So Supernatural - HAUNTED: Alcatraz

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Perched on a cold, windswept island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was designed to be inescapable. And for most of its prisoners, it was. But even after the federal penitentiary closed in 1963, something appears to have stayed behind. Guards, tourists, and park rangers have reported unexplained sounds and shadowy figures in the corridors long after closing. What occupied these cellblocks in life, seems to have no interest in leaving after death.   For a full list of sources, please visit: https://sosupernaturalpodcast.com/haunted-alcatraz   Did you know you can listen to So Supernatural ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies. So Supernatural is an Audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social! Instagram: @sosupernaturalpod Twitter: @_sosupernatural Facebook: /sosupernaturalpod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most of us will never spend a day behind bars, but we don't need to. We've seen what prison looks like. In movies, documentaries, TV shows, the stories have been passed down like warnings, the overcrowded cells, the violence that erupts without reason, the way time slows to almost nothing when there's nowhere to go. That fear, that deep, primal dread of confinement, is one of the most powerful forces keeping society in line. We follow the rules, we stay in our lane,

because somewhere in the back of our minds, we know what awaits us if we don't. But for the most dangerous men in America, the threat of an ordinary prison just wasn't enough. They needed somewhere worse, somewhere inescapable, not just by walls and wire, but by geography itself.

So they made a notorious prison on an island. Alcatraz sits in the middle of San Francisco Bay, surrounded by a mile and a half of open ocean. Freezing cold water and powerful currents capable of dragging even the strongest swimmers and surfers out to sea. Even if an inmate made it past the walls and the guards that are authorized to shoot to kill, the bay would likely finish the job for them.

Alcatraz operated from 1934 to 1963, housing the country's most notorious villains, men like Al Capone, George Machine Gun Kelly, and the so-called Birdman, Robert Stroud. No one ever successfully escaped, and some inmates died there. And for certain souls, even death didn't release them from Alcatraz.

There's rumors that some prisoners never left at all, and they're still there, trapped on that island for all eternity. I'm Yvette Jintile. And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecorero. Welcome back to another episode of So Supernatural. In the 1850s, United States President Millard Fillmore had a problem.

The country had recently gotten out of the Mexican-American War, and he'd realized just how undefended the West Coast was. There were multiple major port cities with a lot of economic value that didn't have any army bases or forts to protect them. And since the California gold rush was in full swing, Fillmore worried America's enemies would attack and try to seize the golden ore. So Fillmore ordered the, the army to build several new forts along the California coastline, including one on a small,

rocky island in the San Francisco Bay. It was called Alcatraz. At the time, it was completely uninhabited, other than a few flocks of pelicans. In fact, Alcatraz's original name was Isla de los Alcatrasses, which is the loose translation in Spanish for Island of the Pelicans. It was also very tiny. In total, Alcatraz only covered 22 acres, not even a tenth of a mile. If you've ever been to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, it's about the same size, which is pretty small. Most importantly, there was no way for a ship to sail into the San Francisco Harbor without going right by Alcatraz. Fillmore realized if the army built a fort there and filled it with cannons, guns, and lots of soldiers,

the city would be untouchable. Sure enough, the army brought Fillmore's vision to life. They built barracks, mess halls, and tall walls. They also put up a lighthouse, the first one ever on the West Coast, so friendly ships could make their way safely through the San Francisco Bay. By the Civil War era, Alcatraz was one of the biggest and most well-supplied forts in the United States, except it never saw a single day of battle. Fillmore's fears never came to fruition. No one ever tried to invade San Francisco by sea.

So the men at Alcatraz had all of these weapons and ammunition and absolutely nothing to use them on, which is why in 1909 the army converted the fort into a military holding facility and used it during a dark chapter in American history. At this time, the American government was routinely taking indigenous children away from their parents all across the nation. They sent them to boarding schools where they couldn't learn their people's languages or their cultures. It was an attempt to stamp out their way of life through colonization. And whenever indigenous people fought to keep their children in their community, they did. be arrested and brought to Alcatraz. The conditions on the island were extremely harsh.

