WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 14: Still Life 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.120 Hello, it's Richard MacLean Smith here, not the impostor you've 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:09.400 been listening to on the podcasts the real One. Join 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:14.360 me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com forward Slash 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:29.880 Unexplained Pod. Human beings tend to see the world as 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.519 a reflection of ourselves. We have a habit of finding 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.239 or even projecting our own characteristics and values onto the 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.680 non human. Take a cursory glance at folk tales from 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.320 prehistory to Hollywood, and you'll see how often we transform 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:52.600 other animals, plant life, and even inanimate objects into vessels 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:57.080 for human behavior. Just think of the chatty furniture in 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:02.760 Disney's The Beauty and the Beast. It's our inescapable, narcissistic 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.039 way of making sense of the world. Maybe we can 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:12.839 only truly empathize with beings and bodies if we anthropomorphize them, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.679 which is to say, perhaps we're only comfortable with things 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.160 that look nothing like us as long as they act 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:25.319 like us. But what about the opposite, What about things 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:30.120 that look human that share our general physical contourts, but 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.280 who are not like us at all. Such off kilter 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:42.119 reflections can evoke unease, anxiety, even fear. In the nineteen seventies, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:48.440 a Japanese robotics expert named Massa hero Maurri examined this phenomenon. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.480 He suggested that in general, the closer something resembles a 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.520 realistic human being, the more positive our response to it. 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.160 For instance, if a human or robot followed our basic 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.800 physical template and possessed an artificial intelligence with which we 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.560 could communicate, we'd have much more natural affinity for it 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.720 than we would for a pile of loose hard drives 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.120 and wires sitting on a desk. However, Murray also noted 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:24.040 an anomaly in this hypothesis. There is, he believed, a 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:30.040 point just before something becomes completely indistinguishable from a real 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.800 human in which we begin to fixate on the last 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:39.639 small degrees of difference and they horrify us. It turns 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:45.200 out we would rather something be explicitly signposted as recognizably 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.919 other than be almost but not quite us. This is 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.040 a concept known as the uncanny valley, so named for 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.600 the sharp drop in our positive response when plotted on 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.280 a graph. It's a term that's become more and more 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.720 relevant with the rise of sophisticated technology that can create 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:11.960 human like figures, whether they are lifelike robots, photorealistic animations 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.920 and video game characters, or those strange, deaged actors now 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:21.919 common in movies. Get these depictions marginally wrong, as Robert 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.960 Zemachus famously did in his two thousand and four animation 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.280 The Polar Express, and you'll send many kids and some 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:35.119 adults home from the cinema with a profound sense of unease. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.520 Zemachus's movie is full of dead, glassy eyes and facial 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.600 expressions that reach for but do not quite convey human emotion. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.000 For those with young children. You might have found something 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:55.480 similar in the indefatigable series of cartoons known as Cocoamelon. 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.040 And that creepy aspect of the Uncanny Valley goes much 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.400 further back than cinema. It seems to be heart baked 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:11.920 into our instincts. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:24.119 mac lean Smith. One intriguing and alarming idea is that 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.640 our aversion to the uncanny is a defense mechanism, a 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.440 trace memory of a time when humanity perhaps came into 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.600 contact with a mysterious predator that either looked like us 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.960 or was able to pretend well enough in order to 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:45.560 draw close and then hurt us. More recently, the widespread 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.159 fear of clowns has been attributed to the uncanny Valley, 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.599 specifically the gulf between what a clown's face seems to 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.360 indicate and their contrasting behavior. We just can't read them, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:03.560 and that leaves us us wrong footed and afraid. Other 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.000 theories suggest that our fear of the almost but not 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.640 quite human is actually just one more manifestation of our 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.279 fear of death. A corpse, after all, is a human 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.440 