S2 – 12: The Screams Continued Well into the Night

you every week. Hopefully we can keep the show rolling for many seasons to come. Now let's get spooky. One evening in April two eight, I found myself sitting in a morgue, not really an unusual situation for an investigator like me, but this particular morgue was very deteriorated. It had not been in use for years and was not open to the public. Sitting with a small group of other investigators, we started doing e v P work in the dark, and after a few questions, we played back

our recordings. To our surprise, we heard a voice answering us. A female voice. It was faint and what she was saying was hard to decipher, but it was most definitely a woman. This was what surprised us, because we were sitting in the morgue of one of the most notorious prisons in the world, a prison that only housed a male population. We were sitting in the morgue of Alcatraz. How are we investigating at Alcatraz? You ask? A small group of us had won a lottery for a coveted

overnight stay on the rock. At the time, they only allowed about twenty of these each year. As that night progressed, I needed to get a little sleep, so I settled in my bed in Cell Block D, the most haunted portion of the prison, because of course that's where i'd sleep. However, within what seemed like moments of my eyes fluttering closed, I heard what sounded like footsteps entered my cell. I expected one of my friends to be playing a prank, so I opened my eyes wide and shot up in

my bunk to scare them back. But I was alone. All I could see was the faint glow of moonlight, and all I could hear was a foghorn in the distance. The entire building was still, and while I was supposedly alone, I certainly didn't feel that way. It's safe to say I did not get any sleep. I'm Amy Brunei and this is haunted road. In June nineteen sixty two, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence England vanished from their

cells in Alcatraz, never to be heard from again. It was later discovered that the men hatched an intricate plot to escape the island prison, tunneling holes in walls, they disguised with false fronts, enlarging air events, and fashioning dummies complete with human hair to pass night inspection so they could escape from their cells undetected. They used prison issued raincoats to make crude life fests and a pontoon type raft to assist in their swim, The Federal Bureau of

Prisons wrote in a History of Alcatraz. A cell house search turned up the drills, heads, wall segments, and other tools, while the water search found two life fests, one in the bay the other outside the Golden Gate, oars and letters and photographs belonging to the Anglands that had been carefully wrapped to be water tight, but no sign of the men was found. Other prisoners had tried to escape from the island before, but none had vanished without a trace.

This infamous event was dramatized in the nineteen seventy nine Clint Eastwood movie Skate from Alcatraz, but that's certainly not where the legends of the most notorious prison in American history started. Alcatraz was colonized in seventeen seventy five by Spanish explorer Juan Manuel day Eliah, who named it Alcatrasis after the islands Pelicans, which was eventually anglicized to the name we know today. In the mid nineteenth century, the U. S Army built a fort on the island, which held

the first lighthouse on the west coast. As a fortress, it was nearly impregnable, as technology of the time could make it. The National Park Service has said an American Gibraltar, and it was crowned with a brick masonry citadel, which may have been unique in the annals of American military architecture. While it was fashioned as a fortress, Alcatraz's fort never saw a military action, and instead became a prison to

punish and detain insubordinate soldiers. Eventually, the detainee population grew to include Confederate sympathizers and civil war and conscientious objectors. In World War one. It also has a dark history of imprisoning Native Americans who resisted the whitewashing imposed on them by the American government, imprisoning Native activists as early as eighteen seventy three, who were described as murderous looking

Indians by a San Francisco newspaper in eighteen nine. The article is filled with racial stereotypes of murderous and crafty Redskins who refused to live according to the civilized ways of the white men. The National Park Service later wrote in nineteen thirty four, the government converted the building into a federal penitentiary. There is maybe no other prison in America that has inspired the legends Alcatraz has or holds

the same place in pop culture. Before you tweeted me know the prison from Shawshank Redemption isn't a real place. Alcatraz has inspired movies like the nineteen sixty two film Birdman of Alcatraz starring Burt Lancaster, that aforementioned Clint Eastwood movie, and The Rock The nineteen nine modern masterpiece was Sean