Many prisoners died of malnourishment, diseases, and abuse from the guards. And because of bad record keeping, it's hard to say exactly how many souls lost their lives there. Then came the Great Depression in the 1930s. The army's budgets were getting tighter and they couldn't afford to run a holding facility on the island anymore. Plus, there was a lot of crime sweeping the nation. So the government officially turned the facility from a military prison into a men's federal prison. This meant people could only be sent to the island if they'd committed a crime and been convicted in court. This time, everything was official, with paperwork to track the inmates and their sentences, and at least in theory, the guards were supposed to follow certain

policies that would keep inmates safe. But Alcatraz prison was still a brutal place, to the point that it earned nicknames like The Rock and Helcatraz. Federal officials wanted Alcatraz to appear horribly remote and harsh, because it served an important PR purpose. Once the Great Depression was at its height, so many people were out of work and struggling to make ends meet. Some turned to crime because they didn't feel like they had any other options. Plus, the mafia was smuggling illegal booze during prohibition and making a fortune. Many politicians wanted to prove they were tough on crime and scare citizens into following the law. So prison employees and elected officials gave interviews.

emphasizing that life at Alcatraz was miserable. It was always cold because of the breeze from the San Francisco Bay. The cells were tiny, barely big enough to hold a small bed. And many rooms had views of San Francisco, which was actually meant to be part of the torture. Every day, inmates would have to see a city that they could never visit. Since sound carries over open water, prisoners could hear people on the beaches talking, playing, and living their lives freely. A daily reminder of everything they had lost because of their actions. Meanwhile, the 275 or so inmates had to follow

a very strict and repetitive daily schedule. The men would wake up at the same time, eat at the same time, go to bed at the same time. If they wanted to read a book, write a letter or see visitors, they'd have to earn it through good behavior. Which was easier said than done because Alcatraz was imprisoning the worst of the worst. Some of the most notorious criminals of all time were sentenced there, including a notorious gangster named George Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud, who killed two men including a guard at a different prison. But Alcatraz's most recognizable inmate was Al Capone, the man infamous for running a brutal organized crime operation in Chicago.

But even after his conviction, Capone was very manipulative and good at charming people. He spent time in multiple other prisons, and he always managed to wrap guards around his finger. So in 1934, he was sent to Alcatraz. where it wouldn't be as easy for him to get his way. But after he arrived in the Bay Area, Capone was faced with a different kind of problem. Capone had syphilis. At the time, there was no treatment or cure. So the disease progressed until it ended up damaging his brain.

Once he settled in at Alcatraz, it became clear that the 35-year-old Capone couldn't think clearly. Only one thing kept him calm, playing his banjo. So they gave Capone special permission to play the banjo for about 20 minutes a day. He'd even practice in the showers when they weren't in use for privacy. All throughout the prison, everyone could hear the music echoing off the tile walls. So yes, life at Alcatraz did have some relief for those who behaved. Actually, despite the nasty piece, campaign, Alcatraz was better than some other prisons at the time. In the 1930s, lots of

facilities in the U.S. were overcrowded, but only a select number of prisoners were sent to Alcatraz. Most people weren't bad or violent enough to qualify, so it was never at full capacity. Inmates even had their own cells, which was highly unusual back then. In fact, people in other prisons often requested to be transferred to Alcatraz, many of which passed by the desk of a warden named James Johnston, who said they weren't dangerous enough. Okay, let's talk a little bit about this warden Johnston for a second. He was Alcatraz's first ever warden, and he helped make the facility into a famous well-oiled machine. He also encouraged his guards to be as strict and as harsh as possible. In his mind, the inmates deserved brutal treatment.

And he took his work very seriously. He even lived in a house right on the island, just outside the prison walls. That way, he was always close by and able to rush to the facility if an emergency came up. But he wasn't exclusively focused on work. Warden Johnston knew how to have a little bit of fun, too. And at some point in the 1940s, he threw a Christmas party at a Christmas party at a little bit of work. his family home. Let's just say it was one for the history books. He invited a bunch of friends and family members as well as some guards who were off duty that evening. The party started off well.