being with the spark gone from the eyes and a slack, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.240 passive face. That's impossible to interpret. But there is one 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.479 version of human imitation that we treat more positively on 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.599 the whole. Though it is as inscrutable as a clown 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.640 or a corpse, it appears across cultures and throughout time, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.320 a samilocrum that seems to have always been by our side, 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:47.440 into which we invest profound emotion and from which we 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:53.480 take great comfort. What happens though, when that comfort turns 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:59.560 to terror. Jeane Otto first met Robert in nineteen o four, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.000 when Jean was four years old. The two quickly became inseparable. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.560 A pair of twin shadows flitting around Jean's family home 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.560 at five hundred and thirty four Eaton Street in Florida's 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.479 Key West. The pair would play together and eat together 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.560 at the dinner table. Robert even sat at the side 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.600 of the tub while Jean bathed, and then they would 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.240 be tucked in to sleep side by side in Jean's 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.480 small bed. It should have been a consolation for Minnie 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:39.880 and Thomas Otto that Jean, their imaginative, sensitive child, had 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.839 such a close companion. But Robert was not a school 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.240 friend or a boy from the neighborhood. Robert was a 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.080 three foot tall cloth doll stuffed with straw and wool. 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.520 There is some uncertainty as to how Robert first came 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:02.560 into the Otto family's possession. One origin story begins with 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.680 Jean's grandfather bringing the doll home as a birthday gift 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.080 from a trip to Germany. That's where the doll was 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.000 manufactured in the town of Gingen by the Stife Company, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.160 celebrated toy makers, who are credited with making the first 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.560 ever teddy bear in nineteen o two in honor of 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:28.320 then U S President Theodore Roosevelt. Another darker legend claims 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.800 that Robert was gifted to Jean by a servant of 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.679 the Ottos who was very close to the young boy. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.440 As the story goes, when she was unfairly fired by 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:44.680 Jean's father, the servant, who hailed from the Bahamas, resorted 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.160 to voodoo practices for her revenge, infusing the doll with 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:55.600 strange powers and unnatural properties. Neither story has been verified, 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.960 though research certainly gives the former more weight. Robert was 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.720 indeed a Stife product, although it seems he was not 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:10.000 designed as a doll at all. Rather, the oversized, unfinished 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.720 model was intended only as part of a clown display 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:28.320 for a shop window. Robert the doll's face is unpainted 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:34.240 and strangely expressionless, slightly simion in shape. It's completed by 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.360 a pair of beaded eyes and an unnerving shallow mouth, 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:44.560 half carved in an unsettling jestures smile. At some point, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.480 Jean's mother, Minnie, thought it fitting to dress the doll 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.480 in a blue and white sailor's costume made from sackcloth. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.120 She'd originally bought it for her son, but he'd since 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.600 outgrown it. She thought it amusing how cute Robert looked 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:04.960 in it. Then Jean thought it only right that Robert 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.760 had his own stuffed toy, a ragged dog like bundle 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.960 that Gene arranged to fit neatly under Robert's arm, as 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:18.280 if he were deliberately carrying it around. As for Robert's name, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.679 it was Jane who chose it, or rather gave it 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:27.240 to him. Quite literally. Jean had been christened Robert Eugene Otto, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.040 but in an act of friendship, Jeane decided to give 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:35.000 the name Robert to his new friend and instead took 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.920 the shortened version of his middle name for himself. He 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.600 would go by Jane for the rest of his life, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.320 both in name and appearance. The lines began to blur 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:51.600 early between the boy and his doll. The pair were inseparable, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.600 with Jeane often seen lugging him from room to room, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.720 the doll cumbersome and unwieldy in the little boy his arms. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.360 At times, Jean's parents, Minnie and Robert, would hear talking 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.840 coming from a distant room of the house, only to 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:15.479 find Jean and Robert sitting cozily together as Jeane whispered 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:21.199 conspiratorially into the ear of his fabric playmate. One day, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.360 Minnie found another stuffed toy of Jean's on the floor 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:30.040 of his room, ripped apart, with its inners strewn across 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:35.440 the floorboards. It wasn't me, said Jeane innocently when she 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:41.760 confronted him about it later. It was Robert. Other times 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.520 furniture was found overturned, books in heaps at the bottom 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:51.800 of shells, dishes broken, and every time it was the same, 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:58.880 It was Robert. Jean would plead, Robert did it? Such 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:03.960 deferred responsible ability is standard childlike behavior, as is the 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:10.000 investment of personality in a dull or imaginary friend. Psychologists 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:16.600 call such things transitional objects, inanimate items that children imbue 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.720 with personal meaning that provide comfort and help bridge the 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:26.520 gap between dependence and independence. But the era's nascent chance. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:31.800 Psychology could not explain what Jean's parents later heard coming 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.880 from their son's room. It was Thomas's father who heard 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:42.440 it first, that same conspiratorial whisper from his son, but 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:48.560 this type accompanied by a completely different voice. Minnie and 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.680 Thomas would often listen at Jean's bedroom door to the 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:58.239 strange chatter coming from within. The pair of distinct voices 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.760 ricocheting back and forth. One spoke in the high, lilting 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.400 tenor of a child, but the other was deep, rough 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:15.280 and demanding, often shading into anger. But what was most disconcerting, 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:20.800 according to Minnie, was that the two voices often overlapped 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:32.960 they were speaking at the same time. On one occasion, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.320 Minnie became so unnerved by the voices she heard coming 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.280 from Jean's bedroom that she couldn't help herself from bursting 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.520 in to try and bring an end to it. What 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:49.880 she found shocked her deeply. There huddled in the corner 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.800 of the room was Jeane, while Robert the doll was 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:58.320 sat upright in a hard backed chair, his inscrutable gaze 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.280 seemingly pinned on the frightened boy, who appeared to be 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.600 doing all he could to hide from him. It was 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.200 some time later, when Jean was ten years old, that 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.720 Minnie and Thomas were woken by screams for help coming 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.959 from their son's room. They rushed to his door, only 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:25.080 to find it inexplicably jammed shut. Together, they wrestled desperately 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.360 with the handle as their son continued to shriek for 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:33.360 help from inside, until finally they wrenched the door open. 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.719 They found Jean carying in fear at the back of 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.520 the room. The contents of which were in complete disarray, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:47.240 with toys and furniture strewn all about. Through hitching breaths, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.200 Jean told them that he had awoken to find Robert 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.960 sitting at the foot of his bed. When he cried out, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.720 the doll had become enraged and reached havoc in the 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:04.040 room before locking the door. In shock, A pale faced 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:09.280 Minnie scanned the room. Even pieces of furniture far too 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.360 heavy for Jean to have moved on his own, had 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:19.240 been completely tipped over. Whatever strange dynamic had developed between 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.800 Jean and Robert, it soon began to spread to the 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.600 rest of the house. One afternoon, according to one maid, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.520 giggles were heard coming from somewhere in the house. When 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.880 they followed them, they were led to a room that 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:39.800 was completely unoccupied save for Robert the Doll, who seemed 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.440 to appear there as if from nowhere. Another maid claimed 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.720 when they were cleaning the house one morning, she caught 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.080 a movement out of the corner of her eye. When 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.520 she looked up, she was certain she saw the legs 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.440 of Robert the Doll's sailor suit disappearing around a bend 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.800 in the staircase. When no one else was at home. 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:08.160 Visitors to the Otto household showed a distinct aversion to Robert. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:14.000 Several reported seeing the doll's blank expression subtly shift, or 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:19.840 his lidless eyes blink. Others also heard giggles from rooms 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:25.920 occupied only by the doll. All impossibilities, it seems. But 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.480 as the strange events around the doll began to escalate, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.920 staff began to quit and Jean's friends called less frequently. 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.240 At some point, an aunt of Thomas Otto's came to visit. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.360 She was so unsettled by Robert and his influence over 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.680 Jean that she demanded the doll be cast out at 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.160 the house. Immediately aware of how deeply his son cared 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.000 for the eerie toy, even if he did seem so 0:15:55.160 --> 0:16:00.000 often afraid of it, Thomas instead compromised by removing Roberts 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.760 to the attic. He promised he would remain there for 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:08.560 the rest of his aunt's visit. The following morning, Thomas's 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.680 aunt failed to show for breakfast. When a maid was 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:17.480 sent for her, they discovered a horrifying scene. The aunt 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.760 lay dead in her bed. The coroner recorded the death 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:27.480 as a severe stroke, but when the Otto's later retrieved 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.640 Robert from the attic and Jean's insistence. They did so 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.640 with a renewed and heightened nervousness. For the rest of 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:48.040 Jean's childhood, the doll would not leave his side. Over time, 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.520 Jean would eventually grow up and be forced to leave 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:57.200 Robert behind. He studied art at Chicago's Academy of Fine Arts, 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:02.000 then joined the Art Students League in u He traveled 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.560 through Spain and Italy before studying in Paris at the 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:10.200 Academy Julianne, following in the footsteps of his famous countrymen 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:15.480 James McNeil, Whistler and John Singer Sargeant. It was in 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.000 Paris that he met Annette Parker, a young woman from 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.840 Boston who'd moved to the city to study music. On 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:28.160 May third, nineteen thirty the two were married. Initially, they 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.720 moved back to New York City, where Annette or Anne 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.639 as she was known, performed as a pianist at the 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:40.399 revered Rainbow Rooms in the Rockefeller Centre. Jean continued to paint, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.919 honing the skills that would make him an artist of 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:48.879 some latter renown. In nineteen thirty four, the young couple 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.920 decided to move to key West into Jean's family home, 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:58.000 which he renamed the Artist's House. Though five hundred thirty 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:02.280 four Eaton Street looked just as he remembered, in truth, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:07.480 much had changed. His father, Thomas, had died in nineteen 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:12.679 seventeen at only fifty two years old. His mother, Minnie 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.760 was still living, though she suffered from mental decline during 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.639 her widowhood. By then, she had vacated the house and 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.480 lingered on as a frail facsimile of the woman she'd 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:30.119 been until her own death in nineteen forty five. Robert, though, 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:35.240 was very much still there, and when Jean returned home, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.760 he quickly resumed his attachment to the doll. At dinner times, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.399 Robert was afforded his own seat at the table, and 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.160 was even brought into the marital bed to lie beside 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.800 Jean and Anne. During the day, Jean propped Robert up 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:57.000 in an upstairs window facing the street. It wasn't long 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.440 before passing school children began to spread rumors about the dolls, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:07.840 supposedly changing expressions and blinking eyes. Some even reported that 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.760 Robert would duck out of sight, only to reappear again 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:18.119 moments later. Anne quickly and understandably took a dislike to 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:22.639 the doll, and eventually Robert was dispatched back to the attic. 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.080 One day, when walking home, Anne looked up to see 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.679 the infernal doll staring at her from out of the 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:36.679 attic window. When she asked Jeane about it, he explained 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.240 simply that Robert had requested that if he were to 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.000 stay in the attic, did he at least have a 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:56.720 view of the street. Quite what the ensuing decades of 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.920 Jean and Anne Otto's married life was like is hard 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:06.240 to say. Stories persisted for years, such as Robert appearing 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:11.120 suddenly downstairs despite having seemingly been left in the attic. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.840 Anne and Jean were also said to regularly find him 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.760 sitting in a rocking chair by a window on the 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:24.400 second floor. Despite it all, Jean never rid himself of Robert, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.680 and until his death in nineteen seventy four, he would 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.359 often visit him in his attic room, even staying up 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.200 there to paint with him from time to time. When 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.639 Jean died, Anne quickly left the so called artist's house 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:44.800 and moved back to France and then Connecticut, where she 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:49.360 died in nineteen seventy nine. She did not take Robert 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:54.479 with her. After that, the aspirational former home of the 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:59.160 Ottos remained empty for a few years before it and 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.280 Robert were bought by a woman named Myrtle Reuters, who 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.680 rented it out to tenants. But according to local word, 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.639 Robert did not go quietly into the night after Jeanne's death. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.680 One afternoon, a plumber working in the same room as 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.800 Robert claimed he heard giggling and turned to find the 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.639 doll had suddenly moved to the complete other side of 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:30.440 the room. Tenants regularly claimed to hear what they took 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:35.160 to be the sound of tiny, frustrated footsteps pounding down 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:40.720 from the attic. If anything, Robert's abandonment and as some 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:46.359 might say, his grief, seemed to have made him more malicious. 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:51.160 In nineteen seventy nine, Malcolm Ross, a reporter from Florida's 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:56.360 Lara's Hill newspaper, visited the artist's house to investigate all 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:01.400 the peculiar rumors. Accompanied by a friend, Ross ventured up 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:03.840 to the attic room at the top of the property 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.960 to pay Robert a visit, where he reported being riveted 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.760 by the doll's black marble eyes when we walked through 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.760 the door. Ross later wrote the look on Robert's face 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:20.520 was like a little boy being punished. It was as 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.439 if he was asking himself, who were these people in 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.040 my room? And what are they going to do to me? 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.959 Ross's friend then pointed to the well furnished room and 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.320 mocked what he saw as Jeane Otto's childish pandering to 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:40.280 the doll. Just then, the journalist looked back at Robert, 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:45.040 whose face, it seemed to him, had changed to exhibit 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.680 a very clear sense of disgust. There was some kind 0:22:49.760 --> 0:23:00.560 of intelligence there. Ross wrote that doll was listening to us. 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.960 When Myrtle Reuter's moved out of the artist's house in 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:11.040 nineteen eighty, she took Robert with her. In nineteen ninety, four, 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.960 months before her death, she donated him to the local 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:20.160 Fort East Martello Museum known as the Fort for Robert. 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.440 This is a certain kind of homecoming, as it was 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:27.800 Jeane Otto who designed the museum's art gallery shortly after 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.639 his return to Key West. Many of his oil paintings 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:37.040 still hang there. But rather than calming the story surrounding Robert, 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.560 the move prompted a whole new evolution in his legend. 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:46.960 At first, the museum didn't put Robert on display, but 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:51.400 soon word got around about what they had, and after 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:55.240 frequent requests to see him, it was agreed that he 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:59.520 would be placed in a glass case for public viewings. 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.000 It's there now, on a miniature stool, his sailor outfit 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:08.600 now slightly yellowed, and his trusty Teddy Bear still in 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:12.879 the crook of his arm. Behind him. Written in chalk 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:18.840 on a blackboard are three simple rules. Anyone visiting Robert 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:23.960 must first greet and introduce themselves. They must never take 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:29.119 photographs of him without first asking permission, and before leaving, 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:34.240 they must say a form more goodbye. The rules are 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:37.680 enforced as best they can be by the museum staff. 0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:41.480 Not for them, they say, but for the safety of 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:46.520 the museum's guests. To ignore or break them, some say, 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.719 risks what has come to be known as the Curse 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.760 of Robert, the doll misfortune that can follow the discourteous 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:58.440 guest home, no matter how far away that may be. 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.320 At first hearing, it sounds like a great marketing ploy, 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:08.240 the kind of story attached to macabre displays throughout history 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.440 as a way of selling tickets. But the museum also 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.639 displays the letters they've received from visitors over the past 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:21.640 three decades. Dozens are pinned to the wall of Robert's display. 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:27.920 Hundreds more are stored electronically, almost all of them offering 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:33.520 apologies and beg Robert for his forgiveness for their indiscretions. 