Connery and Nicholas Cage. Public fascination comes from its prominent spot in San Francisco Bay and its history of imprisoning many of the most notorious criminals of the early twentieth century. After gangster al Capone was convicted of tax evasion in nineteen thirty one, he was sent to prison in Atlanta, but in declining health and in need of isolation from other inmates who saw him as an easy target, was

moved to the Rock in nineteen thirty four. Other infamous inmates included George Machine Gun Kelly, the original not that Guy on the Radio Today, Alvin Carpass, who was the first ever public Enemy Number one, and Whitey Bulger, who did time there before he rose to prominence in the Boston Mob and spent sixteen years on the Lamb until he was caught in Most of the prisoners, though, weren't

making headlines or pulling off nationally known capers. They were inmates at other prisons who consistently disobeyed the rules and needed stricter discipline, or who were considered violent or had a high risk of escape. The prison on the Island was made up of one building with four cellblocks A through D, separated by hallways with names like Broadway, Times Square, Sunrise Alley, and Sunset Boulevard. There was also a library, a chapel, an inmates barber shop, an exercise yard, and

underground dungeon cells used for the most inhumane punishments. While there was a morgue in the building, no autopsies were actually performed there, as there were relatively few mortalities, and the executions would happen on the mainland at California's San

Quentin State Prison. Also on the island were housing for the warden and for the guards and their families, an officer's club, a lighthouse, and several other operational buildings for the approximately three hundred civilians living on the island, including prison staff and their families. There was also a bowling

alley and soda fountain. If you want to see something really cool, you can visit mp maps dot com slash Alcatraz and compare maps of the island today with how it looked in nineteen seventy seven, nineteen ten, and eighteen

sixty seven, when it was just a military fort. Though Alcatraz could hold up to three hundred thirty six inmates, there were usually only about two hundred sixty or two hundred seventy inside, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons at any given time, Alcatraz had less than one percent of the total federal prison population. In its years as a federal prison, Alcatraz only held about fifteen hundred prisoners total.

Many prisoners actually considered the living conditions, for instance, always one man to a sell at Alcatraz, to be better than other federal prison sins, and several inmates actually requested a transfer to Alcatraz, according to a history of the prison by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In particular, inmates praised the food, and some claim to feel safer in Alcatraz's individual cells because not having a cellmate minimized the

risk of assault. But while Alcatraz was not the America's Devil's Island that books and movies often portrayed, it was designed to be a prison systems prison. It's isolation made the institution nearly escape proof, though there were absolutely escape attempts, none of which are believed to be successful. But it was the design of daily life that really made Alcatraz

a prison systems prison. Alcatraz was known for its highly structured, monotonous daily routine that was designed to teach an inmate to follow rules and regulations. At Alcatraz, a prisoner had four rights, food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Everything else was a privilege that had to be earned. Some privileges a prisoner could earn included working, corresponding with, and having visits from family members, access to the prison library, and

recreational activities such as painting and music. Once prison officials felt a man no longer posed a threat and could follow the rules, usually after an average of five years on Alcatraz, he could then be transferred back to another federal prison to finish his sentence and be released. One particularly harsh treatment was the rule of Silence, which mandated that prisoners only speak to each other during meals or recreation.

It lasted through the late nineteen thirties. Conditions in the prison were bad for white inmates, but even worse for people of color behind bars. One African American prisoner, Robert Lipscomb, gained a reputation among the guards for being a troublemaker because of his repeated protests against segregation and inequality in the prison system during the civil rights movement of the

nineteen sixties. Live Scum even wrote to then the U. S. Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy about the issue and orchestrated a protest of unequal race based treatment in the prison. He was labeled a racial agitator. According to the National Park Service, Alcatraz guards punished him with solitary confinement in a cell with no light for twenty four hours at a time. Solitary confinement in Alcatraz was terrible, but it

wasn't the worst punishment at the prison by far. There was also a dungeon like cell called the Whole, a pitch dark horror with slimy walls crawling with rats. It was reserved for what officials deemed to be the very worst offenders, like Robert Simmons, an African American man from Savannah, Georgia. Simmons was imprisoned at Alcatraz in nineteen eighteen for being a conscientious objector who refused to fight when he was

conscripted into service during World War One. When he was brought to the island, Simmons was immediately put in the hole for fourteen days. He and thirty other inmates imprisoned for conscientious objection refused to comply with orders. They were placed in iron cages, which were cells where they were forced to stand chained to the cell door, unable to sit or even turn around for eight hours a day. Despite its grim history and the undeniable suffering that happened there,

not that many people died on the island. According to Alcatraz history dot com, eight people were murdered by inmates, five men committed suicide, and fifteen died from natural causes. But then there were the men who tried to escape. Of the thirty six men who attempted it, twenty three were caught, six were killed by prison guards, and the remaining seven either drowned or were presumed drowned because they

were never recovered. The government chose Alcatraz for a prison because it was virtually escape proof, but that didn't stop people from trying, sometimes in the most inventive ways. Some tried to climb fences, only to fall one feet to their death. Some filed bars in the windows and the machine shop, only to likely drown in a bad storm. In nineteen thirty eight, three inmates attacked and killed a correctional officer and then climbed to the roof to attack another.