Everyone was drinking, eating appetizers, and having a good time. When suddenly, a stranger stepped into the room, which was odd because Alcatraz is a tiny little isolated island. Other than the inmates, prison staff, and their families, no one else lived there, so it's not like a stranger could have just wandered in off the street. Not to mention, Johnston knew everyone on his guest list, but he didn't recognize this man. Even weirder, the newcomer was in very dated clothes. They looked like something from the 1800s. He wore a gray suit, a matching cap, and mutton chops. And I had to look up what mutton.

Chops meant. Do you know what they are, Yvette? Yeah, I didn't know as well, but they're basically hairy sideburns that grow down to a man's cheeks. So those are called mutton chops. Mutton chops. It was a very 1800s type of a thing. Let's just say that. Well, as soon as everyone saw the man, the room became frigidly cold, enough so that the heater even sputtered out and stopped working. Then, before anyone could say a word, the man vanished into nothing right in front of everyone's eyes, which is when they all realized they'd just seen a ghost. That man with the mutton chops was the first documented ghost sighting ever reported on Alcatraz. But that certainly wasn't the last. After a ghost appeared at his Christmas party,

in the 1940s, warden James Johnston was spooked. He usually thought of himself as a rational, grounded man. He wasn't superstitious and he didn't believe in ghost. But he didn't know how to explain the man with the mutton chops who had crashed his party, then just vanished into thin air. Either way, he wanted to salvage the event and not scare his guest off. So he tried to distract them by offering them a tour of the prison. Many of Johnston's friends had never been inside before, so they were excited by the idea, until they got there. It should have been quiet by now because all of the inmates had been locked in their cells for the night.

But as Johnston and his guests wandered through the halls, they heard the unmistakable sound of wailing. No one could tell where it was coming from, Basically, it seemed to echo up and down the halls, and it didn't get softer, even when the tour moved further from the cells. And even stranger, it sounded like a woman's voice. And some of the guards told the warden they'd investigate, so they ran up and down the halls searching for the source. And finally, they came back to Johnston to share their unnerving conclusion. It seemed to be coming from the walls themselves.

We don't know how Warden Johnston responded to that discovery, but after that day, guards would repeatedly come to his office with similar stories. It's unclear when they made their reports or how often this happened, but over time it escalated. They'd be making the rounds only to hear gunshots and screams. Assuming the prisoners were revolting, they would immediately take cover until the noise stopped. Then, once things got quiet, they'd come out of their hiding places, search the grounds for bullet holes, injured people, or signs of a riot, and they'd find nothing. Everything was in its place. This situation played out countless times for years. On top of that, many guards and prisoners claimed to see a woman in a green dress walking around the prison

yards. The staff knew of all the guards' wives who were the only women on the island, and she wasn't one of them. No one ever figured out who the woman was or where she had come from, but she earned herself a nickname, The Lady in Green. Then around 1947 or so, multiple inmates and guards complained of something strange coming from the showers. They were hearing banjo music. This was especially eerie because Al Capone wasn't at Alcatraz anymore. A few years before, he'd been transferred to another prison after his health seriously declined. And just a few weeks before the banja music started, Capone had passed away of a heart attack in his Florida home just after his release.

