Living doll in the museum. Robert doll is the most mysterious toy in history

03.05.2019

The Last House on the Left was preceded by a big marketing campaign that told the audience, "It's just a movie." But how will you feel if such films are based on very real events? Below is a selection of creepy real events that later became the basis for some truly scary films.

1. "Wolf Pit"

Wolf Pit is an Australian horror film about three tourists who cross paths with serial killer Mick Taylor. It was a terrible monster that roamed the Australian outback in search of new victims to kill and skin them.

2. "The Girl Next Door"

In The Girl Next Door, based on the novel by Jack Ketchum, the story is narrated by David Moran, a Wall Street banker. He thinks about very difficult period his childhood, when he met two sisters - Mack and Susan. After the death of their parents, they moved to live with their aunt. The aunt, played by Blanche Baker, turned out to be a complete psychopath who began torturing Meg. To make matters worse, she began to encourage other children to get involved.

3. "The Exorcist"

One of the most shocking and genuinely scary movies is William Friedkin's The Exorcist. Released in 1973, the film was about a 12-year-old girl named Regan who became possessed by an ancient demon. Two Catholic priests try to exorcise a demon from a girl's body.

The author of the novel on which the film is based had the idea to write it after an incident with a boy named "Roland Doe" or "Robbie Mannheim". He was supposedly born in 1936 and lived in Maryland with a family who began to notice strange phenomena associated with him, such as spontaneously moving photographs and scratching sounds.

In 1949, two Catholic priests from St. Louis performed several exorcisms. When they did this, the boy began to speak Latin, although he had never known the language. He also began to spit, and the rash on his skin suddenly changed, and words and numbers formed from it.

Years later, Walter Halloran, one of the priests involved in the exorcism, said that the boy may have simply repeated the Latin the priests told him. He did spit, and he did have a red rash on him, but it didn't take on different forms.

4. Mothman

In Mothman, starring Richard Gere, reporter John Klein's life is thrown into chaos when he and his wife are involved in a car accident. He is haunted by the image of a large creature with large red eyes and gray wings. This creature he saw before the accident. John then ends up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, with no memory of how he got there. Once there, he begins an investigation into other sightings of this mysterious creature. Klein soon realizes that the creature always appears before tragedy.

The trailer for the film stated that The Mothman was based on a true story. From November 15, 1966 to December 15, 1967, dozens of people in Point Pleasant reported seeing a large moth-like creature with large red eyes. All of these sightings occurred on the eve of the collapse of the Silver Bridge. It collapsed during rush hour, killing 48 people. According to some, the giant "moth" was sent to warn the locals of the impending disaster. After the bridge collapsed, the Moth was never seen again in Point Pleasant.

5. "Children's game"

In this horror film, a voodoo-practicing serial killer named Charles Lee Ray is murdered in a toy store. His soul moves into a nearby doll, and the doll then ends up in the hands of a 6-year-old boy, Andy. The doll is named Chucky and begins to kill while the killer's soul inside tries to take over Andy's body.

It sounds crazy, but Chucky had a prototype - a real doll named Robert. In 1903, 3-year-old Robert Eugene Otto received a doll from a servant in the Bahamas. Otto named the doll after himself, and they have been inseparable ever since. Soon after, Otto's parents began to hear two voices coming from the boy's bedroom. One voice belonged to Otto, the other did not. Every time the parents entered the room, everything was in order. Otto grew up, got married, but never got rid of his doll. She was sitting in his room, in a house in the West Keys, Florida. Children passing by the house swore that the doll sometimes looks at them from windows, and from different ones. In the mid-70s, Otto and his wife died, and new tenants moved into the house where Robert remained. They claim that they hear giggles from time to time, and the doll's face has changed a lot. In 1994, Robert was donated to the Key West Museum and placed under a glass case where he can still be seen today.

