This Paranormal Life - #242 The Island of the Dolls

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

South of Mexico City is an Island hidden among the canals that many locals are afraid to visit. Some believe the island is haunted by the spirit of a young girl who died on it's shore. Others are simply afraid of the HUNDREDS of old, ragged dolls strung to the trees. But there are two investigators that are simply too dumb to be afraid... Rory Powers and Kit Grier. Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If I curse a cursed doll, is it a blessing? Cavemen discovered fire, but who discovered cavemen? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast, where every week myself, Rory Powers, and my co-host sitting across from me, Kit Greer, investigate a brand new paranormal tale, case, claim, beast, and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it is truly paranormal. Welcome to another episode of the show.

I don't know if you can tell, I got my sexy voice on this week. I feel like it's a little lower than usual it's a little bassier than usual it's a little thicker wait are you sick i'm not sick i had my work christmas party three days ago i did karaoke at 6 p.m drank for five hours and then did it again at midnight we booked a second karaoke place and went back as if we hadn't learned our lesson the first time. I was borderline voiceless for two days. It's a good weekend. How was your weekend?

I had a child, a baby daughter. My first child was born. Sure. Kind of rise into that challenge of being an adult and caring for a newborn caring caring for a newborn you know it's it is hard but it is rewarding two big weekends sure shattered look if anything we should be on the same team because technically a baby with a bad sleep schedule ruined both of our weekends you have a baby with a bad sleep schedule and i am a baby with a bad sleep schedule uh look guys we're just we're just messing around.

We're dilly-dallying around the point. Of course, this is a paranormal podcast. And of course, every week, we dive into a new paranormal story. Today's story is actually a listener suggestion. It was a suggestion that we had quite recently, although I knew it had been emailed in a few times, so I did a quick search to see who else had suggested it so thank you to Steve Montgomery Nathan Kemper Benjamin Torres and Stephanie White

who actually submitted the case in 2017 oh sorry Stephanie so it's definitely I hope there wasn't anything urgent in that case I hope you weren't like hey i'm about to go into the field i got a shotgun i need your help boys and we just blanked her for four years there's no way she still listens this is the ultimate test of her fandom stephanie stephanie i hope you're definitely listening to this week's podcast today's story begins in the outskirts of mexico city the country's vibrant capital but hidden among the market stalls and stretching highways is a tourist attraction like no other on the south side of the city is a labyrinth of waterways that hide a dark secret that haunts those who visit it oh but to explain fully what's going on we're to need to go all the way back to the middle of the 20th century.

Our story starts with a man named Don Julian Santana Barrera. Back then, he lived in Xochimilco, a canal-ridden borough of Mexico City. Now, Don was a deeply religious man, and all he wanted to do was worship the Lord and spread the good word to those around him. Ladies and gentlemen, I've been blessed by the Lord. Oh, let me tell you, he's the ultimate, he's the ultimate f***ing thing in the universe. You guys like Xbox? He's like, he's like 20 times better than Xbox.

He's going to need to work on this pitch. You said this is all he wants to do. This is a, maybe he's running out of ways to talk about God. When you've been talking about the Lord for a long time, you've got to start using some contemporary comparisons. Right. You guys like weed? No one gets you higher than the Lord.

We've all seen these when you drive past certain churches. They'll have a sign out to try and encourage people to come into church. They'll usually have some kind of ultra modern uh reference to the lord uh you kids playing halo infinite well i can think of one halo that's even more infinite the one on jesus christ's head in heaven it's the youth pastor thing right yeah you know he rolls into town he sees a bunch of kids fishing he somehow finds a chair turns it around whips his cap backwards and he's like you guys like fishing i knew what fisherman wants all right we already know stop you right there yeah he's modernizing it he's making it cool he's making it

appealing to the masses oh i've seen the magical ways he's blessed my life and the life of others, which is why I'm here. He visited neighboring communities and preached the gospel with such vigor and passion that even those that shared his faith were actually getting kind of pissed off. That takes a lot. If you want to annoy someone who's devoted their life to the thing you're preaching about, you must be preaching about that thing a lot. To turn the thou shalt not kill people into murderers that want to murder you, that takes a special kind of annoying. Like I love burritos. Right. If there was someone who's always talking to me about burritos, I'm always like, well, that's a great idea. Let's go get a burrito.