0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:38.480 One signed only with the name Lori Anne, relates how 0:25:38.520 --> 0:25:42.080 the writer flouted the rules and tried to take photographs 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:46.160 of Robert without his permission. Each time she tried, a 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:50.000 brand new camera failed to capture the image, But when 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:53.160 Lori Anne turned to test the camera on the display 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:58.280 case opposite Robert, it apparently worked without a hitch. Only 0:25:58.720 --> 0:26:02.600 when she got home, Lori Anne uploaded the photos and 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:07.600 saw that Robert's reflection was captured in the glass. From there, 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:12.520 lor Anne writes, it all went wrong. Her computer was 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:17.080 immediately infected with a devastating virus. She was hurt at 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:20.520 work and lost her job. Then she lost her new 0:26:20.600 --> 0:26:26.480 truck and finally her home. The letter ends, I didn't 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:31.200 believe it before, but now I do. I apologize if 0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:42.400 I upset you. Staff at the Fort Museum are equally 0:26:42.440 --> 0:26:46.800 respectful and wary of Robert. There are still reports of 0:26:46.920 --> 0:26:51.840 giggles emanating from empty rooms, and how Robert can sometimes 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:56.600 be found in different positions inside his glass case, without 0:26:56.600 --> 0:27:02.440 the alarm ever being triggered. Goodelia Estevez, who worked as 0:27:02.440 --> 0:27:06.119 a docent at the museum in the early two thousands, 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:10.119 told a PBS reporter how every morning she would open 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:13.600 the museum and make her presence known, as if she 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:19.320 were dealing with a potentially dangerous animal. However, Estevez said 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.480 that the atmosphere in the fort was at its strangest 0:27:22.520 --> 0:27:28.400 and most chaotic when Robert was moved elsewhere. Every October 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:32.640 he would be temporarily relocated to the Key West Museum 0:27:32.720 --> 0:27:36.159 of Art and History at the Customs House, and in 0:27:36.280 --> 0:27:42.480 his absence things would escalate. The museum's cat would howl incessantly. 0:27:43.280 --> 0:27:49.520 Staff reported physical pushes from assailants they couldn't see. Some years, 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:53.680 Robert had to be recalled early to settle things down. 0:27:54.880 --> 0:27:58.320 It was as if he were happier there, Estevez said, 0:27:59.680 --> 0:28:03.119 And he may be able to make some bittersweet sense 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:06.919 of that. Some morning, she says, she would open up 0:28:07.000 --> 0:28:10.920 the museum and find an empty wooden chair in front 0:28:10.960 --> 0:28:14.679 of Robert's case, as if someone had come to visit 0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:20.639 His old friend. Jean Otto never quite matched the fame 0:28:20.720 --> 0:28:25.000 of whistler or sergeant. Search his name now, and any 0:28:25.080 --> 0:28:29.040 mention of his art is buried between a hundred references 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:33.879 to his infamous door. But Jean did have some remarkable success. 0:28:34.680 --> 0:28:38.000 He returned from europe An artist already worthy of note, 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:42.640 and cemented his regional reputation as someone who could find 0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:46.600 the essence of the Florida Keys in oil and canvas. 0:28:47.720 --> 0:28:51.520 To possess one of his landscapes, said one nineteen fifty 0:28:51.520 --> 0:28:54.920 four review, is to have an ever more beloved window 0:28:55.240 --> 0:29:00.280 into mystical light flooded Key West. Jean was not just 0:29:00.320 --> 0:29:04.520 a painter of landscapes, though, once he moved back to Florida, 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:08.240 he increasingly turned his hand to the art of still 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:13.280 life paintings. In December nineteen fifty three, the Key West 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:17.880 Tribune ran a feature on gene noting the ringing brilliance 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:21.840 of his depictions of porcelain and metal objects and the 0:29:21.960 --> 0:29:27.520 highlighted realism of his fruits, fabric and flowers. Gene Otto, 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:32.160 the critic asserts, is not limited by narrowness of concept. 0:29:32.840 --> 0:29:37.520 He finds loveliness and inspiration in the familiar and commonplace, 0:29:38.200 --> 0:29:43.040 but translates it through his genius into a supreme experience. 0:29:44.200 --> 0:29:49.040 Yet for all of that's skill and encompassing inspiration, there 0:29:49.120 --> 0:29:54.880 is one thing that Gene never seems to have painted Robert. 0:29:56.560 --> 0:30:00.400 Despite all the years they spent together, with Gene often 0:30:00.440 --> 0:30:03.680 painting in the very attic room that he had fitted 0:30:03.720 --> 0:30:07.720 out for his doll, not once did he take Robert 0:30:07.760 --> 0:30:12.120 as his subject. Now that Gene is gone, no one 0:30:12.280 --> 0:30:16.720 will ever know. Why was it the strange expression that 0:30:16.840 --> 0:30:22.080 eluded him, the inscrutable, uncanny valley of the doll's face, 0:30:22.800 --> 0:30:27.160 so reminiscent of but so far from human? Or was 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:40.040 it simply because Robert had never allowed it? This episode 0:30:40.120 --> 0:30:44.040 was written by Neil McRobert and produced by me Richard 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:48.120 mclin Smith. Neil is the creator and host of his 0:30:48.200 --> 0:30:53.000 own brilliant podcast called Talking Scared, in which he discusses 0:30:53.080 --> 0:30:56.920 the craft of horror, writing with everyone from Tennanerieve Do 0:30:57.520 --> 0:31:01.400 to the God of horror himself, Stephen King. I can't 0:31:01.400 --> 0:31:06.000 recommend it highly enough. Unexplained as an AV Club Productions 0:31:06.040 --> 0:31:10.600 podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:14.040 the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me. 0:31:14.320 --> 0:31:19.000 Richard McClain Smith. Unexplained The book and audiobook is now 0:31:19.040 --> 0:31:23.440 available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes 0:31:23.480 --> 0:31:28.120 and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and 0:31:28.240 --> 0:31:31.520 rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel 0:31:31.560 --> 0:31:34.120 free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas 0:31:34.480 --> 0:31:37.480 regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you 0:31:37.520 --> 0:31:39.880 have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:44.000 You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.760 and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and 0:31:47.920 --> 0:32:21.160