One was shot dead and the other two received life sentences. In nineteen forty three, four prisoners took two officers hostage escaping to the beach. Two were apprehended, one was shot and presumed drowned, and one also presumed dead, was found alive and recaptured after emerging from the sea cave he had been hiding in for two days. In nineteen forty six, though, was an insurrection so big it was later called the Battle of Alcatraz. Six prisoners overpowered officers, gaining access to

weapons and the keys to the cell house. When the men realized they didn't have the keys to the yard, they knew they were trapped, but decided to fight. They shot and killed two officers and wounded sixteen others before the Marines were called in to help regain control of the prison. In the end, three of the insurrectionists were killed, two were sentenced to the death penalty, and one received a second life sentence. Of the fourteen escape attempts, all

of them were unsuccessful. Probably there's a slim chance one or two of them missing really did make it to land,

although probably not. Civilian swimmers have successfully crossed the one one quarter miles stretched to Alcatraz, but they had the benefit of exercise and conditioning and weren't subject to a prison diet experts think it's unlikely any of the men who weren't found made it to the mainland, maybe to counteract some of the awful truths about the prison, and maybe because it's just human nature to turn rumors and stories into legends. Happier tales have grown around Alcatraz too,

but that's the thing, they're just stories. The most famous of all of them is the Birdman of Alcatraz, a tall tale about Robert Stroud, originally imprisoned for manslaughter, who was moved moved to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas after attacking another inmate. He was then transferred to Alcatraz after being convicted of first degree murder of eleven Worth

prison guard. Stroud raised and sold birds during his time at that prison, even writing a book called Diseases of Canaries, which had to be smuggled out to be published, but all that stopped in Kansas. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Stroud never had any birds at Alcatraz, nor was he the grandfatherly person portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the well known movie. Another rumor that isn't true that Al Capone used to play his banjo in the bathroom.

Wild San Francisco Tours wrote about this one, which often ends up in stories about the hauntings at Alcatraz. Due to fearing that he would be killed if he dared to play the banjo in the open, the website wrote, he resolved to practice it in the showers. Some say they can still hear the banjo music playing there on occasion.

Capone definitely did play banjo in the prison band called the Rock Islanders, which gave concerts on Sundays for other inmates, but there's no substantiated accounts of Capone being afraid to practice or playing in the showers. I've investigated Alcatraz many times, and I've never once heard the sounds of a ghostly banjo in a bathroom, and trust me, I would recognize that sound. I've been on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney enough times to know a ghost banjo when I

hear one. The federal prison on Alcatraz closed on March twenty one, nineteen sixty three, with prisoners being located to other federal penitentiaries. Alcatraz didn't close because of the increasingly daring and deadly escape attempts, but rather as most things in government go because of money. The island prison needed an estimated three to five million dollars in repairs to

keep the prison open. Beyond that, Alcatraz was significantly more expensive to operate than any other federal prison, nearly three times the cost and act. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the daily per capita costs at Alcatraz in nineteen fifty nine was ten dollars ten dollars compared to three dollars at Atlanta's Federal Correctional Facility. In nineteen seventy of fire on the island damaged its historic lighthouse and

destroyed four buildings. Two years later, Alcatraz became part of the new Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the prison open to the public. It's now a massively popular tourist destination, bringing in more than one point four million visitors a year, according to the park's conservancy. They explore the shoreline toward the grounds, walk through cell blocks, peer into the darkness of solitary confinement, and quite often they experienced things they

can't explain. Visitors say they hear strange sounds and have even claimed to have seen the old now burned lighthouse reappear on foggy nights, illuminated by an eerie green light. But reports of hauntings at Alcatraz aren't new. Prisoners and even guards were claiming to have seen terrifying things they're

nearly a century ago. While the island served as a federal penitentiary, Several guards reported extraordinary experiences, including hearing the sounds of sobbing and moaning, terrible smells, and reports of what they called the Thing, an entity that was said

to appear with glowing eyes. Author Kathy Wiser wrote in Ghosts of Alcatraz Island other reports were made of phantom prisoners and soldiers appearing before the guards and families who lived on the island, especially as the prison aged and collected more and more traumatic experiences and deaths. Guards reported strange noises, especially from a corridor where three inmates were