I'm always like, well, that's a great idea. Let's go get a burrito. But for me to have to sit someone down and be like, you have to shut the fuck up about Chipotle. Right. It's all you talk about. I can't eat any more burrito. We all eat too many burritos now. He needs a new hobby. For sure. People would harass him, chase him out of town. Eventually, things got so rough that dawn decided to withdraw from society i mean don't like go from a hundred to zero like there's a hat like you just went a little too hard dial it back go bowling some saturdays instead of preaching about the lord don't withdraw from society this is a man of extremes i get by the sound of this one single heckle and he's

like you know what i worship the devil now give me your soul i'm gonna talk too much about hell it's like no just still talk about god just chill out for a second this is the type of person you need to keep an eye out for the type of guy who uh gets rejected by one girl when he asks her out to prom and then he turns into the joker when she says no yeah oh my god yeah keep an eye on this dude so that's what he did dawn moved deeper into the waterways and eventually settled on an island in the middle of a nearby lake so dramatic so dramatic you're what you're you're so annoyed you can't live in society anymore he was sick of being hassled and he wanted to be alone by himself he was the one hassling everyone it was only because he pushed it too far everyone

got annoyed he wanted to be alone with the lord who can blame if he's like hey if you don't want my message i'll keep my message. And I'll live this little animal crossing life. And I'll just praise him all day and fish all night. Well, fair enough. I will say city life isn't for everyone. Sometimes it all gets too much. You need to get out of there.

When are you moving back to Ireland, by the way? Next week. Side note. Next week. Now, I will say that that's just one theory on how and why he ended up on the island. Some people say he was just a strange guy. Others say that he just wanted to move there for a long time. But as this story progresses, I think we'll find out that maybe there was something going on with Don.

I see a lot of this podcast in Don and its listeners. I see a lot of this podcast in Dawn and its listeners. You know, all we tell our listeners to do is to preach the good word of this paranormal life to those on the streets. And yeah, we've been harassed and chased out of every major city on Earth, which is why we had to set up our own commune. So let's not be too hard on the guy. That's all I'm saying. Dawn lived a simple life in his new home. He was now free from the hustle and bustle of the city and enjoyed his quaint life, growing vegetables and tending to the island. But that dream wouldn't last. After a brief time of living in peace on the island, Don witnessed something

life-changing. One day, when he was out walking by the shore, a dead body washed up on the island. Oh, Don, buddy. He can catch a break. I know. That's not what you sign up for when you book your one-way ticket to the tropical paradise of the Mexican islands. Yeah.

You're thinking, I'm getting away from the hassle. I'm getting away. I want to be just me and the Lord. And then the next day, a body washes up on your island. And uh-oh, you're in a puero novel now you're a you're a murder suspect dawn was heartbroken to discover it was the body of a girl and next to it floated a fragile little doll now being a man of god dawn decided to give the girl

a proper burial he dug her a grave and prayed over it when she'd been buried then he took the girl's doll and strung it up on the tree of the beach in the hope of calming her young spirit that she might want something to play with in her final resting place i'm not saying i would have done this but you know you give that thing a little nudge and the current will just take that little problem a little further down the river you know i was gonna say it's it's the more i think about it it's very unlucky if you live on an abandoned island you're the only resident you live in peace and then a dead body turns up there's not a lot of other suspects in that crime other than you the sole survivor of that island you you would have to think you know

look of course i would call the police of course i would notify the authorities but you gotta stop for a second and realize the implication of what's about to happen all i'm saying is you might just pretend you didn't see it for 30 minutes. For 30 minutes. Just in case the current, you know, washes the whole thing away. I don't know. I'm just saying. Or invite a couple of friends over to the island. And then after hanging out for a bit, just be like, hey, let's go. Let's go walk on the beach.

