On the beaches of Texas’s Padre Island, nightmares are washing ashore. As researchers take to the Gulf Coast beaches intent on studying marine life, they instead find themselves face-to-face with grime-coated and barnacle-eyed dolls.
From North Padre Island to Matagorda Island 40 miles north, researchers can expect to find as much as 10 times the quantity of trash found on other Gulf Coast beaches.
UT Marine Science Institute conducted a two-year study to learn why these beaches collect trash at such rapid rates. They learned that the Texas Coastal Bend region is located in the middle of a “loop current” which spans from Florida, across the gulf, and down to the Yucatan Peninsula. The loop current creates swirling eddies which trap and guide debris almost directly to the Texas Coastal Bend.
Ever since 2015, when the instance was first recorded on Mission Aransas NERR’s Twitter, plastic baby dolls have been appearing on these beaches, sometimes fully intact, sometimes in parts, and always claimed by the ocean. Brought in by the waves without fail, the dolls decorate the beaches like the most vivid nightmare imaginable.
Director of the Mission Aransas Reserve at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute Jace Tunnell was the first to notice and track this phenomenon. The Mission Aransas Reserve is a local educational and marine research program located about 30 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas. Researchers’ responsibilities include combing the 40-mile strip of sand between North Padre beach and Matagorda beach twice a week, looking for endangered species including sea birds, sea turtles, marine mammals, and more.
It is on these survey trips that they often find the orphaned dolls. Over the course of his work with the Mission Aransas Reserve, Tunnell has collected 30 dolls. “The creepiest are the ones that have lost their hair,” he noted on the nature of his finds.
The beachy discoveries aren’t just limited to children’s dolls, Jace Tunnell explained. “Every day is something new. Just when you think you’ve found everything that could possibly wash up on shore, something else comes up.”
The first doll the Reserve found was the disembodied head of a sex doll, missing one eye and its gaping mouth filled with sea debris. Other instances found the researchers holding grimed Barbie bodies, Ariel figurines, and Cabbage Patch Kids. Some dolls still feature arms and skulls adorned with marker sketches from their original owner.
Mission Aransas sold the first head they found for $35. They donated the funds to a sea turtle rescue program and soon after found themselves inundated with requests to take or buy the dolls. After that, Tunnell began collecting the dolls and selling them at Mission Aransas’s yearly fundraising auction.
Ever since their first Twitter post in 2015, Mission Aransas discoveries have garnered an avid public following. Many have no interest in owning or buying the dolls, but desire updates about the latest finds. The Mission Aransas Facebook has become a hub of doll finds.
A recent posting from April 22 featured a bald, blue-eyed baby missing both arms, clothes, and parts of a leg, which appear to have been chewed off. “She has pretty eyes for a change!” one commented. “And this one looks happy to be found! … not like some of the others! ??” wrote another.
Interested in reading more about the latest random discoveries? Click here to read about the contents of an ancient crocodile’s last meal.