shot as they were trying to escape. Reportedly, even warden Johnston, who did not believe in ghosts, once encountered the unmistakable sounds of a woman's sobbing while leading several guests on a tour of the prison. Cathy Wiser wrote, the cries heard by the warden and the guests were described coming from inside the walls of the dungeon. Just as the sobbings stopped, an icy cold wind blew through the group. There's even a notorious story about an apparition in the

warden's house during a Christmas party. Guests reported seeing a man appear before them, wearing a gray suit and mutton chops sideburns. As he materialized, guards later recounted the room turned very cold and the fire in the stove went out, then the man vanished. Though the house has since burned down, people still regularly claimed to have strange experiences at that spot on the island. The most and most terrifying paranormal

experiences have been reported inside the prison walls. Throughout cell blocks A, B, and C. Visitors and National Park Service employees have reported hearing mysterious screams, moaning and crying from disembodied voices, crashing sounds, and running footsteps. Night watchmen have said they've repeated we heard strange clanging coming from cell blocked C, which stops as soon as the guard opens

the door to investigate. Cell Block D, though, is another story. Altogether, allegedly the most haunted section of the prison, the area was plagued with dark happenings even when prisoners were still incarcerated there. It is believed that one night in the nineteen forties, a prisoner of the cell was screaming in terror about seeing a creature with glowing eyes. The next day, officers found the prisoner strangled to death in his cell.

The ghost of that prisoner now roams the area seeking revenge. That revenge part might be a little outlandish, but there have been multiple accounts of a being with glowing eyes, especially around Cell fourteen D, where a prisoner did actually die after claiming to have seen the creature. Visitors today report feeling extreme cold when they enter that space, as

though there is something otherworldly in the room. A former guard who worked at the is in in the nineteen forties reported that guards often saw the ghostly presence of a man dressed in late eighteen hundreds prison attire walking the hallway next to the strip cells. On one occasion, when an inmate was locked in the hole, he immediately began to scream that someone with glowing eyes was in

there with him. The nineteenth century spectral prisoner had become so much of a practical joke among the guards that the convicts cries of being attacked were ignored. The inmates screams continued well into the night, when they were suddenly replaced by total silence. When the guards inspected the cell the following morning, the convict was found dead, with a terrible expression on his face and noticeable handprints around his throat.

The autopsy revealed that the strangulation was not self inflicted. Up next, we're going to chat about all of this with my good friend Chris Fleming. He and I both have investigated Alcatraz on a few occasions, and to other we'll share our experiences in theories on why the rock is so haunted. That is coming up after the break. All right, So I am sitting here with one of mine. I don't want to say oldest friends because we're not old, but we've known each other for a very long time,

Mr Chris Fleming. I mean he's a paranormal investigator, medium researcher. You wear many hats, don't you, Chris, Yes, I do, amy I believe it. I often marvel over your closet. Actually, you always dress very well. So that aside, full disclosure for people listening, I already explained this to Chris, but in the epitome of first world problems. I am on vacation right now on a very different island than the

one we're about to talk about. I'm on the Big Island of Hawaii, and the ocean is so loud outside my room that I'm literally recording this in the closet and I'm doing my best. I'm hearing housekeeping outside, i hear the ocean behind me. So we'll just let it add to the ambiance as we talked about Alcatraz right exactly. So I wanted to talk to Chris because, like me, he has investigated Alcatraz a couple of times, and it's one of those places that is hard to investigate. It's

not really open to investigations. And I know the first time I investigated was in like two thousand seven or eight. And the way we were able to do it was they have a lottery system for overnights, and so I was working with a nonprofit and basically we put our name in for the lottery for the overnight and we got it. And so a group of like fifteen or twenty of us just all got to go and spend the night on Alcatraz and It was such an interesting

cast of characters. It was me, Dave Schrader was there, Mark and Debbie Konstantino where Patrick Burns was there. It was just like just this really cool, like kind of hodgepodge a group of investigators and it was really fun. It was one of my first really um cool experiences with the paranormal community. So just a neat story. Now, how did you get to investigate the Rock? It was always one of my top ten places I wanted to go.

And when I had got hired to do the TV show Dead Famous, we had various locations and one of the episodes was on al Capone, So they said we're going to Alcatraz and I'm like, oh my god, It's been on my list. So we went to Alcatraz during the middle of the day and we're there all the way until early in the morning. The first time we were there, and because of what I captured on my record or some of the e v p s, when production presented this to the network, they said, oh my god.