It was January 25, 1947, and he was 48 years old. But to all appearances, his spirit was. was still lingering at Alcatraz, and he still loved playing the strings. Capone's spirit appeared to be harmless, but the same couldn't be said for whatever was residing in an area called Cell Block D. There were 42 rooms in this section of the prison, and the people in Cell Block D weren't allowed to leave for any reason. They had to eat in their rooms rather than at the cafeteria. They were only allowed to shower twice a week, rather than every day, and a guard had to escort them to and from the bathrooms. If that wasn't

that wasn't that enough, there were five rooms that were particularly unpleasant. They didn't have windows and the doors were made of solid steel, so it was dark inside 24-7. These rooms were informally known as the whole, and it was reserved for inmates who really broke the rules, like if they attacked the guards or other prisoners. Inside the hole was a room known as 14D, said to be the worst cell of all. It didn't have its own toilet. Instead, inmates had to go to the bathroom in a hole in the floor. And for some reason, it was always freezing in there, even in the middle of summer, but no one could figure out why. Well, sometime in the 1940s, rumors began circulating that something very disturbing had happened in room 14D. The story said that at some point, an inmate broke one of the rules and was

sentenced to spend the night in 14D. We don't know his name, but we'll just call him Oscar. As soon as the guards closed the cell door behind him, Oscar began screaming and begging for them to let him out. He was so frightened and freaked out he could barely form words. But eventually, they made out what he was shouting. Oscar said there was something in inside his cell with him, a monster with glowing eyes. The guards didn't take his claim seriously. They tried to ignore Oscar's pleas even though they continued for hours. Finally, sometime during the night, Oscar went silent.

The guards figured he'd probably just tired himself out. That is, until the next morning. They opened the door to let Oscar out, only to find him dead. inside. And there were bruises around his neck as though he had been strangled. When Oscar received an autopsy, the coroner said his injuries were not self-inflicted. They figured that someone had gotten past the guards, opened the door to 14D, and choked him to death. Some speculated that one of the guards may have used their key to break in and murder Oscar. But the murderer was never found.

which was how another rumor formed. This one saying, a dark spirit with glowing eyes lived in cell 14D. And that's what killed Oscar. And we know other inmates beside Oscar saw the creature with the glowing eyes, because it happened so often, they nicknamed it, the thing. And as far as we can tell, it never physically harmed anyone else. But time after time, prisoners would run to the guards begging for protection from the thing, or employees would spot it in the halls while they were making their rounds.

Then something else rather odd happened shortly after Oscar's death. One day, the guards made all of the inmates line up in the yard for a routine headcount. They did this every morning to make sure each prisoner was accounted for. Except on this particular day, the headcounts. came in too high. There was one extra person who wasn't supposed to be there. The guards went from inmate to inmate trying to figure out who was new. Then they reached a face they'd never expected to see. Oscar was standing in line. The guards knew he was dead, so they stood there frozen with fear until Oscar just faded away like he'd never been there at all.

There are a lot of stories of strange, inexplicable events happening in the prison. For example, some have reported clouds of black smoke often appearing in the laundry room. The smoke had no clear source and it often just dissipated in a few minutes, although there were no windows. Then there were endless accounts of prisoners mysteriously breaking out of their cells at night when they were supposed to be on lockdown. Later, the missing inmate would be found outside the building, wandering in the yards, but still inside the prison gates. It didn't seem like they were trying to escape, though,

because they were always confused and sometimes very scared. They didn't run away or resist when the guards took them back to their cells. In fact, this happened multiple times to much. multiple people over the years. The Alcatraz staff could never explain it, but it seemed like something had teleported these men outside against their will. These stories weren't only coming from trouble-making inmates or stressed guards. Take this account from Captain Loring Mills.

He was on patrol one night when he distinctly felt a hand grab his shoulder. He spun around, but there was no one in the... hallway with him and he knew he hadn't imagined it. He couldn't explain it, but something was very wrong at Alcatraz. But a lot of prison officials didn't care about the ghost sightings or the paranormal activity happening there because they had bigger problems, like the budget. It was very expensive to run a prison on an island. All of their food, their supplies, and even drinking water had to be shipped in from the mainland. Although the prison wasn't at capacity, the expenses were adding up. So in other words, Alcatraz was too expensive to keep operating.