At this time of night, it's actually. Oh, oh, no. What is. Do you see this? I'm seeing this for the first time what is it boys and then you all you got you got some some uh i don't want to say accomplices because that's not right no because you didn't do anything i didn't do shit i didn't kill the little son of a bitch witnesses right that's a good one is you on the dot sweating bullets i'm not gonna say he's an accomplice because that would sound like

i did the damn thing are you a christian officer are you a christian because i have some pretty passionate thoughts i'll hang a doll for you and you did someone know that you did you know because of course of course bury the girl and sure hang up the doll did you tell someone before you did that because now you've buried a corpse and your island. I think moving the body is a crime in and of itself. It was a tragic event. Let's not dance around it. With Don's respectful ceremony, it was at least over. Or was it? Oh no. While on his walks along the island shore, Don started to notice something strange. More and more dolls began washing up on the banks of the rivers that flowed along the island holy moly so so you're saying one doll

washed up with one child he dealt with that's a weird term but he he respectfully buried don't say buried legally legally the body and hung up the doll as a sign of respect. And you're saying that more dolls are coming out of nowhere. Every day down that river, more dolls washing up on the beach. That's not good. It's not. We're still not in the realm, the world of the paranormal. That's just an explosion at a doll factory that killed a girl and sent her flying

across the river. Or some kind of child doll battle and there was one human casualty and a hundred doll casualties. Right. Still, you know, that's maybe a little paranormal, sure, but nothing too crazy. Some Toy Story shit. Dawn allegedly began to hear whispers all around the island at night. One day, he woke up to discover that the original doll that he had tied to a tree had moved to a completely different place on the island. All right, now it's paranormal. It's straight, it's getting real weird. Unless someone's coming to the island,

untying the dolls, throwing more dolls in the water, and moving them around the island, there's no other explanation. And we haven't even addressed the fact that out of around the island i there's no other explanation and we haven't even addressed the fact that out of all the possible toys on earth that could be washing up on your island en masse dolls are the most paranormal and creepiest top three i would say for sure what are your other two furbies if a bunch of furbies were washing up on the the shores i would move planet and maybe troll dolls or something.

Troll dolls, stretch Armstrongs. If you wake up one day and one of those little noodle arms is wrapped around your throat, I would freak the fuck out. What's the least intimidating? Slinky? Beyblade? Beyblade upon Beyblade washed up on the shore, spinning wildly without a ripcord in sight. That's a jellyfish, Don. Oh, shit.

You're telling me then these aren't Pokemon? He's got a box of crabs. This was all getting a bit too much for Don. Needless to say, I mean, it's scary enough to live on an island by yourself. This isn't what you signed up for. With the best intentions, he decides to just leave the doll alone and get some rest. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe in the darkness he was hearing the cries of animals

and seeing the shadows of the moon playing with branches. But that night, he was awoken from his sleep by a noise outside his house. It was the sound of footsteps approaching. He quickly whipped his head around, but there was nobody there. Then, without warning, he heard a voice hiss in his ear. I want my dog! Oh my! There is, I dare say, only one possible candidate for where that voice came from

because no one else lives in the island and there's only one person who owned a doll uh all right look i get it i get it this is a this is a very outlandish origin story that we usually wouldn't even entertain on an episode of this paranormal life. But according to locals and tour guides for the island and Don, this is one real version of what happened. Don was now 100% convinced that the island was haunted. So he began to travel, making trips off of the island to other settlements where he combed through trash and dumps looking for one thing and one thing only dolls i'm sorry i think did i zone out or did i miss a line of logic in don's actions here

so he yeah he believed the island to be haunted big time so we got off the island i understand that bit oh you got it got off the island island. You got to leave. Because it's haunted. But not to start a new life on land. No. To, what did you say? Troll through dumpsters? Not even go to a toy store. F***ing raid the bins. They have to be used.