6. "Open Sea"

This low-budget 2003 film is based on a horror story. What happens if you scuba dive in the middle of the sea, and the boat with which you dived leaves without you? But that's exactly what happened to married couple from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

On January 25, 1998, 34-year-old Tom Lonergan and his 29-year-old wife, Eileen, were part of a group of divers who went to St. Crispin's Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The boat with the divers left before the Lonergans surfaced. No one noticed that the couple was gone, they were remembered only two days later, when their bag was found on the boat. After that, a search operation was launched, but no trace of the couple was found. It is believed that they drowned in the sea.

7. Strangers

In this film, a young couple is in an isolated house. They are terrorized by a group strange people masked, with clear intent to kill. Promotional trailers for the film claimed that it was based on a true story. One of the real premise for this film was the Manson family murders, and the parallels to their story can be clearly seen in the film: the Manson family stabbed seven people by breaking into their homes.

Little known British director Andrew James desperately believes that the genre of horror films is exactly the direction in which he should develop his further career. Not having a single really worthwhile short film behind him, James has nevertheless been working on creating full-fledged films for quite a long time. But this circumstance applies exclusively to timing. from a creative point of view, all his opuses, to put it mildly, evoke controversial feelings. Andrew James tried to prove himself on the field of zombie horror ("Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection"), tried to conquer classic stories about the restless souls of institutions (Amityville Mental Hospital) and figured he could bring some zest to the hackneyed haunted house stories (The Last House on Sametree Lane). However, none of his works are worthy of being considered a strong representative of the genre. Andrew James films quite naturally spread in boundless space home video, where, under an unfortunate set of circumstances, horror fans fall on them, not fully realizing what they will have to get involved in for the next hour and a half. Nevertheless, the director's enthusiasm for his work can only be envied. He is not going to slow down, but presents to our attention more and more new paintings. own production without worrying about their quality. The next opus of James was a tape called "Doll Robert". And if someone has hopes that the untalented artisan was finally able to turn himself around and make a relatively acceptable movie, then I hasten to disappoint you in addition to impudent tracing paper from more eminent projects of a similar theme and pathological despondency, “Robert the Doll” will not differ in anything able. Although, for the most part, there was no doubt about it.

As for plot movie, it introduces us to an average middle-class British family that has fallen under a deadly curse. Housewife Jenny (Susie Frances Garton), suffering from increasingly frequent bouts of depression, sits at home all day raising her young son Gene (Flynn Allen), while mourning the lost opportunities to become a famous artist. Constant dissatisfaction with life, inferiority complex and others mental disorders are further enhanced by the fact that the heroine's husband, a successful businessman Paul (Lee Bain), disappears for days at work, completely not devoting time to her or her son. With each passing day, Jenny's irritation from the unfulfillment of plans intensifies and eventually spills over into their elderly maid Agatha (Judith Haley), who over the years has lost her former agility and quickness. Unable to bear her presence in the house any longer, Jenny asks her to pack her things and leave. Angry but unbroken lady is not going to forgive former owners similar attitude deciding how to teach them a lesson. Having presented young Gene with a ventriloquist doll named Robert, Agatha urged the boy not to throw the toy anywhere, but rather to make it his own. best friend. And as soon as the doors behind the maid are closed, a series of suspicious pranks begins to occur in the house, the culprit of which is the silent Robert

According to the director and part-time screenwriter of the tape, Andrew James, everything that happens on the screen is a borrowing from reality. existing facts. They are trying to convince us that the Robert doll actually exists and once it did a lot of trouble in one family, after which it was moved to a specialized museum, where, upon Robert's arrival, inexplicable events continued, clearly related to the presence of supernatural forces. It is worth paying tribute to James, he did not forget to make a note that no clear evidence of mystical influence was found and there are two explanations for what is happening: in fact, the demonic presence itself in Robert and a much more plausible version associated with psychological problems excessively impressionable doll owners. However, Andrew James' feature film's connection to reality, presented in the introduction, does not have any significant impact on the course of the story. Instead of creating a moderately tense, intriguing plot with a blood-chilling atmosphere of a nightmare, the director does not hesitate to borrow the successful finds of his illustrious colleague, James Wan, author of such masterpieces of horror as Dead Silence and The Conjurings. Most likely, the unlucky Briton looked through the holes of Wang's most famous works, deciding to borrow from them a combined story about a ventriloquist doll and the curse of a demon that moved into it. And James didn’t care that not so long ago, a full-fledged spin-off of The Conjuring, Annabelle’s Curse, was even released at the box office, where the theme of sinister toys was revealed without any questions. why was it necessary to shoot "Robert's Doll"? But only in order to profit from the glory of more popular paintings, hiding behind the public's love for this kind of plot.

