What happened
The rocky island in San Francisco Bay was a fort and a military prison before the first federal prisoners arrived on 11 August 1934. Alcatraz was meant as a last resort for the most dangerous and escape-prone criminals; inmates included Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. The worst were sent to D-Block, where six cells known as “the Hole” were kept in total darkness, with no furnishings. According to legend, in the 1940s a prisoner locked in Cell 14D screamed all night that a creature with glowing eyes was in there with him; in the morning he was found dead. Guards later supposedly saw an extra figure during head counts. Others told of banjo music drifting from the shower room, where Capone, who played in the prison band, practised the instrument. The prison closed in 1963. Today it is a museum visited by more than a million people a year, and park rangers tell of cold in Cell 14D, clanging metal, footsteps and crying in the empty blocks.
Witnesses
Former guards and inmates (memoirs), National Park Service rangers, visitors and paranormal media.
Explanations and hypotheses
No records confirm the story of a death in Cell 14D – it is a tale passed on orally and in ghost books. Capone really did play the banjo in the prison band, which gave rise to the anecdote about the music. Fog, wind, foghorns and the sound of waves echoing through concrete corridors create an unsettling atmosphere that is easily mistaken for something supernatural. The National Park Service treats these stories as part of the site's folklore.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
- National Park Service – Alcatraz Island: History & Culture
- Federal Bureau of Prisons – BOP: Alcatraz
- Stephen Person, Ghostly Alcatraz Island (Bearport Publishing, 2010)
More: Wikipedia (pl) Wikipedia (en)