I don't know. Used dolls. I don't know. I wouldn't even think that's a popular item that's disposed of on a day-to-day basis most families will own one or two dolls in their entire lifetime the chance that you'll be looking through the bin at the time at the moment in history where they throw out a doll is so right because dolls have a long shelf life as well it takes a while for them to get old like old and creepy that's a real gamble but apparently it worked i mean that's all the

information that he had on this girl that she had a doll when she died so she probably liked dolls she screamed saying she wanted her doll or dolls so that's what he did he felt like he was on a mission to collect as many dolls as possible to give to her spirit as some sort of sacrifice or tribute to get her to chill the out don is the kind of guy you run into at like in the queue at the post office let's face a lot of people in the queue at the post office are weird. A hundred percent. There's one guy in the corner, Don, who's just twitching one eye. Hey, what's going on with you, man? And you're like, I don't know. I don't really want to talk, dude, but I don't know.

Are you still into the Christian thing? Are you still doing the thing? You got any dolls, man? No, that can't be a biblical thing. I just feel like I've talked to this guy in the street before, a guy who is on a holy mission to dive through dumpsters, to find dolls, to appease the island spirit. It's a whole can of worms you don't want to even get into.

It's almost impressive to return to the civilization that ousted you for being too f***ing weird and coming back even weirder that's the borderline impressive they're like don't we would we would kill for you to just talk about god again we would honestly love that so on his mission he went combing through garbage far and wide and every time he found a discarded doll he took it straight home and hung it up on the island soon the entire place was covered in filthy dolls with cracked heads and missing eyes all hanging from trees like some sort of bizarre toy execution ground oh god this is like if sid from toy story

had his own island he's splicing together Action Man's head with Lightning McQueen race cars. I feel like if you did this to your island in the game Animal Crossing, the game reports you to the FBI. It's like, keep an eye on this guy. Imagine being so weird in Animal Crossing that one day you exit your house and all of the islanders are surrounded your house.

And they're like, you have to leave. We voted you out. It's like this can happen. Look, we talked enough about this island. I think it's time for you to see some pictures of what this place looks like. I don't know if I want to see. Here we go. Take a little peek at this.

I guess I don't get a choice. All right. Holy mother of God. I mean, I don't even know how descriptive we have to be, folks. It's exactly what you think it is. It's exactly what it says in the tin. This is a cursed island. what it says in the tin this is a cursed island uh there are dozens hundreds of creepy vintage dolls strung up like you say like this is some kind of cannibal doll society that's crazy that

nails dolls to trees it's like a it looks like a warning to dolls yeah this is not this is not a worshipful thing this is not a respectful thing no spirit would possibly be happy with this oh even if this girl was a little demon i reckon she'd be like this is this is kind of weird dawn this is a still from a movie where jungle explorers are like canoeing down river and then they realize that they're absolutely because yeah they start to see dolls nailed to trees they're like all right i guess the locals aren't friendly then uh that this is awful i will say uh a dark insight into the mind of dawn i can't stress in how bad condition these dolls are in there's a worrying amount of them that are just butt naked

some of them have gray hair that there is no way they came with that there's no way that look at that little f***er there's no way that baby that baby has gray hair down to its a**hole there's no way it was sold like that it looks like the f***ing movie hellraiser or something it's like it's a literal demon from a horror movie that dude's balding that baby's bald he's bald but he's got hair on the sides of his head now of course it wasn't long before the locals heard about this guy looking through everyone's garbage for dolls and taking them back to his private island when you say it like that it sounds really even weirder than normal. As time marched on and the 90s rolled around, Don began to run low on cash. As a result, he decided to open up his island. What kept him going?

How much cash did he have? It took until the 90s for him to run out? I don't know. There's talk of him farming and stuff. Maybe he was an early investor in Apple. What could I say? Talk of him farming and stuff. Maybe he was an early investor in Apple.

