Google Maps has captured an island in the middle of a vast network of canals in Mexico. Any visitor to the island could be forgiven for thinking they had walked into a horror film. For on this tiny landmass are hundreds of hanging, decomposing and mutilated dolls. The spot is known as “La Isla de la Muñecas,” or, the Island of the Dolls.
The story behind the origin of the dolls is both sad and unnerving – and began over fifty years ago.
Don Julian Santana was a Mexican man who abandoned his wife and child and moved onto an island on Teshuilo Lake in the Xochimilco canals.
It is said a young girl drowned in the lake – although some believe Santana simply imagined the death.
Either way, Santana became obsessed with the girl and sought to appease her troubled ghost, claiming he could hear her screams and footsteps in the darkness.
The recluse – who was an artist – discovered a doll floating in the canal where she died and decided to hang the figure from a tree as a sign of respect to the girl.
However, Santana became convinced that the doll was possessed with the girl’s ghost and so hung up more to appease her spirit.
He would collect them from canals and from rubbish dumps near the island – even trading produce he grew in exchange for dolls from other locals.
The artist did not attempt to make the dolls more presentable and simply hung them up as they were.
Consequently, many of the figures are covered in dirt, missing limbs, decapitated, strewn with cobwebs… and generally truly horrifying.
Even those who arrived in decent quality became weather-beaten and ghoulish over time.
Santana, allegedly, did not see the nightmarish quality of the figures, however, instead, he saw them as protectors.
When visitors came to the island he would show them around and charge a small price for those who wanted to take photos.
Sadly, the story has a tragic ending, as in 2001 Santana himself drowned – in the same area where he said the little girl had perished.
His relatives now run the island which continues to serve as a gruesome tourist attraction.
Professional photographer Cindy Vasko, who visited the island, described it as the “creepiest place she has ever visited,” reported MailOnline.
Another island with a dark past on Google Maps is Wake Island, roughly 2,300 miles west of Honolulu, Hawaii. Wake Island’s military history was most famous during World War Two.
In 1939 an air and submarine base began to be constructed by the US Navy – but it was only ever half completed. The island was snatched from the US by Japanese forces just hours before the horrific attack on Pearl Harbour on December 1941.
The shocking event was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. When Japanese troops occupied Wake Island they executed 98 US civilian POWs in a bloody massacre.
One of the men managed to chisel the words “98 US PW 5-10-43” into a coral rock before he was murdered – it can still be seen today.