So they quickly greenlit a special return to Alcatraz. So a couple of months later we went back gout to Alcatraz, but this time we spent an entire twenty four hours there, which was great. You know, we didn't sleep, We just went through the whole investigation, the whole time documenting it. So for me, it was a dream come true. We're very fortunate to have been able to go, and even to have been able to go on more than one occasion. Like, I'm well aware of how awesome that is. I did

sleep on the island. I slept in cell Block D, which is supposedly I got stories for you. I slept all by myself in a cell like I find you know how you kind of hit a wall at some point when you're investigating, like three or four in the morning, you're like, okay, I need a moment. I didn't sleep that Well, it turns out so not that night. So tell me what happened to you in cellblock D. Well, the first time we went there, um, they said, Chris, you know we're gonna put you in cell block D

and fourteen because there's this story. They tell me the story. They said that, oh great, I'm not going in there. The story was for those that don't know, and I don't know if you shared it already, was that an inmate was put in there for something he did. And to describe the cell is there's no window, there's nothing, it's pitch dark, and there's really nothing to sleep on,

so they were basically in there with nothing. The inmate was screaming out that there was something in there with him and had like these glowing eyes, and he was terrified. The security guards are like, oh, yeah, right, you know whatever. The next morning they go there, he's dead and from what rumor says is that he was choked around the throat. He was killed and they don't know how this happened.

So it's scared other inmates. But they used this against them where they would tend putting inmates in there that were really bad and they'd be terrified. The didn't want to go in there because they heard what happened in this guy. So they put me in cell block fourteen D and I was in there for about forty five minutes, almost an hour, and nothing. I felt nothing. So I'm like, all right, this is not working this as well. Do you want to try some of the other cells? I said, sure,

So I went down to thirteen and filmything. Went to cell block twelve, which is just two doors down. That is where things started happening. I started feeling some stuff and then my recorder shut off by itself, which is the hell out of me. Because it's very tinty inside there, any sound is amplified, and when you're in pitch dark by yourself filming yourself with a camera in your left hand, it was startling. But what happened was I was basically

calling out, saying, come on, as prisoners here. I've had experiences since I was a child. You know, show me something, prove something to me that you're here. Were you afraid of me? I played back the audio and I caught this e VP that says, I'll face you. Oh my god,

Oh my god. Amy. It's it's when you listen to the sound of the voice, like when I speak to people and I present this e v P to them in some of my lectures, you can tell the personality as if there's some older guy with tattoos, you know, obviously an inmate. But then also the voice is very rough, like he smoked a lot, and I'm like, personality comes

through clearly. So there was other e VP twos like We're going to effing kill you, stuff like that, which was very violent because here I was antagonizing them, saying, prove yourself. So for us it was extraordinary that, Okay, we got some contact through e v P. I did pick up. There's a lot of residual energy that was there, obviously from inmates being there, a lot of emotional dismay, violence. But the one interesting thing I did connect with one spirit.

It was actually near the laundry room, which at first I thought was very peaceful, like, oh, I was peaceful, it's away from everybody else where, people don't get bothered. And then all of a sudden something connected with me and it shifted, and for me to this day, this still is probably one of the most emotional connections I've

had with the spirit. Beside one spirit who was trying to find his daughters, this inmate that was there had killed a woman and when he was killing her, unfortunately a child came out of one of the rooms and he ended up killing that child. Now his soul had died there and basically saying is I've always regretted killing that child, and because that I could never go to heaven. I can never leave this place. So he's basically stuck there.

And the most horrific part about that you understand this with working with Chip is we will sometimes see the visuals and the emotions of what this person experienced and what they did. So I'm breaking down crying. It's as if I just witnessed it right in front of me. So still to this day, it's probably one of the most emotional connections that I've had with a spirit and witnessing this, but also the remorse that this soul had in spirit to what he had done. So that was

one interesting connection that occurred. That brings up a good point. And I'm not a medium or psychic by any stretch, but I've always wondered if maybe the reason why prisons end up being haunted, not even necessarily by people who actually passed there, is that they feel like they deserve to be there, Like it's kind of this, you know,

self imposed sentence. Do you think that's true? Oh yeah, besides the residual energy of what some of these inmates did and how they thought, such as Robert Strolud Birdman, he was just he had this mentality where he liked to see people killed. He got off on watching this. But then you had some other inmates there that were terrified of other people. I mean, al Capone was stabbed with scissors in the showers and he didn't get away with a lot of stuff that he did at other prisons.