What could I say? He could be an incredibly successful entrepreneur, farmer, businessman. But if you have an island full of dolls, that's the only shit people are going to talk about and know you for. As a result, he decided to open up his island to visitors, allowing them to come in and see for themselves La Isla de las Mónicas, the Island of Dolls.

Lord grant me the confidence of a psycho who thinks that his torture island has a potential tourist industry. It's kind of weird, isn't it? I guess he's kind of, it's a very niche horror to double down on. It's spooky but not in a not in an upsetting way you know a creepy island with dolls hanging from the trees

that's upsetting in a way that i want to go check it out if he was like hey come visit my island i shit in a box and i if you pay me 10 bucks, I'll let you see it. That's still upsetting. Okay. Not in a way that I want to witness. I'm just wondering who that first customer was who bought the first ticket to the Island of Dolls. Well, you'd think the public wouldn't be into it, kid. But you would be very surprised. The canals of Xochimilco are one of the biggest tourist attractions in Mexico City.

A welcome escape from the concrete and high rises, where people can enjoy the same beautiful canals once used by the Aztecs. These ancient waterways hold many stories. Nowhere is that truer than here on the Island of the Dolls. It looks like a scene from a horror movie. Hundreds of dolls strung up and hanging from trees. Anastasio's uncle started collecting these dolls 50 years ago

after he found the body of a young girl who drowned on these shores. They are hanging like from nooses. He found the dolls in the canals and in the trash. He started hanging them up to protect him and to try to scare away the spirit of the girl. Now, every year, more and more tourists with a morbid curiosity come to visit the island. I love that the island has a caretaker now, as if there is some order to this island that needs to be maintained and restored. Yeah, I think it's, to be fair, I think it is a family affair.

I believe it's a nephew or a uncle who inherited the island yeah um so now yes they do they do it's hey it's a business it's a it's a tourist attraction now you know they got caretakers for disneyland why are they gonna have someone cleaning up the trash isn't insisting of a hundred broken dolls strung up on wire you know uh walt had the idea when a dead mouse washed up on the anaheim canals he would nail it to a lamppost and rip out his guts uh sure the the the foundations of this tourist attraction are a little different than, let's say, Disneyland. But the same principles apply. Suddenly, Dawn's Island became one of the biggest local tourist attractions,

with people visiting from all over the world, bringing their own dolls to hang up as a gift to the cursed island. Stories I read sounded amazing. People visiting from, you know, the UK, Russia, all these countries in Europe, bringing dolls from their hometowns and bringing them to the island. That's pretty cool. There's something cool about letting your doll live on forever in an island with other dolls. You can kind of trick yourself into thinking it's a kind of doll resort or retirement home. Yeah. Or, you know, like, you know, like there's a couple bridges around the world where people love all that shit where they like put their initials of them and their partner on a padlock. Right.

And like padlock it to a bridge in France or something like that. And there's like thousands of them. Sure. You know, if you're a fan of the paranormal, put your initials on a doll and bring it to the island. It's the same kind of principle.

Yeah. To be like, oh, if someone's like, have you heard of the island of dolls? And it's like, I brought a doll to the island. You can see it in the same kind of principle yeah to be like oh if someone's like have you heard of the island of dolls and it's like i brought a doll to the island you can see it in the background of someone's video i kind of get the appeal well i don't but i'm throwing him a bone and saying that i do you're saying we're not gonna bring a tpl branded doll all the way to mexico we do have a very recently acquired voodoo doll that's true actually i don't know if that counts that's maybe that's too cursed even for dawn i don't know if y'all saw that thing but it was made of bird feathers uh and it was very scary it came with a bag marked bones i don't know how welcome

the doll is i do still have the doll though it's in my apartment. And I've never been iller in my life this last month. Let me tell you, folks. Back to our journey. Despite all the crazy twists and turns of our story so far, the mystery of Dawn wasn't quite over yet. In 2001, Dawn's nephew, Anastasio, was visiting him on the island when he discovered something tragic. Dawn was dead.