The film could be forgiven for many shortcomings if it looked in one breath. But instead of focusing on building tension gradually, Andrew James tried to show us the complex family lady with a set of standard characters wandering from one horror to another, forcing the actors to repeat the material worked out more than once by their other colleagues. Well, the characters cannot arouse the interest of the audience, among which there is a depressive lady with addictions to the arts and an eternally busy businessman without pronounced character traits. There is not a single one in "Robert the Doll" original feature, which would distinguish it from similar genre projects. And along with the annoyingly slow pace of what is happening, the film evokes an embittered sense of wasted time. On the other hand, "Doll Robert" is able to lull no worse than pharmacy sleeping pills, if you put it before bed as a night light. The creation of Andrew James has no other merit.

Completing the gloomy conclusions about the film is disgusting camera work. Jonathan McLaughlin , who should be moving to the small screen, making naive low-end series where professionalism has never been much appreciated. The soundtrack is nothing special. Bobby Cole . In some places it seems that musical accompaniment is completely missing here. Also, the puppeteers, who needed to revive the wooden Robert, could not surprise, making him a dangerous maniac. Instead, the doll has to be shown fragmentarily and not once in full height during movement. Andrew James may explain this by the desire to cast an aura of mystery around the toy maniac, but we all know the truth the film crew did not consider it necessary to exceed the limit of efforts, using the most primitive tricks, as if it were either an original innovation or following the classic canons.

Finally, I would like to say that "Doll Robert" looks like a ridiculous knockoff of several James Wan designs, nothing more. Its creators not only are not able to raise the degree of tension by one notch up, but on the contrary, they drive the narrative into a sleepy state, hoping that the viewer will fall asleep closer to the middle and skip the shortcomings of the script and staging past attention. I can't recommend Andrew James' opus even to my enemies. This is a waste of time, depressing in its senselessness.

The doll belonged to a Key West artist and writer named Robert Eugene Otto. It all started with the fact that in 1906 the maid gave little Robert a doll, but soon after her dismissal put a curse on her.
After a while, strange things began to happen in the house. The servant claimed that the toy suddenly began to talk. In addition, she could change her facial expression and move around the house on her own.

Neighbors told how the doll jumped from window sill to window sill when there was no one in the house, and members of the Otto family themselves heard malicious giggles more than once.

During the day, the doll frightened everyone who was at home, and at night her attention was riveted only to the boy. Sometimes, screaming in terror, he would wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of falling furniture.

When the parents asked the child what really happened, the answer was always the same: “Robert did it, it’s him!”.

The artist died in 1974, and Robert, still dressed in his white sailor suit, lives comfortably in a shop window, and is well-guarded in Key West at the Martello Museum. The workers of which still continue to make reports about the strange tricks of this frightening doll.

According to legend, anyone who dares to take a picture of the doll will be cursed unless she nods her head in some sort of agreement.

Visitors who forget this can always ask for forgiveness, which the operators of the Travel channel once had to do after their camera mysteriously stopped working.

Paranormal researchers at the Atlantic Paranormal Society's Convention recorded the doll's aura using a special camera.

There are also puppets that follow us. Many years ago, a woman had a friend named Emily, with whom she spent a lot of time, especially in her house. While inside, she experienced strange sensations.

“The attic was completed, and yet there was a “smell of death” in it, like in an abandoned building,” the woman writes. - It was always cold there, despite the fact that the rooms below were always heated. The attic was divided into four small rooms, in one of which the shelves were completely filled with dolls, and this scared me terribly.

