Robert the Doll

In June 2015, I was driving into work listening to Coast to Coast AM, and I caught most of a conversation about Robert the Doll, a haunted doll in Key West, Florida. This was exciting to me, because in July, the family and I would be in south Florida on vacation. I listened intently to the conversation and made a mental note of the museum in which the doll was housed. Then and there I planned to see the haunted doll for myself when I reached Key West.

Robert the Doll is a handmade doll about forty inches tall. The Steiff Company of Germany made the doll around the turn of the twentieth century. According to legend, Robert giggles, moves on his own, changes facial expressions, and more. Gene Otto, a young boy from a prominent Key West family, owned Robert and had a lifelong friendship with the doll. Growing up, Gene often blamed Robert for his misbehaving, claiming “Robert did it.” Some have speculated that this constant and powerful energy from Gene may have animated the doll, causing it to take on its so-called supernatural abilities.

As an adult, Gene kept his friendship with Robert the Doll. Gene married in 1930, but never let go of his beloved doll. Gene died in 1974 and his wife died a couple of years later. According to the website Robertthedoll.org:

“Myrtle Reuter purchased the Otto home in 1974. She became Robert’s companion and kept him when she moved to Von Phister Street six years later. In 1994 she donated Robert to the Fort East Martello Museum claiming, ‘he moved around her house on his own and was haunted.’ Myrtle died a few months later, but Robert remained active.”

http://robertthedoll.org/

A couple of weeks after the aforementioned Coast to Coast AM episode, the family and I visited Key West. I set my sights on the East Martello Museum where Robert is housed. I had heard and read stories of folks who had taken a picture of Robert the Doll "without his permission" and running into a string of bad luck. So, I told all the kids not to photograph him when we visited the museum.

When we walked inside, we bought our tickets and signed a guest book. My wife pointed out all of the Robert souvenirs and memorabilia and there were signed copies of Robert the Doll, by David L. Sloan.

The lady behind the counter asked, “Are you guys here to see Robert?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was listening to Coast to Coast AM in June and the guy that wrote that book was on. After that, I was determined to see Robert when we got to Key West.”

She smiled. “You’re not alone. Folks from all over visit us. People love Robert.”

“I bet.”

“Just be careful about pictures. You’re free to take as many pictures as you want in the museum, but Robert doesn’t like for anyone to take his picture without permission.”

“So I’ve heard! Nah, I’m good just seeing him. No point taking a chance on making him mad.”

By the time I reached the glass box that held Robert, my kids were already there. They moved on to another part of the museum shortly after I reached the display.

So this is Robert the Doll.

He looked innocent enough sitting behind the glass in his sailor outfit and teddy bear. Nothing about him seemed creepy. I’ve been around dolls much scarier. My sister had a large Raggedy Ann doll growing up and I hated that damned thing. It always gave me the creeps. But I didn’t get the same vibe, or any vibe, really, from Robert.

My grandfather bought me a thirty-inch Bozo ventriloquist dummy for Christmas when I was seven or eight years old. I liked it at first, but grew to hate that stupid clown and became terrified of it. Bozo eventually found his way to the landfill.

I studied Robert. He was no Chucky from Child’s Play, or was he? Did Robert only seem benign because there was a plexiglass box separating us?  Having come from a Pentecostal background, even though I do not practice religion these days, the old teachings die hard. And I believe that evil spirits, or demons, can inhabit dolls and other inanimate objects as well of taking possession of people. I am not sure how this works, but it seems to me that it does occur from time to time and is the best explanation for the Robert the Doll mystery.

Eventually I left Robert and moved on through the rest of the museum. When I was outside in a courtyard area, my son walked up to me and told me that my youngest daughter had photographed Robert.

Great.

After a bunch of arguing with her, she deleted the photographs and stormed off. Par for the course for a fifteen-year-old girl. And honestly, maybe she was right. I guess I was being superstitious, but why take chances?

I walked over to the case and made sure no one was around or within earshot. “Robert,” I whispered, “look man, I’m really sorry about my daughter. She’s just a hardheaded kid trying to be cool. I know she didn’t mean anything and I made her delete the pics. I hope you can look past it.” With that, and feeling rather silly, I walked away and met up with the rest of the family.