Dead down by the shore in the exact same spot where he claimed to have discovered the body of the young girl no the girl came back from the dead and killed dawn some people think that dawn julian was possessed by a demon others thought he maybe maybe just wasn't of sound mind. There's a lot of good theories for this case. Sometimes we're like, all right, either A, they're making it up or B, it did happen. Okay. But there are some theories here. Some people believe that he, there was no girl. He never found anyone in the first place. It's pretty coincidental that he told this story about burying a dead girl on the beach and no one was ever like you have you have to dig up the body you know that right we need to know whose girl this is just because you said it

happened five years ago doesn't mean you're it doesn't matter anymore like there was never any uh mention of like a missing child no one ever found out who it was i don't think they ever found the grave or dug up the body or anything so don who was the girl hey look at all these dolls pretty cool huh don you gotta answer the question buddy this one's got googly eyes haha hey everyone's focusing on the wrong part of his story it's like no guy the girl's not important what's important is the doll island somebody should call her parents no shut up yeah i guess it was tragic and all that she died but like given that it started such a cool thing like the island of dolls it's pretty justified they put him in handcuffs that's absolutely fair but look at the end of the day it's not just dawn who's claimed

to have bizarre experiences on the island. Locals claim that they see the dolls move their heads and whisper to one another after dark. Some people have gone as far to say that at night, the dolls just come to life and roam around the island. That tracks. It really does. It really does. Which would just be the best thing if Don passed away and everyone was like, that crazy guy he thought his island was run by dolls and then all you hear is what crazy guy my papa and there's you know a two-foot troll doll with wacky yellow hair standing behind you toy story was a fun kids movie and all but if it happened in real life it would be a horror oh that's very

very true if andy just came home at the wrong moment and saw all those little f***ers running around the house that changes a kid that changes kid for life and then if they all die in front of him because that's what they do when he comes in the room that changes the kid even more and now you're telling all your parents you're like mother buzz is real you're like all right you you tell one person about that you're on psychiatric meds for the rest of your life so good luck with that i don't want my toys to come to life and i don't want to see it because it would ruin my life forever and the lives of everyone that loves me i'm happy for them to all stay dead. When it comes to visitors, I did stumble across one story from three girls who went to the island of dolls at night.

A local tour guide named Tino was taking these three girls on a late night trip to visit the island. Now, Tino and his family had navigated the canals around Mexico City for generations before this particular trip. But this was a ride he would never forget. After dropping them off on the island, Tino waited by the boat while the girls

could explore. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a scream. The girls came running back to the boat in full panic. Tino said, between her sobs, one girl screamed that the doll was laughing. So I said I would go up to the island. I was going to check it out, to make them feel better, tell them they were wrong. But when I got onto the island, I could hear the sound of laughter too. It was a doll, dressed as a rabbit. I promise you, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And that isn't the first time that he'd seen something that can't be explained in the region. Whoa. There are ghosts around these waters, you know.

Ghosts and dead people. I have seen black, jaguar-like forms pass under my boat, jump onto the banks, disappear into the trees. Don't bring the girls, Tino trees don't bring the girls tino don't bring the girls to the island you knew it was haunted you knew it was haunted and you still took them if you've had these experiences stop bringing sacrifices to the island you just know as well that he probably is warning people that these girls come up to him it's like hey could you take us to the island he puts out his cigarette no one who wants to live would go to the island it's terrifying the dolls are real they will eat your eyeballs how does 50 sound he's like i'm ready right now if you are let's go welcome aboard shipmates it's a great deal the girls give me money i take them to the island the demons give me souls for giving them the girls.