Once the girls were playing and their grandmother called them to dinner. As they were about to leave, they put the toys back, but then one of them suddenly fell in a very unnatural way. The puzzled girl picked it up and put it in its place. But the story didn't end there.

“Some time later we were playing in the woods near Emily's house. And so I sat down to take a stone, - the woman writes. Leaning down, I felt something poking me in my pocket. I stuck my hand in there and found two eyes of the same doll that had fallen from the shelf. Since then, I've been scared to death of them."

And for thrill-seekers, there are sites dedicated to cursed dolls. Dollhouse broadcasts videos with cursed dolls 24/7 and thus the "sofa" ghost hunters have a chance to see something paranormal with their own eyes.

“These are not toys for you! - writes the author of the site. - In each of them lives a real essence. No one knows if she chooses a toy in advance or she is simply drawn to it. Perhaps you have a cursed doll in your house, and you don’t even know about it!

For those who want to buy damn doll, the assortment of "AJ's" is enough in full. The store offers wide selection creepy toys.

“Each of my dolls is special in its own way. Their essence and appearance truly beautiful. In general, I collect various paranormal and magical things,” says the owner.

aging doll

One fine day, a family decided to clean up the attic and found a frightening find there. A baby doll that people left in the attic 11 years ago, terribly changed from the day it was last seen. The doll had real wrinkles, and somehow she was human. Look at the photo of this doll. Look into her eyes. They seem to look into the soul:

We, for example, are afraid to look at her. Where this doll is now is not exactly known, but, according to rumors, it was sold for a very high price. What kind of person should be who wants to buy it? Having acquired an owner, do you think the doll has become younger again?

Bylo Baby

She was "born" in 1922 in the small American town of Keywest (Florida) in the house of a certain Charles Wincox. This “doctor of puppet sciences” was, they say, a member of the well-known occult order “Golden Dawn”, which was headed by nothing less than the “beast of the Apocalypse”, the legendary sorcerer and alchemist of the 20th century Aleister Crowley. The order also included writers Bram Stoker (who wrote Dracula) and Howard Lovecraft, the odious character, the father of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, and many other celebrities who observed strict secrecy. Wincox worked for some time at Madame Tussauds, and, apparently, the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a basement of horrors there belongs to him. There were rumors that the dolls made by Wincox were able to scare away the spirits of death, and therefore, save the life of even a doomed person.

Once, the parents of Rosie McNee, who was suffering from anemia, turned to him, desperate to run to the doctors, with a request to make such a life-giving doll for the girl. And Charles Wincox tried. The master turned out a pretty young lady in luxury dress from Chinese silk, decorated with the finest lace. She even had underskirt and smart shoes. Soft body, wax hands, legs and head…

Her new mistress died in terrible agony two days after her parents gave her this miracle. The girl lay in bed clutching her new girlfriend which has never been given a name. Parents accused Wincox of poisoning their daughter with a doll. He had to hide, and no one heard anything more about the amazing master (although there are newspaper clippings that Wincox opened a store in Prague). Rosie McNee was buried with a doll that they couldn't get out of her hands. But when, some time later, the police exhumed the body in order to search for traces of poison, there was no doll in the coffin.

12 years after these events, Rosie's mother, Mary Vanessa McNee, bought a doll in an antique store, very similar to the ill-fated one. Since then, a series of misfortunes began in the house, culminating in the suicide of a completely distraught Mrs. McNee, who threw herself out of a window in 1952, clutching a doll to her chest, like her daughter thirty years ago. The neighbors who found her said that before her death, the woman lamented: “Oh, Bailo Baby, Bailo Baby ...” This is how the doll got its name.