So the federal government decided to close the facility on March 21, 1963, after only 29 years of operation. All the prisoners were transferred to other facilities. But the spirits apparently weren't done with it. Because in the 60 years since it shut down, there have been countless new stories of strange, mysterious sightings. Many people consider Alcatraz to be one of the most haunted places in the United States. And while it's not entirely clear why it's so active, lots of people have lots of theories,

including one that says the island may hold a portal to the spirit world. After Alcatraz Prison closed on March 21st, 1963, the federal government didn't know what to do with the facility. So the island became uninhabited again. The prison sat empty gathering dust, and then in 1969, six years after the prison closed, a group of Native American activists called Indians of all tribes

sailed to the island and claimed it for themselves. They said, based on the government's own treaties, abandoned federal land belonged to indigenous people. So for 19 months, they held on to the island, but during the occupation, a fire broke out, and some of Alcatraz's most historic structures, like that lighthouse that we talked about and the warden's house burned to the ground.

The government never fully explained the cause, but the activists didn't leave voluntarily after that. On June 11, 1971, federal marshals, GSA Special Forces, the Coast Guard, and the FBI agents removed the final 15 people from the island. The six men, four women, and five children did not resist, and the 19-month occupation came to an end. I have an interesting story about this, too, Rasha. Do you remember this story, me telling it to you? Oh, does it involve one of my favorite actors of all time? Yes, it was many, many years ago, Gino and I were at a screening with Benjamin Bratt, who was starring in a movie with Kevin Bacon.

And he is a native, you know, born and raised in San Francisco. And he told us the story that he was one of the children. along with his siblings, that lived on the island with his mother. That was in 1969, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. He said that his mother, you know, had gone through a divorce,

and she just felt the urge to be a part of this. And so she took her three kids, and they went and lived on the island. I do remember that. And he's even on the Kelly Clarkson show, and she's like, wait, what? You lived on Alcatraz? And he tells the whole story. Well, three years later in 1972, the government established a national park in San Francisco, and Alcatraz Island was part of it.

They converted the prison into a museum so tourists could visit and learn about its history. Every day, people rode a ferry from the San Francisco mainland to the island, and these visitors and museum staff consistently reported strange, bewildering things during their visits. Take this story from an anonymous night watchman who worked in the museum during the 1970s. He was walking by the whole one evening when he heard screaming from Cell 14D, the very same place that Oscar had died. He unlocked the door and peered inside the cell, and he saw something he couldn't explain. It was a black shape, almost like a shadow. It moved toward the door.

So the guard slammed it closed and then ran. He was so freaked out, he put in his two weeks notice the very next day. And that guard isn't alone. To this day, Park Rangers say they've heard Capone's banjo echoing through the halls of Alcatraz. But if anyone moves toward the showers to investigate the noise, it'll immediately go silent. Thanks to testimony like this, the National Park Service, now offers haunted tours of Alcatraz. These often take place after sunset

when the spirits are most active. Guests have reported seeing doors open or close on their own or hearing voices and footsteps in empty rooms. Many of them caught a glimpse of the mysterious lady in green or sensed an otherworldly coldness when they visit cell 14D. There's also a male spirit who's been spotted wandering the island. He's not dressed like a prison inmate, so many believe he's a former

lighthouse keeper, especially because he's often spotted near the ruins where the lighthouse used to stand. Even if you don't believe in ghosts, there seems to be a heaviness in the air at Alcatraz. Many visitors say they get overwhelming sensations of sadness and fear as soon as they ward the ferry from the mainland. That was true of a dentist named Osan Fernando. She was a huge film buff, so when she visited San Francisco on October 4, 2007, she wanted to see all the iconic locations from her favorite movies, including Alcatraz, where some of her favorite films like Escape from Alcatraz and the Rock were filmed. At first, Osan was excited, but while the boat was cutting through the water, a sense of dread came over her. It was as though she was about to experience

something horrible. The sensation grew stronger once she reached the prison itself. The stone walls loomed over her, making Osan feel like she was trapped. During the actual tour, her guide walked the group through the kitchen, and Osan sensed something incredible. She heard the sounds of footsteps, pots, and pans banging against the stove, and she even heard soup bubbling. Except no one was there preparing food, and none of the other tourists seemed to hear what she was hearing. Osan told herself she was just imagining things, until the guide led the group down the rows of empty open cells. But there, Osan felt like something was inside watching her. Seven years after her visit, another tourist had an even eerier experience.

