If you like true ghost stories then get ready…
Because Backpackerverse, and Paranormal California, reader Charlie, tells us about his real – and frightening – ghost sighting at Alcatraz.
Photo credit: flickr/inair
True Scary Stories: The Real-Life Ghosts of Alcatraz
Updated 9/23/2019 – “Hello, my name is Charlie Seldon.
I’m a long-time reader, and I wanted to write to tell you about the ghosts I came across when I visited Alcatraz.
I live in a place called Leeds in the U.K., with my partner, Jim.
Last year, we’d between the two of us scrimped up enough time off to go on holiday, so we took the week off and flew to California.
San Francisco has a lot of people that recommend it, of course, but I especially wanted to make sure that we got a chance to see Alcatraz, because of an abiding fascination I’ve had since I was a boy with Al Capone.
Jim says it’s more like a crush, lol, and that I fancy him, which is NOT true…
I’ve just always been fascinated by all the things he managed to get away with before finally succumbing to the law.
To think it was over tax evasion, of all things!
So on a balmy spring day we found ourselves riding the ferry across the San Francisco Bay toward Alcatraz island.
Pictures don’t do it justice, you know; it was marvelous, beautiful to behold.
We did the standard tourist thing, of course, and took the tour.
That’s really all the choice you have in the matter there anyway.
That being said, when we got to one part of the tour which took us near the northeast shoreline, I hung back a bit.
I told Jim that I wanted to get a closer look at the spot where, famously in 1962, three inmates made the only successful escape attempt from the Alcatraz prison.
Photo credit: christophermckenney.com
The truth was that I did want to see it, but also that I saw three men down by the shore.
Or thought I did.
I never believed stuff like this when I read other articles that were said to be true scary stories…but I’ve changed my tune.
It’s a little hazy here, and I’m sorry to lead you this far with concrete and be forced to switch to mud, but there it is.
Anyway, before me, I believe, stood three men, roughly of the build and size of the Anglin Brothers – John and Clarence – and Frank Morris.
I later read that it’s been speculated that they never made it to the shore alive, and I’m here to tell you that I believe that is accurate.
Because the men standing before me were quite dead.
No one could have been so water-logged, so eaten by time and saltwater and sea creatures, and still remain alive.
They were dripping and filthy, and they were talking to each other in what sounded like those old-timey American accents you sometimes hear in the old movies.
But they couldn’t form the words very well, because most of their mouths were gone.
I heard a couple of distinct phrases here and there – something about “never make it to Brazil” and such, but nothing concrete enough to call a conversation.
For the longest time I just stood there – frozen to the spot, unable to scream or even shiver with fright.
I was just like a statue.
Then one of them looked up and saw me there, and snarled at me.
They all slowly walked backwards, their eyes rooted on me, until the waves swallowed them up whole again.
It was only after they were long gone that I realized I had been standing there for a very long time, and Jim was shaking me.
Of the people I’ve told since then, I think only he believes me.
Everyone else just seems to write it off as another one of those silly urban legends.
Do any of your other readers think Alcatraz is haunted?
Have they encountered anything unusual there?”
– Charlie