The Soulless Eyed Dolls of La Isla de las Muñecas

Imagine stepping foot on an island. You expect the atmosphere to feel tropical. While the air might in fact feel humid as the tropics do, there’s another feeling in the air. Something unsettling. Something feels off.

The moment you begin exploring the island, you notice a doll, battered and hanging from a tree. You proceed a little deeper into the island and to your horrifying realization, there are more dolls. Hundreds upon hundreds. Some with just their heads or torsos, but every one of them broken.

Ages of dirt cakes their face. Their fabric is torn or missing and their porcelain skin is cracked.

What were once bright and playful eyes, dolls once held by children, are now soulless. It's as if the dolls are watching you. A sinister feeling overwhelms you. You shouldn’t be on this island.

La Isla de las Muñecas

Such an island exists — La Isla de las Muñecas (or The Island of the Dolls) and its origin is perhaps more startling than the soulless eyed dolls that inhabit the island themselves.

The Island of the Dolls is located south of Mexico City, Mexico within its Xochimilco canals.

It is a popular tourist attraction for those that love to explore dark and eerie things — haunted locations, abandon places …

Like many tourists that explore La Isla de las Muñecas, you’re probably wondering, Who placed these dolls here? How did this island of dolls come to be?

A Chilling Origin

The story begins with a caretaker of the island named Don Julian Santana Barrera before it was ever overrun with dolls.

One day as he was tending to the island, he came upon a starling and horrific discovery. The body of a little girl that had drowned. Not long after this discovery, Santana Barrera happened upon another discovery — a doll floating in the canal waters. Surely it belonged to the little girl.

Feeling deep remorse and helplessness for not being able to save her, he retrieved the doll from the waters and hung it on a tree as a way to honor the deceased little girl and show his deepest remorse and respect.

You might think, that would be the end of the story. That one doll would be enough to honor the little girl.

Santana Barrera didn’t stop with one doll. Feeling possessed to do so, he began collected broken dolls that had found themselves washed up on the island. He hung every doll he could find exceeding 100 as if overcome with an obsessive madness.

To add another layer of unsettling creepiness to the legend, many years after, Santana Barrera met the same tragic fate of the little girl he had found — drowned in the very spot he had found her. It is said that his spirit is now one of the many spirits that haunt The Island of the Dolls.

So many mysteries surround this island’s origin. Did the little girl even exist in the first place? A mere figment of Santana Barrera’s imagination and his descent into madness? Was something else at play?

It is said that these dolls are possessed by the spirit of that little girl as well the spirits of other little girls that once possessed the dolls that washed up on the island.

If curiosity entices you, you can see The Island of the Dolls for yourself. While I’m not definite they allow tourism past dark, just imagine how chilling it would be to go there at night!

Locals will swear that the dolls move their limb and blink their eyes. Some have claimed to have even heard voices coming from the island. Just their imagination?

Perhaps.

Sources:

https://www.discovery.com/exploration/the-island-of-the-dolls-has-a-murky-and-terrifying-history?source=post_page-----1a5318fe30dd--------------------------------