That's why they put him in Alcatraz was because they knew he was not going to get away and pay people off, which he didn't. So he was there for about four and a half years. But you have some there was about eight people I hear that had died there. Spirits are going to be there, But what's interesting about the place is knowledge. You have the residual energy, and some inmates like we're describing that are stuck there because they feel they don't want to go anywhere else because

the crimes they committed. But Native Americans were there over two hundred years ago. That was their land, and even in recorded history regarding them, they talked about evil spirits, that there was evil spirits on that land. Well from

looking at Alcatraz. When I got taken over in the nineteen thirties, I believe, and then I got shut down around nineteen sixty three, Native Americans took back that land because there was a law, some decree that said FEDERI regulated land after seven years if they don't occupied or use it for anything, it will revert back to the original owners. So it went back to the Native Americans. So they moved in in the late nineteen sixties and they started living in the cells and in various buildings,

and after two months they started having experience. You started hearing yelling, some of them were getting choked and seeing certain shadows. So some of got and they used the term spooked because we interviewed one of the Native Americans and he says, we got spooked and there were spooks around here. So some of us moved to other sections of the island to get away from it. But then shortly after that, some of them started going crazy, they

said invastily. They were fighting amongst themselves, getting irritated, agitated, emotional issues. And what eventually happened is in nineteen seventy two, they were escorted off the island because the chaos had broke up, and even some of the buildings they set on fire, and they're like, why are you doing this? Is supposed to bear land. So what I believe happened is because of the spirits that have been there before. But then also all these inmates may have psychologically started

affecting them. We know that happens in certain places you go to it would affect you emotionally mentally, And they left right. I mean I could see that because they basically attempted to inhabit a space that never really was a positive place. And I feel like that energy leaves kind of quite an imprint on a location. And you know the fact that it's an island in the middle of like the Bay, and there's just it's very isolating,

and I mean I could see that for sure. So to rewind for a moment, I do have that e v P that you talked about earlier. I'd love to play it really quick. And I love that it's on a cassette recorder too, which is really neat Here we go, all right, it's really cool. That's clear. Just get chills,

you get the goose bumps. And I remember I was up at four in the morning going through all the audio because the old cassette, you know, you got to listen to it when you find it, then you just extract and put an on, you know, to record it and send it. And I jumped up out of there going no way. Yes, I was like, holy cow. I mean the crew, you know, the production and even the network they're like, oh my god. And that got us

to go back there. And I remember when I went back there, I played it over and over and over again, looping it to try to antagonize the spirit. So, okay, i'll fish you show yourself. Nothing happened with the people as if we felt him getting angry, that was it. So I went back into the cell by myself again, and I started feeling tons of anxiety. I started feeling freaked out, and I'm like, you know what, I can't take this inhere. I feel like I can't even breathe.

So I started to get up to go out of the cell, just to get away for just a little bit, and I got shoved. Now what's amazing is on the camera we caught an e v P that says we got you, which they made physical contact. They shoved me. Yeah, they showed you. Finally they were you know, I got some really great e vps in the Morgue area. I don't have them anymore. Unfortunately it's spent so many years. But then when we went back with ghost Hunters years later,

they wouldn't allow us into the Morgue any longer. Were you able to go in there. You know what I cannot remember. I know we went into just about every place that was there, cell Block D S where I had the Lune room, either in the shower area, I picked up on some stuff. I remember I was in Robert Stroud's room picking up residual audio regarding him, and then all of a sudden we heard these screams because there was another female psychic that was there, Gail was

there and our producer. They were all together shooting on the opposite side of Alcatraz of the building, and we heard these screams like as if terror. So we jumped up and Richard sent it was with me and we chased after them, and they walk up to us like nothing happened. So then we're thinking, was it the seagulls, because you could hear the seagulls out. We played the audio back and you can compare it with the sounds of the seagulls and the screams, and it is definitely

female screams. Yeah, the e v p s that I got in the morgue were female like. They were very clearly it was a female voice, and she sounded kind of desperate, and I believe I actually was in there with Mark and Debbie. They got it on their recorders as well, this woman, so it makes me wonder who is this woman. But there were also families who lived there, you know, the families of like the warden and certain employees actually lived on the island. Children were raised there,

which is crazy to think about. And it is isolated, but you do hear animals. You hear sea lions which do not sound like people screaming, and you hear and you hear, like you said, seagulls, and you'll hear like the occasional fog horn in the distance. But it's strange to be on that island and be staring at one of the biggest cities in the world but be in complete silence. Like I thought about how that must have felt to some of those inmates, where they had these