In 1969, with the beginning of the occult boom in the United States, a museum opened in the reputedly cursed McNee house, where the main exhibit, of course, was an ominous, ageless girl with a rag body and a dress made of frayed Chinese silk. Unknown people tried to burn her twice, but she still “survived”. And in 1995, Bailo Baby was kidnapped, and the owner of the museum promised $10,000 to the one who found her. But Bailo Baby never returned home. Not so long ago (in 1998), the doll was bought from the satanic sect "Number of the Beast" in New York by an American journalist, who, in turn, resold it to Vlad Taupesh. The doll was brought to Moscow, where it was on display at the Moscow Museum of Magic, Occultism and Superstition (the museum did not last long in Moscow, and was closed due to the crisis, all the exhibits were safely sent to Prague, where they are to this day). Perhaps this is just a coincidence, but soon, the journalist who presented Taupesh with a doll died under very strange circumstances.

The doll was tested in the Expert-Prof Bureau, which specializes in the examination of antiques. Specialist Sergey Lazarev confirmed the age of Bailo Baby. An x-ray of the old woman's wax skull showed that there was a piece of parchment with incomprehensible signs - this could be the master's autograph or magic spell. The body of the doll was stuffed human hair and rags with traces of blood. So the legend that Wincox created his toys in the images of dead children from the orphanage of St. Augustine, using their hair and scraps of clothing, received confirmation.

Annabelle

This story began in the 1970s when a nursing student named Donna received a used rag doll as a gift from my mother. Donna took the doll with her to her apartment, which she shared with her friend Angie. But soon strange things began to happen. It seemed that the doll moved around the apartment by itself. The girls left her in one place, but found her in another and in a different position. They also found messages written on paper. On scraps of parchment was: "Help us," but there was no such paper in the house! When these messages began to appear, Donna and Angie suspected that someone had sneaked into their apartment and wrote all this to scare the girls. They examined all the windows and doors, but there was nothing that indicated that they were opened without the knowledge of the hostesses.

One day, Donna found a liquid that looked like blood on the hands and dress of the doll. In the end, the girls turned to a medium. During the session, contact was made with a certain spirit, who called himself Annabelle Higgins. He said that he died during his lifetime in seven years old on the spot where Donna and Angie's house stands. The spirit admitted that he would like to stay with the girls, he liked them so much that he moved into the doll for this. Despite the incident with the blood, Donna and Angie did not see any danger in this and allowed the spirit to stay with them: they took great pity on poor Annabelle.

Annabelle, however, never liked Donna's friend Liu. The doll began to appear to him in nightmares. And one night he woke up because someone was choking him. It was an indescribably realistic dream, and after that, Liu pondered for a long time whether everything could be real.

The next day, Liu was visiting Donna and Angie. Suddenly, a strange sound came from Donna's room. All three were frightened, thinking that they were robbers. When Liu burst into the room, he found no one there but Annabelle lying on the floor. Liu felt the unpleasant feeling of someone's presence, and that this someone was standing behind him. He turned around, and at the same moment his chest was pierced sharp pain. He saw blood on his sweater. Upon closer examination, it was possible to discern traces, as if claws, left on the skin. The marks from these claws disappeared very quickly, but Liu, Donna and Angie were terrified to death.

They contacted the priest, and he, in turn, realizing the complexity of this case, told the spouses Ed and Lorraine Warren, specialists in the paranormal, about this. Both were famous exorcists capable of dealing with the most serious cases, founded the Society for Psychical Research in New England in the fifties and wrote books about the other world. After listening to the whole story, Ed and Lorraine realized that the exorcism rite should be carried out immediately, which was done that same evening by the priest.

The Warrens said the doll was actually possessed by a demon whose target was Donna. He intended to get close to her, using the kind and compassionate heart of the girl. The demon was not at all interested in the doll, he wanted to get a real valuable booty- the human soul! Ed and Lorraine said that allowing the doll to stay given by girls, served as the very trigger that accelerated the development of events and put friends in great danger.

After cleaning the house, the couple took the doll away, to which Donna, Angie and Liu were frankly delighted - they could not see her anymore. The presence of Annabelle in the car was dangerous: the brakes, engine and power steering refused to obey. A miracle, caution and sprinkling of the doll with holy water saved people from death. The rite of exorcism was performed again directly at the Warren house after some time, as Annabelle again began to show all signs of possession.
In the end, a special transparent showcase was built for the doll, where it is kept to this day, waiting for the opportunity to break free.