Fast forward several days and we’re on our way home. We landed in Baltimore around 10:45 p.m. and it took about an hour to get our luggage and make our way to our car. From Baltimore it would take a little over two hours to get to our home in Frederick County, Virginia. But that wasn’t the case. Just after we got onto Interstate 66 in Virginia, we hit a massive traffic jam.

As we sat and sat and sat, I glanced at the instrument panel. The temperature gauge was heading in the wrong direction. Dammit! How is that possible? I couldn’t understand. We were in my wife’s car, a fairly new Buick Enclave with low mileage. And I checked all of the fluids before we left—I always do that, but I take extra care before a trip. What the hell?

We were stuck in a center lane miles from an exit, and there was nothing open at that hour, anyway. I had to do something, so I turned off the air conditioner which helped slow the temperature climb, but not enough. So, I had everyone roll the windows down and I turn the heater on full blast. That pulled the temperature gauge down to about the 5/8 mark—much hotter than you want, but in the safe zone.

Here we were on a muggy July night sitting on I-66 with the heater blasting. It was miserable.

I thought of all the bad luck folks have had after pissing off Robert the Doll. Was that what was going on here? I thought it probably was, but there was no way to know. Fortunately, as long as I kept the heat cranking, the engine didn’t get any hotter. The traffic jam lasted about an hour and a half, and once we cleared it, we were home in about an hour. I kept the heat on during the drive, but I was able to turn it down a little.

The following morning, I spent an hour or so checking the engine. There was plenty of coolant and nothing jumped out at me as to why the engine tried to overheat. And here’s the kicker—it never did it again for as long as I owned the car. So, yes, I think it was Robert. I think he let me off easy because I apologized on my daughter’s behalf. At the same time, he did enough to remind me of her misstep.

Laugh if you want. Call me superstitious if you want. But I don't care—Robert did it!

Read all about Robert the Doll in the sixth book of my Detours Into the Paranormal travel series. Titled Adventures as a Florida Man: Searching for Skunk Apes, Water Monsters, Lost Treasure and More, the book covers all sorts of strange happenings in the Sunshine State.

My Most Popular Posts

Giant Bones in West Virginia

Image
When the Bible famously declared that “there were giants on the earth in those days,” in Genesis 6:4, the writer wasn’t kidding—especially when it comes to West Virginia. In the early days of our nation, people routinely unearthed giant bones in the Mountain State. Giant Bones Countless newspapers and county histories in the 1800s told the story of giant bones. Stories such as these were commonplace: “It is said that a jawbone was plowed up near Moorefield which would pass over the outside of a common man's lower jaw; that it contained eight jaw teeth on either side, and that they sat transversely in their sockets. A bone of that size would have belonged to a man eight or nine feet high… Another jawbone of enormous size is recorded as having been discovered near Martinsburg.” Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher,  History of Hampshire County West Virginia from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present  (Morgantown, WV: A. Brown Boughner, 1897) “While digging a grave on Trace Fork, Lincoln
Read more

The Giants from the West

Image
The ethnologist James Mooney (1861–1921) wrote of ancient giants in his 1902 book, Myths of the Cherokee . The section titled "The Giants from the West" is an intriguing account. I have reprinted it below: THE GIANTS FROM THE WEST James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil' kalu', "The Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul'kalu' (see the story). They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the we
Read more

The Giants of Ancient Tennessee

Image
John Haywood (1753-1826) was a historian known as the "father of Tennessee history." These days, he might be best known for documenting giant skeletons found in Tennessee, as well as popularizing the "Tennessee Pygmies." In Haywood's 1823 work, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee , he documented several unique discoveries. These include giant skeletons found in Tennessee, particularly in and around White County. Haywood devoted a section to the giant skeletons found in Tennessee in his book. The entire section (Chapter VIII, section 1) is printed below: First, then—Of their Size. This is ascertained by the length and dimensions of the skeletons which are found in East and West Tennessee. These will prove demonstratively, that the ancient inhabitants of this country, either the primitive or secondary settlers, were of gigantic stature , compared with the present races of Indians.  On the farm of Mr. John Miller, of White county, are a numbe
Read more

