2: people be willing to try on a clean sweater from
Speaker 2: a stranger? Most people wouldn't mind.
Speaker 6: But when Bruce.
Speaker 2: Tells them the sweater belonged to a notorious serial killer,
Speaker 2: Suddenly few people are willing to touch the sweater.
Speaker 6: Why.
Speaker 2: It's because we have an idea of tainted items, the
Speaker 2: things we experience, even the way we rate the quality
Speaker 2: of food and drink. It's heavily influenced by expectation and
Speaker 2: mood and a number of complicated feelings beyond the immediate
Speaker 2: visceral act of experiencing whatever it is.
Speaker 6: We're trying.
Speaker 2: A big idea in the study of superstition is that
Speaker 2: people attribute agency to particular patterns of events and sensations.
Speaker 2: Superstitions come from the very powerful effect of our brain
Speaker 2: finding patterns and matching them to a particular cause. If
Speaker 2: you wear green socks and your team winds, and then
Speaker 2: you wear green socks again later and your team wins.
Speaker 6: It's the socks.
Speaker 2: It couldn't be the skill of the players or the
Speaker 2: random variations that happened during a game. No, clearly, your
Speaker 2: footwear choices are really good siding factor of what else
Speaker 2: could explain it? Okay, that's a silly example, but that's
Speaker 2: the kind of stuff the superstition's made of. There's a
Speaker 2: mental effect called confirmation bias, which comes up again and
Speaker 2: again when we research why people believe bizarre and unlikely things.
Speaker 2: Confirmation bias is a tendency to see things which confirm
Speaker 2: to your belief and to ignore things which don't match
Speaker 2: the pattern.
Speaker 6: If you've ever.
Speaker 2: Lived with someone who frequently left the seat up on
Speaker 2: the toilet, you might find yourself thinking, he always leaves
Speaker 2: the seat up, Yet what if sometimes he doesn't? Would
Speaker 2: you notice? Why would you? That's not the pattern you're
Speaker 2: looking for. Attribution is a big challenge in researching the paranormal.
Speaker 2: When something peculiar happens, was it caused by aliens? Was
Speaker 2: it a ghost? Could it have been demons? Did anything
Speaker 2: even really happen? If something did happen, was it really peculiar?
Speaker 2: This whole problem of attribution, Who are what caused that
Speaker 2: strange event or that unusual feeling is something to consider
Speaker 2: very closely when thinking about Robert the Doll. And Another
Speaker 2: important psychological effect is called priming, the setting of expectations,
Speaker 2: whether consciously or unconsciously, before an encounter takes place. Just
Speaker 2: like listening to creepy music and seeing other scary trailers
Speaker 2: primes you for an experience at all horror film. Imagine
Speaker 2: hearing Legends and Laura surrounding this doll Robert before finally
Speaker 2: coming to see him on display. Robert isn't just a
Speaker 2: dolly museum, and he's not just adorned with a sailor
Speaker 2: outfit and filled with straw. Robert is decorated with thousands
Speaker 2: of stories in more than a century of lore. He's
Speaker 2: stuffed with meaning.
Speaker 6: As much as he's stuffed with straw.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's surprising that people find Robert frightening.
Speaker 2: But I hope listening to these ideas and perhaps reading
Speaker 2: some of the material I've linked to, will help you
Speaker 2: see that there are many very plausible reasons to be
Speaker 2: skeptical of Robert's allege's supernatural powers. No disrespect intended to Robert,
Speaker 2: of course. Monster Talk is an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine.
Speaker 2: The views you've heard on this show are those of
Speaker 2: myself and my guests and do not necessarily reflect the
Speaker 2: views or opinions of Skeptic Magazine or the Skeptic Society.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to see the reflected views of Skeptic Magazine,
Speaker 2: you'll need to get a silver mirror, creep into the
Speaker 2: darkness of a graveyard by moonlight, and then next to
Speaker 2: the big vaulted tomb, put your back to the entrance,
Speaker 2: look into the mirror, and mutter Michael Schermer three times.
Speaker 2: Or you could just buy the magazine as your local
Speaker 2: newsstand or subscribe at skeptic dot com.
Speaker 6: It's your call.
Speaker 2: Here's a quick reminder about a huge skeptics conference coming
Speaker 2: up in October. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is hosting
Speaker 2: p Ssicon twenty sixteen in Las Vegas. Go to CSI
Speaker 2: Conference dot org for more details. But the guest list
Speaker 2: is amazing. You got James Randy, Masimo Polidoro, Elizabeth Loftis,
Speaker 2: Ray Hyman, Joe Nicol, Eugenie Scott, Lawrence Krauss. Look, the
Speaker 2: list is just full of awesome people. Go check it out.