In the photo: Annabelle in the arms of Lorraine Warren:

Pictured: Ed and Lorraine Warren next to Annabelle, locked in a display case.
Caption: "Warning, definitely do not open!"

Doll named Robert

Robert's strange mystical doll appeared in 1906 in Key West, Florida, with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Otto. The doll was personally made by a Bahamian servant, who presented it to the owner's son, Robert Eugene Otto. At first glance, the doll appeared to be a symbol of appreciation and gratitude, but it was quite the opposite. The Thomas Otto couple were notorious for their cruelty to servants. The doll thus acted as a kind of Trojan horse filled with black magic.

The son, whom everyone in the family called Jean, very quickly became attached to the doll, named her Robert and carried it with him almost always and everywhere. Soon, unusual events began in the house. Neighbors and residents of the estate itself claimed to have seen the doll moving and heard its malicious giggles. Jin's other toys were spoiled and torn in the most cruel and incomprehensible way. From Jin's room, you could hear him talking to the doll, but the creepiest thing was that you could hear her answer. At first, this was explained by the fact that the boy himself changed his voice, but the tone of the second voice was so different that those who heard the "voice" of the doll could not believe that it was a child and a person in general.

He justified the actions that Gene was accused of by saying that it was not him, but Robert. Jin saw regularly nightmares and felt bad. One day, when he screamed especially loudly at night, the parents, unable to stand it, burst into their son's room. The furniture was overturned, Robert was sitting on Gene's bed at his feet, turning to face him. The pale boy was pointing at him, repeating, “It's Robert! Robert did it! A visiting relative saw the doll and said that it was dangerous and should be destroyed. The next night, the woman was found dead in her bed.

In the end, Robert still settled in the attic. Years later, Jean, who became an artist and writer, returned with his wife to the master's house after the death of his father. The first thing Gene did was get Robert out of the attic, and things started to get weird again. Jin's wife noticed that he felt an incomprehensible affection for the doll and treated her like a living person. She herself found Robert extremely disgusting and condemned her husband for returning the doll. Gradually, the wife became more and more worried, she understood that there was something supernatural and evil in Robert. Seizing the moment, she returned the doll to the attic. Soon, strange footsteps and giggles began to be heard from above. Gene got nervous and immediately took Robert downstairs, talking about the importance of Robert being with him all the time. Soon Robert was given a separate room. Rumors spread around the house among the employees that the doll was moving around the room.

As time went on, and Jean died in 1972, his widow rushed out of the house, quickly selling it. Robert was left alone and was waiting for the next victim, who would rise to the attic. The new owner moved into the house and his ten-year-old daughter found Robert. Everything started over. At night, she screamed and said that Robert was coming to life and trying to kill her. She, already a mature lady, claims exactly the same thing now.

Robert is currently at the Martello Museum in Key West. For those who wish to see him, it is quite possible: the museum is open to the public. Museum workers claim that the doll is still active and is the cause of mystical incidents. But the medium invited to Robert said that the soul of the doll is slowly dying.

Alice

Alice doll lives in Washington DC with her owner Marie Ford. Alice has been in the Marie family for three generations. According to her grandmother, the doll contains the soul of her dead friend Alice. Marie says that the doll's eyes and facial expressions change, and if you put your ear to Alice's face, you can hear a whisper uttered by an inhuman voice.

Mandy

The Mandy doll is kept in the Quisnel Museum in England. She is about ninety years old. She was donated to the museum in 1991 by a woman who could no longer tolerate this doll in her home. She said that she woke up at night from a sound reminiscent of a child's cry, and when she got out of bed, she saw an open window, which she always closed, and a doll sitting next to it. Similar cases repeated more and more often until Mandy was sent to the museum.

Caroline

The doll has been examined by many paranormal experts, and all have come to the same conclusion: the doll is possessed. According to their conclusion, three different spirits are trapped in Caroline, who are fighting each other for control of the doll.