tiny windows and things. For them to be so close to something so bustling and busy and alive but just out of reach, like that had to have been torture for them. Oh yeah, and who even knows to underneath the big rock as they call it the rock, what's underneath their lay lines. You've got the water frequency vibration, So it's like that all that energy is contained because you've got the waves that are creating frequency and vibration

around it, surrounding it, that that doesn't dissipate. I mean almost as if you've got a container and you're containing everything in there, which could be what affected Native Americans and they left. So for anybody understands is emotions, trauma, violence, events can be recorded. We call it placed memories, also called residual energy. In the UK they called stone tape theory and parasychologist discussed this. William Role identified place memory

is that these emotions can just be recorded there. Now, when you're put in that room from past impressions, you know you're gonna start absorbing that. You're gonna start affecting your own mental state, your physical body because those frequencies are playing over and over and over again and you're sitting right in it. So for a place like that, many people might go there don't feel anything, but another period of time they will. It all depends upon what's

playing and what they're picking up at that time. So it's a remarkable place, you know, and you can catch e vps of spirits that are there presently, or you can even catch residual audio from the past of conversations or events that occurred. Oh right, But and I actually never thought about that how inmates maybe put there later and they're also being affected by past trauma and that kind of imprint of what happened there before they even got there, and so that might have affected just some

of the outcomes that way and their psychological state. I mean, I can't even imagine. And that also explains why, you know, people made escape attempts as well. So when we were there with Ghost Hunters, we did get a lot of e v P s. At one point, Jane Grant actually got the name of a past inmate and we're able to cross reference it with actual records and find record of this person actually having been there at one point, which was pretty well. It wasn't any well known person.

They didn't have they just had to look through records. So I thought that was really interesting. And I'm trying to know. It was our hundredth episode special, so that was a big deal. I remember it was like I think we did that. We did a live show from the actual Saturday Night Live studio Josh Gates hosted, and it was so awkward. It was like they would trot us out on stage and he would ask us questions and then they would play a clip of the investigation.

So it was like this live show from Saturday Live Studios and they would cut back to the investigation we've done like two months before on our contrast. But it was special. It was a big deal. Then we made it tw two hundred episodes, but it was It was kind of interesting. But I mean we were there for two or three nights and I remember to stinky hearing footsteps on multiple occasions. We saw a shadow figure at least once. It was one of the first places we

tried using a laser grid. Definitely voices, lots of voices, And so are there any other like major experiences that you remember having, um well, besides the being pushed and then also seeing the shadow person in the one room, which we didn't capture on camera because we were taking

a break. We're all exhausted, We're seeing Yeah, there's these benches that were on the floor, and I forget it was a great hall or something, and I remember seeing this just shadow form go right across the wall and then goes away from the wall to whards three dimensional and it was high up too. But it was very vertical and then it darted right behind and said, oh my god, I just saw a shadow and they're like, well, we're charging our batteries. They're like, you know the cameracras,

like we charged, so we didn't even use it. So for me, that was pretty cool. The other thing was is that I know that there was some arguing and there was some I want to say dissension or bickering going on, but some some of the crew, which we started getting affected, and even though my co host the first time we were there, we started getting affected and getting angry at each other. And I was just at that time, I didn't realize how the place was actually

affecting us. And I know this now of course many years of investigating, but it was affecting us as a production crew the emotions, which is one tactic that sometimes these negative spirits will do is to get you out of there. They'll make you fight amongst yourself just to

ruin what you're doing. So for us, that was something we obviously didn't discuss during the show, but it was something that went on behind the scenes, and it was I mean literally we we kind of some of us wanted to get off that island the very first time because what was happening, But we went back the second time we kind of prepared ourselves to fight any of

that off. It is really surreal that morning that you leave when the sun's coming up and right they come and fetch you off the island and kind of look back at it and you're like, what did I just do? Like this this is the wildest thing, and it's it's very serene and peaceful, but you kind of you're like, I I got to leave. I got to literally escape

when so many others did not. It's you just nailed it with what you said, because both times I remember just looking back at that island going, oh my god, you know, how could anybody swim from that rock all the way to the shore Because the water's ice cold, plus it's very choppy. It's like there's just no way. And I kept saying, there's sharks here, you know, there