Her name was Sheila Cilary Walsh, and she and her boyfriend, Paul Rice, were visiting the United States from England, and their 2014 trip included a stop at Alcatraz. Like Osan, Sheila got a bad vibe the moment she arrived at the prison, but she figured her nerves were just getting the best of her. Then came one point during the tour where she passed a dark room with a closed door. There was a window, but she couldn't see anything through it. And it's hard to say why, but Sheila got an impulse to take a picture of it. She snapped it with her iPhone, then she glanced at the new photo.

And the image on her screen did not match what she could see with her own two eyes. because the photo showed a woman looking through the window as though she was staring right back at Sheila. The image was a little blurry and it was hard for her to make out any specific features, but it was unmistakable. This was a woman, not a trick of the light or a weird shadow. Sheila showed the picture to her boyfriend, Paul, who took one look and said,

Sheila had photographed her own reflection, but Sheila didn't buy it. For one thing, the woman in the picture was dressed totally differently from her, and she had a completely different hairstyle. In fact, the woman's fashion seemed more appropriate for the 1930s or 40s rather than 2014. Once Sheila and Paul realized that, they decided they'd seen enough of Alcatraz. They didn't want to spend another second there. So they left the tour early.

But they felt confident they had proof on the camera that there were ghost in the prison. But it's hard to say why there are so many spirits at Alcatraz. The one popular theory is that there may be a portal somewhere on the island. To explain it, we have to go all the way back to the year 1775. That year, a Spanish naval officer named Juan, Juan de Ayala was mapping the coastline of an unexplored territory, a region we know today as California. On August 5th of that year, Juan and his crew became the first Europeans to sail into what's now the San Francisco Bay. And they received a hero's welcome.

There were several indigenous communities living in the area. These included the Miwok people, the Maidu, the Oloni, and so many more. And a group of indigenous people were gathered on the shore. When they made it to land, the Spanish exchanged gifts with the indigenous people. They exchanged beans, jewelry, nuts, fabric, and clothes. Because of the language barrier, Juan never got to explain who he was or why he was there. and the indigenous people couldn't tell him anything about the region he was exploring, or what his crew would find on the small islands they'd spotted just offshore,

which was unfortunate because if they did, the indigenous people might have offered them a warning. The islands were cursed. O'Loney legend says that whenever anyone died, their spirit would move on to the afterlife. but the underworld had a physical location in our world, right on the island of Alcatraz, which is why many Olone people were frightened of the island. They believed the dead souls that lived on Alcatraz were evil and violent,

and the Miwok had similar legends. If anyone broke the laws in their communities, the punishment was banishment to Alcatraz. There they believed the ghost would kill the convicted person, then torment their soul for all eternity. Mydu tradition was similar. They also thought Alcatraz was home to violent evil ghosts. Legend went that these entities would kill anyone who dared set foot on its rocky shores. So they avoided it at all costs. So maybe Alcatraz is a home to evil spirits or, a gateway to the underworld. But you don't need a portal to explain the dark energy on the island.

For as long as anyone remembers, this island has been associated with death and despair. It's impossible to estimate how many people lost their lives there over the decades. Even those who survived their sentences spent years on that island, close enough to see the lights of San Francisco, close enough to hear the city thriving without them, laughing, moving, free. Everything Alcatraz was designed to take away. We started this episode asking, why the fear of prison keeps most of us in line. Maybe now we have our answer. It's not just the walls. It's the idea that a place can hold you long after it has any right to, that some cages don't have doors. And if Alcatraz has taught us anything, it's that time may free the

body, but for some souls, the haunting never ends. This is So Supernatural, an audio check original produced by Crimehouse. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at so supernaturalpodcast.com. Joining Vett and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

I think Chuck would approve.