Emilia

The doll is over one hundred and fifty years old and originally belonged to King Umberto I of Italy. The doll survived the First and Second World Wars, but lost both arms and upper part heads from an explosion during World War II. Emilia was seen speaking and, moreover, opening and closing her eyes.

Harald

The doll was sold, like many other vintage dolls, on the internet. The previous owner says that, in her opinion, the doll is not so much possessed as cursed. From the day Harald appeared in the house, the woman faced huge problems in her life: the wedding was upset, she was struck serious illness, invasion of insects and other troubles. After she sold Harald, her luck returned to her. An even earlier owner of the doll claims that the doll moves and voices are heard from it.

Navel

This doll moves not only by itself, but also moves other things in the apartment. Sometimes you can even hear it knocking from the depths of its glass box where it is stored. She was made around 1920 and she stayed with her first mistress all her life - from the age of five until 2005. With the mistress of Pupa, she traveled far and wide across Europe and the USA.

In general, something like that! The most interesting thing in my opinion...

People, and even today, very strange things happen in her presence.

Doll Robert in a glass case.

Almost all vintage dolls look creepy, but Robert doll is especially scary. She is the size of real baby and dressed in real baby clothes. She has absolutely empty eyes in the form of two black buttons that look nowhere, and on Robert's lap sits a dog with huge, bulging eyes and a strange mouth. They also say that a certain creature lives in Robert.

The Robert doll was once brand new and shiny, made 115 years ago at the Steiff factory. By the way, the representatives of the company themselves said that Robert was not a doll - initially it was a mannequin for a shop window. However, a long time ago the doll ended up in the possession of a boy named Robert Otto, and this story has two versions. Those who believe in supernatural abilities the dolls stick to the more cryptic option. So, the maid of the Otto family, a young girl from the Bahamas, performed voodoo rituals on the doll and gave it to the boy as a punishment for his pranks. Skeptics are more inclined to believe in the "official" version of events: the doll was given to the boy by his grandfather.

Robert "Gene" Otto.

In any case, the boy Robert (in the family he was called by his middle name Jean) literally fell in love with the doll and even dressed her up in his childhood clothes, a sailor suit, from which he grew. The boy carried the toy with him everywhere and treated the doll like a living being. Soon strange things began to happen in Otto's house. Things moved on their own, and the boy began to complain to his parents, saying that the Robert doll was doing all this. At first, the parents laughed at the children's fiction, but then they also began to notice oddities. And the plumber who was renovating Otto's house claimed to hear children's laughter and even saw the Robert doll move from one place to another.

House of Artists, where Robert "Gene" Otto lived as an adult. The upper window of the rotunda is where the Robert doll sat.

When Gene Otto grew up, he moved to the "House of Artists" in the city of Key West. Now his doll was sitting on a chair near the window, and it was perfectly visible from the street. People began to avoid passing by this house. They literally swore that they saw the doll move from place to place and carefully follow them with their eyes. Guests who came to the House of Artists said that they heard footsteps from the room above them, where Robert was sitting, as if the doll moved there on its own. Even Gene's wife Otto was frightened by the doll and ended up putting it in the attic.

Letter for Robert's doll received by the museum.

After the death of Gene Otto and his wife in 1974, a woman named Myrtle Reiter moved into their apartment, inheriting furniture and, of course, a doll. For 20 years she lived in the house with the doll Robert and constantly heard inexplicable movements and sounds from the attic where she was kept. Finally, Myrtle broke down and gave the doll to the Fort East Martello Museum, citing only one reason - the doll was possessed by some entity. Museum workers took away the doll, deciding that it was only the fantasy of an elderly woman, and put it in storage. However, after hearing about the possessed doll, numerous visitors began to demand that the exhibit be put on display. Not only that, people began to write letters to the Robert doll with all sorts of requests, as if she was an almighty psychic.

In the end, the museum staff gave up and put the mystical exhibit in the hall. Now the Robert doll sits in a glass case, from where it is practically not taken out. And visitors circle around the doll in droves, hoping to catch her glance or at least some movement. By the way, many people claim that cameras and electronic devices fail near Robert's doll.