are I know, That's what I heard. Yeah. I grew up not far from there, so you know, in the kind of moment, like when you grow up near something, you tend to not go there. I've learned, like if there's some sort of touristy spot like I didn't even go to Alcatraz, I think until that first time I went to investigate it. And like I said, it's just it's always going to be one of those kind of

profound paranormal moments for me. So I want to share this with you too, is that we also got to interview one of the park rangers and also one of the inmates that was actually there, and he he called

the place a living hell. And when he was asked, you know what type of stuff went on, he says, well, there's a couple of things he experienced, but from some of the other inmates, and what had been passed on over the years was which some of the stuff we discussed already was they heard crying, they heard moans, they're yelling noises, some of them have been touched. But they also are doors closing, and sometimes they would hear some of the cells open and they would go look to

see who who's getting out, what's going on? And they opening up for us and you know, there's nothing there. And then also they had talked about hearing banjo sounds of banjo's playing or even harmonica is late at night, but yet nobody would be playing it. So they wandered that was previous inmates that may have played something, but yet that music would still echo through the halls of

the prison. So it's a type of place you want to go there and kind of just sit and listen for a period of time and move from place to place to see what you're gonna pick up, but also record because obviously you know a lot of e vps we don't here only down to hurts and it goes way below that, and record the entire time you're there, and then listen to it, and you'd be surprised upon playback some of the responses you get that that you

weren't feeling anything, but they're right beside you. And I think that, you know, people might assume that they need to do an overnight or and they do do night tours that I think there are limited amounts of people on those, so that might be easier. People do want to bring some equipment, but even when you go during the day, it's not completely packed. It's actually pretty easy to kind of sneak off and do a little e VP work. Or you know, they do have lots of

experiences on tours. You know, I've heard from tour guys, from rangers, from former employees that they've had things happen in the middle of the day with plenty of people around, and so don't let that dissuade you. Listeners, like, definitely head out there if you're in the area. Obviously, Chris and I were really lucky to do what we were able to do, but you can still very much go out and have experiences. Would you go back there, Oh?

I would. I I would love to go back now, just with kind of I feel like my methodologies and ideas and theories have changed so dramatically since when I investigated, because I think that, like I said, the first time I was there in two thousand seven or eight, I think we filmed with ghost Hunters in two thousand nine or ten, So so so we're talking like twelve years ago

under very different circumstances. So hopefully one day I'll get the opportunity if there's anybody from Alcatraz listening who can make it happen, and we'll have Chris come on as a guest on Kendred. I would love to go back there, especially, like you said, I mean, ten years has passed, you know. For me, it's like seventeen sixteen, but also some of

the I t C technology we have today. I mean, my god, it's like we could an actual, real time communicate back and forth with them, which I feel would be fascinating to common contact again with those spirits there, I completely agree. So let's put it out in the universe to make it happen somehow, some way, so we'll be where we go. What are you doing? Are you're always doing things? Please tell everyone like how they can find you, how they can see you, like what projects

you're working on? Well, thank you? Yeah, you guys can just find me on social media, you know, Chris Fleming Official or Chris Fleming ninety one, but then also Christopher Fleming dot com. I'm gonna be redoing the website about two months. I've been behind in my own podcast because I've had a lot go on, and I'm gonna be getting caught up in the next couple of weeks. But the other thing is I filmed a brand new series

in the UK. I'm not on Help anymore. I did two seasons of that, moved on to this other project, and this project is supposed to come out April or May. I'm waiting to hear and it's kind of a surprise, so I can't say too much about it, but shot nine episodes for that and it was some of the most beautiful, most incredible places I think I've ever been to, So I'm really excited to see how this turns out. Well amazing. I know I always see you on social

media going to fund places, so I can't wait to watch. Well. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's nice to catch up. I saw you briefly in Vegas and then you were gone, so we'll have to catch up again soon person at another event or something. Thank you so much. I appreciate all the best to you, your family and all the listeners likewise, Thank you. Chris. Alcatraz is one of the haunts I get asked about most often. At the same time, it's one of those that isn't

really investigated all that often. What we have to go on are mostly reports given to us by employees, park rangers, and tourists. I'd love to get in there and really get some answers, spend a few nights with the ghosts in the middle of the bay, finding out just who they are and why they linger. It's most certainly haunted and I can absolutely understand why, but it may continue being one of those large question marks in my paranormal career. So if anyone has an inn on the rock, please

drop me a line. Until then, please visit and let me know what you find and experience. I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.

Research by Taylor Haggerdorn, Amy Bruney, and Robin Miniter. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.