So you are harvesting souls. Dino always wins. After a very awkward boat ride and some short exploration, you come back to the boat. And in the moonlight, you realize Dino's starting to look like 20 dolls in a trench coat he's got a suspiciously troll doll like head it's just a six foot lumpy body and a furby's head poking out the top of an all-black trench coat dino. You die now. I did really want to, I've looked into before,

because there's so many fun paranormal cases you can do. And one that's come up a few times is like haunted Furbies. Sure. People have uploaded YouTube videos of like how to turn your Furby cursed. Oh shit. I looked into it because I was like, this could be a great thing to do for an episode uh but the furby that it works with is one of the later models i think

we were too old for it where they have like full like led eyes of consciousness this mother is alive yeah it's like a little more advanced yeah and i was like oh well maybe it's like you go into the circuits and do some weird stuff and you make them sound weird but they're like the way that you make your verbi quote unquote cursed is by jamming your finger in its mouth violently until it freaks out and then shaking him upside down back and forth that's like i think that's how you curse any living creature that's how you make anything seem bad sure crazy so maybe we'll try that at some point get ourselves a furby and see if we can curse it that'd be a fun one for a live show actually there's a real like mr beast element to that where we're like we bought 200 furbies because we wanted to maximize our chances of one being cursed.

In true Mr. B style for a live show, do a Furby squid game. We'll buy 100 Furbies and put them through challenges. And the last one that comes out alive will have the souls of the other 99. You'd think that all of these scary, horrible stories would put people off visiting the island. But as I said, it's a huge tourist attraction. Even locals regard it as a charming place rather than a scary one. People continue Dawn's tradition to this day of bringing dolls to the island and stringing them up in the trees. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's open right now. It's something that, you know, if you live in the U.S. or Mexico, you can go and do. I mean, we could go and do it on a holiday. It's kind right now. It's something that, you know, if you live in the US or Mexico, you can go and do, I mean, we could go and do it on a holiday. It's kind of crazy. Wow. Maybe we really got to think about this. I'll look through my extensive doll collection for one I'm willing

to sacrifice to the gods. Now, unfortunately, because of our busy schedules, we don't have the luxury of going to this island to investigate it ourselves rory's got about six nights of karaoke lined up he's semi-professional at this point um it's true it is true my schedule is not going to click by the time my schedules clear up um there's going to be more dolls on that island than trees and uh it will be a double yes automatically because of how scary it is but until that point we have to come down on a conclusion right now on the podcast. Kit, I appreciate that I fact bombed you today with a lot of interesting tales from the island, but where's your head at? What are you thinking?

This is truly one of the strangest and most deranged cases we've faced on this paranormal life. I appreciate you sticking with me as well. I know that the origin story is a little bonkers, a little wilder than what we usually have on this podcast. But to do justice to Don, that's the story he told up until the day he died. So I thought it was only fair that we relive it today. And one has to wonder, why would someone make that story up? Yeah.

Why would they incriminate themselves like that so who knows maybe it is true no story you made up to impress your friends starts with i found a dead child yeah whatever you say past that point is irrelevant while we're talking about it let's focus on that for a second i guess the origin story is quite important actually without it what is paranormal about the story okay don may have started the island for no apparent reason and sure maybe people did go to the island and really have some paranormal experiences the dolls move etc etc really the motive in all of this is that the spirit of the little girl is what kicked everything off sure and and caused these dolls to be haunted yeah it's the linchpin for the whole story the whole reasoning behind everything

and it's i don't know i don't know at what point don started telling people about the girl and what the time scale is yeah because if he's got some weird dolls on the island and he's already kind of doing all this stuff and he's telling people i found this uh this little girl 10 years ago if that's the first time someone hears about it then that's different you know because then i think he is kind of thinks he can get away with it being like we like we talk about it like an event that happened in the past don't even worry about it you know 10 years ago i found a girl's body but if he's like three days ago i found it's like well we need to start asking some questions and figuring out what's going on i think that's very important and in this story it doesn't really talk about that time frame i think me personally if i have

