Haunted Objects: Stories of Ghosts on Your Shelf (15 page)

A display of Robert paraphernalia.

People claimed to see the doll move—sometimes just its head, other times its whole body. It would appear in different windows of the house and smile out at the neighbors. In one story, family members say they saw it running through the house.

Graves and Gravestones, a local ghost tour that has permission to visit Robert at night, says the activity did not stop there. When Robert Otto died, Eugene inherited the house. Into adulthood, he remained close to the doll. Walking around with it and seating it at the dinner table led to the disintegration of his marriage. Eugene’s wife kept putting Robert out of sight, but the doll kept coming back, often visiting her.

When Eugene died in 1974, Robert was hidden in the attic and eventually discovered by the people who bought the house, the contract of which specified keeping the doll on the property.

Robert’s new home, the East Martello Museum.

The family’s daughter loved the doll at first, but its activities proved too much for her. She cried when the doll moved around her room, and told her parents it wanted her dead. On several occasions, she said it even attempted to choke her. The creepiness of those incidents, including a time when the doll was found sitting at the foot of the bed holding a knife, forced the people to finally get rid of it. The doll was moved to the East Martello Museum on the edge of Key West, where it remains today.

Robert doesn’t seem to be getting any nicer in retirement, although it gets harder to separate legend from any real effect the doll has on the people around it.

Robert sometimes is removed from the museum and brought on tour around the Keys. When Robert was taken to a conference in Clearwater, Florida, a few years ago, story has it the doll demanded to ride in the front seat, wear a seat belt, and have a bed of its own in the hotel.

I attended the same conference, sitting at a table selling books, and was maybe 10 feet away from the doll. Most of my day was spent taking pictures of people who wanted to be seen with Robert. Near the end of the day, when I had to tell visitors (mostly children) that Robert was done for the day, their faces fell. People ran from all corners of the hotel to say goodbye to the doll when it was removed from its glass display and put in a case for transportation back to the museum. They all chanted Robert’s name wildly.

If you think this is just a story to get you to visit the East Martello Museum and pay the price of admission, people will tell you otherwise. Their stories have become part of the mysticism surrounding the toy.

Visitors to the museum are asked to obey three rules, known as “Robert’s Rules”: You must say hello to the doll when you enter; ask its permission before you take a picture of it; and say thank you and good-bye when you leave. They are simple rules to follow; however, most people want to be part of the ghost story, and disrespecting the doll is the quickest way to become part of the legend. They snap pictures without first asking permission, and hope to see odd things in the view screens of their digital cameras.

The real testament to Robert’s supernatural abilities, or the ability for rational people to replace coincidence with superstition, concerns the alcove wall behind the doll. Visitors from across the country and beyond write to Robert, and the best letters get displayed on the wall. People write to thank Robert for their experiences and to tell the doll what they have been up to. This is not typical fan mail, however. Most of the letters are apologies to Robert for not following the rules. The letter writers claim bad things have happened to them since their visit, usually occurring right after seeing Robert. Written in everything from shaky penmanship to thoughtful calligraphy to typed precision, the letters all basically say the same thing:
I didn’t believe, bad things happened, please forgive me.

The Ghost and Gravestone’s tour bus in Key West, Florida.

The beauty of Robert is that he acts as a rational touchstone for irrational ideas. Through Robert, people indulge the part of themselves that is entertained by “looking under the bed.” After all, the fear of dolls is as innocent as youth. As an adult, you can visit Robert and pretend for a few minutes that you’ve gotten over that childhood fear. You can embrace and conquer it at the same time.

Most interesting is the culture that has developed around Robert. The doll is promoted on nearly everything: its blank expression is seen in framed pictures and adorns buttons, coffee cups, license plates, drink cozies, shirts … all accompanied by the catchphrase, “Robert did it!”

Robert is also big business for local tour companies. While all of the tours around Key West point out where the doll was created and where it is currently located, only one, Graves and Gravestones, actually has permission to go into the museum after hours and schedule more intimate showings. According to David Casey, manager of the tour company, Robert’s draw has made it the most popular tour in town. Since starting in 2010, the company runs two tours daily (four daily during the tourist season), and most people come to see Robert. “He’s a major draw. Everybody asks about him and we’ve built the tour around him,” Casey said.

Of course, the whole situation is set up to give people the haunted moment they crave, and that’s part of the fun. The guides, for example, give the tourists EMF meters when they enter the museum, but do not explain the proper way to use them or what the electromagnetic field really is. The tourists get excited as they swing the meters around and gasp when they go off.

Even Robert’s Rules invite horrible evidence for investigators, while providing memories for visitors. Robert is surrounded by thick, clear plastic that reflects light in all directions, a trick that may well be intentional. It nearly always produces something in a photograph you don’t think should be there. Tourists snap their pictures quickly without asking Robert for permission, getting all sorts of illusions.

Robert draws visitors to the museum from all parts of the country. This means the souls who visit the doll and break its rules are more likely to have travel mishaps than others. One woman, who traveled by plane, lost her luggage. Another suffered a car accident on her way home. Still another had her computer stolen. All of these incidents would have been dismissed had they not occurred after seeing Robert first. Breaking the doll’s rules explains away the everyday bad luck we have.

The author snapped this photo of Robert before asking permission and far enough to catch the lights and flash.

This is the photo the author got of Robert after the doll granted permission.

Good luck from Robert.

Robert’s life continues in the digital world. There’s a Robert blog you can follow, and a daily count of all of the batteries the doll has drained. There is an endless trail of websites devoted to Robert, and innumerable ghost stories that recount the doll’s tale.

The official website,
www.robertthedoll.org
, claims teachers are using the doll in the classroom, something I have done on occasion in my middle school writing and reading classes. There are more YouTube videos of the doll than most celebrities, and the web hits, videos, and stories continue to grow.

As I write this, it is the beginning of the Christmas season, and my mother has promised a doll for my young daughter. It is from a company that specializes in making dolls that look like the little girl they are being given to, so in the next few weeks, there will be two versions of my daughter hanging around.

Letters to the doll, both good and bad.

At some point, I know the doll and I will be alone in the house. My daughter might leave the doll in the living room where, feeling safe from the spirits I write about, I usually pen my ghost stories. I might look over and see it smiling at me, but I’m not afraid. I got over my fear of dolls years ago, even though my sister tortured me with wild tales of Barbie dolls waking at night and trying to kill me.

Yet, I have seen many strange things since I began studying paranormal activity and I know there are any number of situations that could cause an object to move, or a plastic head to turn. I know I will never stop by my daughter’s room, with door closed and lights off, and hear a strange voice answering her questions.