One man’s trash is another’s treasure.
Well, that hopefully will be true for whoever ends up in possession of the terrifying barnacle-ridden dolls found on a Texas beach, which are now headed to auction to raise money for a local wildlife rehabilitation group.
The creepy plastic demon babies were found along a 40-mile stretch in southern Texas, with rocks, barnacles and other debris in their hollowed-out eye sockets, plus missing limbs — and collected for any horror fans who may want them.
Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Institute, said the eerie findings were discovered during researchers’ weekly surveys of the beach while looking out for stranded sea turtles on Mustang Island.
“When we find interesting items during the survey, we bring them back and pile them up for selling in the annual auction to help raise money for the sea turtles,” Tunnell told the Houston Chronicle.
Other than the demon dolls, the items to be auctioned include: a fiberglass mermaid and a prosthetic leg, a spell bottle, Haitian money, an old bible, a Chinese beer, steamship coal from the 1800s and a message in a bottle sent from Jamaica — all found washed up on the beach by researchers from the reserve.
The 2023 Tony’s Trash to Treasure sale will take place on Saturday, May 20, at Port Aransas, with all of the money raised from the sale being donated to Amos Rehabilitation Keep.
ARK’s mission is to rescue and rehabilitate sick and injured birds, sea turtles, terrestrial turtles and tortoises found along the South Texas coast and then return them to their native habitat.
According to the reserve’s website, 500 tons of marine debris washes up on Texas shorelines each year. While the majority is debris and plastic, every now and then something a little different is discovered.
The scary plastic dolls captured the attention of HBO’s late-night TV host John Oliver last year, who jokingly called for the disturbing baby dolls to “burn.”
“Burn them — burn them now,” Oliver begged in a segment on his show. “I hate those dolls. I hate them so much.”
Oliver ended up donating $10,000 to the reserve in exchange for the dolls, declaring himself to be in the “possession of this large bucket full of my worst nightmares” after they arrived.
“This may be the single most creepiest thing that has ever been inside of this building,” he joked on the show.
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