to come down on a conclusion there is no proof that this girl ever existed there is no records of anyone that was missing they never asked about the body or the grave or anything around it but what it is is a very colorful origin story that fits perfectly in the interest of collecting dolls to bring them to your island to make a creepy doll island it's a little bit too coincidental for me and there's not enough evidence really to back up that origin story people say they see the dolls moving at night you see all tons of shit moving at night i'll see the the liter bottle of cola smiling at me as i turn my kitchen light off and head to sleep you know you see weird shit at night in the dark i was gonna say earlier as well like dolls these days are pretty sophisticated as we've discussed

the podcast previously they have dolls that piss and shit these days uh so a doll moving isn't really weird wasn't there a doll we found called like little boopsie do or something like that yeah something weird i swear to god that was on an old episode yeah so so blinking dolls isn't actually that weird we we just told you we're living in a world where furbies are borderline sentient beings so yeah it's not unrealistic to think that some of these dolls have the remnants of battery power left in them and now and again have a jolt or a head nod or an eye open. Who knows? I think we're on the same page. I think it's going to be a no today.

A great story. A great story. Thank you so much for everyone that emailed it in as a suggestion. But unfortunately, it is a double no. Thank you so much, guys, for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. You know, there's a lot of paranormal podcasts out there, and we appreciate

you making us our choice. What? What do you mean, what? There's a lot of paranormal podcasts? I don't even believe that you believe. I don't even think we were the first. I mean, News mean news flash when we started this in 2017 which is borderline jesus times at this stage in the podcast world uh we were the first the first podcast no the

first paranormal podcast obviously no there were like a couple of other like comedy podcasts and different things huge huge podcasts yeah it's been going for a long time you're saying there's there's just copycats of what we're doing they're not they're just cats they're just not this is i'm sorry this you can't just drop a bomb i need to like look this up like what are their what are their names i'm gonna tell our lawyer to f***ing sue their asses please don't look at it we're so close to the end of the episode let's just not god there are borderline tens of them there is so much more than tens you're not hitting the refresh at the bottom of the page oh don't look so shot you must have known that this was a thing they're not this is not. I'm calling Jerry. I'm calling Jerry right goddamn now.

Don't call... Who's Jerry? I don't even know a guy called Jerry. Jerry, you're not going to believe it. You're not. You're not. Did he say he would believe it? No.

I didn't know either. Rory apparently knew this the whole time. He's unbelievable. He doesn't tell us so much shit. You haven't even said what the thing is that i wasn't telling you yet he guessed he got whenever i said you're never gonna guess he guessed right away with no you said you're never gonna guess and then you said you will you will saying that which implies he said he would are you hearing this this is what he's like all the time

it's like it's like a deflection thing like he won't address the fact that he was withholding this information about all these other shows i feel like you're just ranting to jerry about me now this isn't even about the podcast anymore no i know which is i know yeah i know yeah he did he did as soon as he walked in yeah like you said yeah yeah wait are you talking to me or are you talking to jerry what what the f**k are you talking about i'm talking to jerry you were looking me dead in the eyes when you said that! Your phone was limped by your wrist! There's no way you're talking to Jerry! Alright, I gotta call

Carrie about this. What? Who the f*** is that? I got my own person! I'm not gonna talk to Carrie right now. Instead, I'm gonna talk to you, our loyal listeners, and tell you about a little thing called patreon.com i'm sure you all know about it and have heard about it we talked

about it before on the podcast uh but it is the number one way to support this show this paranormal life uh while getting a ton of amazing rewards over on patreon, Christ, 40 bonus episodes now? 45 plus. We're nearing that sweet 50 mark. Insane. Almost 50 additional episodes to This Paranormal Life. If you love the show, if you've caught up with the show, if you just want something a little extra to fill your week from as little as five bucks, you can get access to that whole back catalog. And it's some of the wildest, craziest, unredacted shit that This Paranormal Life has to offer. And it's also, as I said, the number one way to support the show.

So check it out. It's patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. And if that's too hard to remember, the links are in the description of this very podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the podcast of course we will be back next tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale Thank you.