Speaker 2: That's CSI Conference dot org in Las Vegas, October twenty
Speaker 2: seventh through the thirtieth, twenty sixteen. We hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 2: this episode of Monster Talk. Each episode we strive to
Speaker 2: bring you the best in monster related content, with a
Speaker 2: focus on bringing scientific skeptics into the conversation. If you
Speaker 2: enjoy Monster Talk, we now have a variety of ways
Speaker 2: to support the show, all with convenient links at monster
Speaker 2: talk dot org forge slash support. That's monster talk dot
Speaker 2: org forge Slash support. There we have links to our
Speaker 2: Patreon pages as well as a donation button. A great
Speaker 2: way to support the show is to buy us books
Speaker 2: from our Amazon Monster Talk wish List, which directly helps
Speaker 2: us with our research. We love usbooks very much, so
Speaker 2: don't feel compelled to buy new ones, and we love
Speaker 2: Kindle and we can share our digital library with each other. Finally,
Speaker 2: without spending any money at all, you can support us
Speaker 2: by leaving a positive review at iTunes or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. Positive reviews help keep us visible in iTunes,
Speaker 2: which is a great way to help us find new listeners.
Speaker 2: And please share our show on your favorite social media platforms.
Speaker 2: Monster Talk theme music is by Pete Steally Monkeys. The
Speaker 2: introduction segments music is the song Creepy Doll by Jonathan Colton.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned altro to hear the full version of that
Speaker 2: amazing song. Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 3: Want to stay abreast of the latest from Skeptic Magazine
Speaker 3: and The Skeptic Society. Want cutting edge skeptical articles delivered
Speaker 3: straight to your inbox every week, Then subscribe to E Skeptic,
Speaker 3: the free electronic newsletter the Skeptic Society. Visit skeptic dot
Speaker 3: com to sign up.
Speaker 9: Been a town in the woods at the top of
Speaker 9: a hill, there's a house where no one lives, so
Speaker 9: you take a big bag of your big city money
Speaker 9: there and buy it. But at night, when the house
Speaker 9: is dark.
Speaker 10: And you're all alone.
Speaker 9: There's a noise upstairs. At the top of the stairs,
Speaker 9: there's a door, and you take a.
Speaker 7: Deep breath and try it, and.
Speaker 10: The flashlight shows you something moving just inside the door.
Speaker 7: There's a tatter dress.
Speaker 10: And a feeling you have felt somewhere before.
Speaker 8: And then agreed down that it's got a ruin down
Speaker 8: it's all away. Oh, And then the creepy do rat
Speaker 8: with balad it's got a pretty bal fun holder. So
Speaker 8: you scream and you close the door, and you tell.
Speaker 9: Yourself it was just nut dream.
Speaker 2: In the morning, you.
Speaker 9: Head into town because you want to go antiqueing. In
Speaker 9: the store, there's a strange old man with a wandering
Speaker 9: eye and a withered hand.
Speaker 10: When he hands you the old wooden box, you can
Speaker 10: hear his old bones creaking, and you know what you
Speaker 10: will find inside the moment that you see. But some
Speaker 10: once carved your name into the tarnished silver key.
Speaker 8: And then the creepy down down that voice bottle, it's
Speaker 8: got a ruin dome. It's always Oh, that's the creepy
Speaker 8: that voice bottle. It's got a pretty bwallow you home
Speaker 8: when you come away, and the dolls way.
Speaker 10: When you fix the snack.
Speaker 8: The doll says it like one.
Speaker 10: You doll is in your house and in your in
Speaker 10: your bad the doll.
Speaker 9: Is in your eyes and your Now it's late and
Speaker 9: you head downstairs because you just can't sleep. So you
Speaker 9: make some tea, and the doll, disapprovingly, asks if you
Speaker 9: really need that much money. You decide that you've had enough, and.
Speaker 7: You locked the doll in the wood and box.
Speaker 9: You put the box in the fireplace next to.
Speaker 10: Your bag of big city money.
Speaker 9: As the smoke fills up your tiny room. There's nothing
Speaker 9: you can do for toolick. You see the one inside
Speaker 9: the boxes you.
Speaker 8: And then a creepy di raw if ballowed, it's gotta
Speaker 8: ruin don it's always oh, And then a creepy die
Speaker 8: row if ballowed, it's got a pretty bound follow you
Speaker 8: hold it