A Large Turtle

Image
Large turtle tales are among my favorite types of cryptid encounters . Perhaps that is why I spent over a week on the outskirts of Roswell, New Mexico in 2022. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the fabled large turtles the "size of a Volkswagen." (I did not.) Maybe the best turtle tale is the story of Oscar, the Beast of Busco. This enormous turtle, with a shell as big as "the top of a car" caused a ruckus in an Indiana town in 1949. In 1883, the Scientific American published a blurb about a large turtle—large is an understatement!—spotted at sea. I reprinted the entire text below: A Large Turtle "Captain Augustus G. Hall and the crew of the schooner Annie L. Hall vouch for the following: On March 30, while on the Grand Bank, in latitude 40° 10’, longitude 33°, they discovered an immense live trunk turtle, which was at first thought to be a Reptiles and Amphibians 535 vessel bottom up. The schooner passed within twenty-five feet of the monster, and those on bo
Read more

The Wa-gas

Image
In her book To the American Indian, Lucy Thompson (1856–1932), a member of the Yurok tribe whose Yurok name was Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah, recorded many of the tales of her people. One of the most interesting stories in the book is that of the Wa-gas. According to Thompson, the Wa-gas were an ancient race of white people that lived in North America many thousands of years ago. However, these folks were much different than Europeans who colonized the Americas in recent times. The following excerpt comes from Thompson’s book in a section titled “ Traditions of the Ancient White People” :
Read more

Bigfoot Musings From the Lowcountry

Image
The Lowcountry of South Carolina is a great destination. The food and the beaches are amazing. Cities such as Beaufort and Charleston are full of history, stunning architecture, and antebellum homes with manicured lawns that embody the deep South. Large oak trees draped with Spanish moss form canopies along narrow streets and side roads. And of course, there is Bigfoot. Visits to Lowcountry I spent a week in the Lowcountry in the summer of 2020 and again in January 2022. But I was a good hour’s drive from Hilton Head; thirty minutes away from Beaufort; and around forty-five minutes from Charleston. I stayed at a campground “in the middle of nowhere.” The nearest town was Yemassee—a small community whose roads leading in were riddled with potholes the size of kitchen sinks. The point of this post is not potholes, Spanish moss, or antebellum homes—Bigfoot is the star here. As I usually do when I arrive in a new place, I began thinking of the elusive beast. I checked the Bigfoot Field Re
Read more

Ahuizotl

Image
The Ahuizotl is the legendary water monster of Aztec folklore once thought to live in lakes and rivers around Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Its name means “thorny one of the water” or “spiny aquatic thing.” The Aztecs had many legends of the Ahuizotl. The Florentine Codex, a manuscript compiled in the 16 th century describing aspects of life before the arrival of the Spanish mentions the creature. Descriptions This strange beast is similar in appearance to a small dog with monkey-like hands. The most unique feature of the animal is a long, slender tail with a human-like hand of the end. Using its unusual tail, the beast would snag its prey—humans—and drag them to a watery demise. The Ahuizotl feasted upon its victims; it was particularly fond of eating the eyeballs, teeth, and fingernails of its human prey. Several days after becoming a fatality of the water beast, the victim’s corpse would wash ashore with missing nails, teeth, and eyeballs. Some have described the Ahuizotl as some sort of
Read more

The "Mystery Noises" in Moodus

Image
When I arrived in Moodus, Connecticut in early-May 2022, I was surprised when a friend texted me an article from the New England Historical Society. The piece was titled “The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut,” and recounted the history of strange, unexplained noises that occur around the village of Moodus. The Moodus Noises I read the article at once. I couldn't believe that I had stumbled upon a place renowned for strange activity. According to the article: The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam. Once Puritans moved to the area in the early-1700s, they heard the noises, too. And they, too, attributed the sounds to a supernatural source. The superstitious Puritans believed God was angry with them for their sins. Meanwhile, the local Indians believed the
Read more

Lucy the Phantom Hitchhiker

Image
According to local legend, there is a phantom hitchhiker named Lucy along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This trail is a six-mile, one-way drive that cuts through a dense tree canopy. Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is easily accessible from downtown Gatlinburg and lands you a world away from the busy streets in mere minutes. The trail follows Roaring Fork, a beautiful cold-water stream typical of those found in the Great Smoky Mountains. The white-water crashes against large boulders and there are small waterfalls and deep pools of frigid mountain water along the way. Mills, old structures, and historic homesites are scattered along the trail—a reminder that people used to live and work here. One of those old mountain folks that lived along the trail in the early 1900s was Lucy. As the story goes, Lucy was a young lady who died tragically when her family’s cabin burned down. Sometime after her death, a man named Foster (I don’t know if this
Read more