The Haunted Dolls of the Island of the Dolls

A muddy doll, split down the middle with one glass eye missing, swung from a tree limb on the Island of the Dolls, Xochimilco, Mexico, in 2001. Years before tourists ever saw it, Don Julián Santana spent decades collecting hundreds of dolls and wiring them to every tree, each one layered in grime and tangled hair. Locals say that by 1991, the entire canal was lined with colorless faces turned toward the water, their mouths torn but silent. Night visitors claimed the dolls' eyes glimmered red, and some swore they heard whispering, although nobody else was around. Children refused to approach after dusk, and boatmen would speed up when passing by. What most never knew is why Don Julián started this obsession-until the night his nephew discovered Don Julián face-down in the same canal where, fifty years earlier, the body of a drowned girl had washed ashore, starting the legend.