Alcatraz Ghost Story

ALCATRAZ--Maybe now I should call myself the Wandering Supernaturalist. I stayed overnight on Alcatraz for the first time on Halloween, and I had a genuine experience that I'll tell you about, but keep it secret, okay? I don't want to damage my reputation as a historical interpreter...

I wasn't alone on the Rock that night. Eighteen of us braved the witching hours, most of us familiar with the island's nooks and crannies, except two coworkers of volunteer Jason (names changed to protect the innocent). Al was so looking forward to the experience, really hoping to see something out there. Tom, the skeptic, asked what if it turned out to be someone pulling a prank. Al thought even that would be great. He confided to me that Tom was no believer, but if they did experience something that night, Tom would accompany him to church the next week! I hoped they would get their experience. In fact, I wished I were creative enough to think of some prank, but I'm not really much of a prankster. Too big on honesty, afraid of hurting people, not good at elaborate schemes...

I was open to an experience myself. I'd been disappointed at first when I never saw any ghosts on Alcatraz, then realized it was probably just as well--I had to work there every night! When I'd scoff at historically flawed ghost stories in books or on TV, my husband would say, "Yes, but you've never been there past midnight." So there I was, and the countdown began when the last boat motored away...

As Alcatraz nights go, this was exceptionally tame and mild. It was practically warm: no wind, no fog, and the waters of the bay were calm. We sat outside around the barbecue grill and enjoyed our feast. Now, I believe there could be ghosts, but I generally believe the benign ghost stories of grandparents acting as guardian angels, that kind of thing. I'd roamed the island too often at night to feel particularly threatened just because it was Halloween. Besides, none of our visitors had even shown up in costume! Catwoman and "Happy Man" were on my tour the night before, and we'd had a highly authentic correctional officer uniform visiting during the day, but that night brought a distinct lack of weirdness and no full moon...

The weirdness began after the meal. During the meal, someone mentioned a "bucket of bones" in one of the gardens, left behind by gardening volunteers clearing out weeds. We thought the speaker meant chicken bones--gulls rob bait from crab fisheries and leave bones all over the island--but they said no, these were large bones, perhaps of a mule. Jane volunteered that she could identify them. I was surprised: "Did you work in a morgue or something?" No, she said, she'd been trained in archaeology.

So after dinner, I get it into my head to look for the bucket of bones. Allison has found a ladder and wants to get into the West Gun Gallery inside the cellhouse, somewhere I've never been, but I want to be outside on this beautiful night, charged with the excitement of having the place to ourselves to roam unquestioned. Erin joins me, and we run down the garden path like four-year-olds. I'm not too scared of ghosts, but I am scared of heights and of getting hurt in abandoned buildings on remote islands, so that's one reason I don't climb the cellhouse ladder...

It's also the reason I don't join Erin when she climbs down into the garden tunnel, a remnant of the fortress on Alcatraz. I shine the light in while she tells me what she's found: a half-eaten apple! (fresh!) A beer can! She clambers out and we continue our route. Erin is neither afraid of spooks--she's a complete skeptic--nor of heights--she's a rock climber, sailor, and my idol at this moment. She walks the cliff side of the fence line as we head toward the industries buildings. I stay on the inside--I'm less afraid of spooky abandoned buildings than of cliff edges. We invoke aloud the spirits of Joseph Bowers, the first escapee shot climbing the fence by the incinerator, and Officer Kline, a correctional officer killed by would-be escapees wielding a hammer. When we reach the end of the fence, there aren't any gates. We're separated. I can barely see Erin when she finds a lower section of the fence to climb. I tell her if anything happens to her, she can count on me to scream and run. She makes it over the fence and then comes over to unlock the rusty gate between us. I haven't brought my keys. We proceed past the New Industries building, and that's when she gets her next big idea...

She sees the guards' catwalk going around the building with a view into the windows high above the first floor: "Wouldn't it be great to get in there?" Yes, yes, Allison has told me before, a family of Japanese visitors got in there somehow, once, but the door is rusted shut, and maintenance has put up a chain-link fence blocking the back area where presumably the family got in. To Erin, this is no deterrent. She was an Air Force brat, used to playing in abandoned buildings. She pushes aside the rocks at the base of the fence and squeezes underneath, headfirst. I'm not gonna do that. No way. I have to wear the same pants tomorrow--what if I tear them? Then I realize I've got uniform pants in my locker and you only live once. I squeeze under and join her...

It is a pretty cool place. We can look through broken panes into the building below, on our right. A cliff looms above us on the left. Debris lines the catwalk, but it's relatively smooth going; we need our flashlights only occasionally. I joke about busting out window panes with my flashlight--and we actually do send a few pieces of glass crackling to the floor below, giggling that we are "vandalizing national park property." She commemorates the moment with a digital photo of me, though I refuse to be documented in the act of breaking anything. We continue along and reach a minor landslide, where the cliff has encroached on the catwalk, making a dirt-and-rock hill in our path. Of course, this makes me stop and consider whether to go further. Of course, this deters Erin not a whit. I follow hesitatingly after. On the other side, we find an old metal lamp has dropped right into the middle of the path. At this moment, we hear voices above us. The plateau atop the cliff on our left offers beautiful views of both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, and our friends are taking them in. Every word they say carries clearly on this still night. Erin has an idea...

We know what to do. It's not the rattle of chains, but dropping a metal lamp and pushing it around has a good effect.

"Did you hear that?" Reba's husband had planned to join us that night--and bring videorecording equipment--but he'd missed the boat, and she'd been a little unsure about staying.

Clank, grind.

"I hear it, too." Al suspects something. "Who's down there?"

We say nothing. We're crouching beside the three-foot wall--with taller sections between where the windows used to be--pushing a metal lamp around, to good effect.

"No one needs to play a prank," says Reba. "There's enough out here already."

"That's no mouse," says Al.

"We all hear it," says Jane's companion, long-time volunteer and sometime paid staff member Jude. He's told me once before that you start hearing things before you actually see any ghosts on Alcatraz.

"If someone were down there, they'd need a light," Al reasons.

"Okay, if you're trying to freak us out, you're doing a pretty good job," calls Jude.

Jason says, "If someone's down there, they're probably laughing it up right now."

We are.

"The fucked-up thing about it," says Marc, the security guard, "is that there's no way into that gun gallery right there."

They have their flashlights pointed at exactly the right spot. Only we're below the beam.

Finally, Marc sighs, "It's my duty to check that sound out. I have to go to work."

The others are sympathetic and volunteer to go with him. He's got his fiancee on the island, so they were probably hoping for an easy night, but some heartless soul(s) had other plans...

Meanwhile, the two on the catwalk are all in a flutter: Which way will he come? If he shines a light into the gun gallery, he could see us. Surely he'll notice the rocks moved under the fence. We climb over the three-foot wall and hug the base of the cliff, trying to move quietly but causing all kinds of underbrush crackling. When we finally hear sounds, there are flashlights below us, scouring the industries building. Looks like ten people. We can hear Sean's voice, so we know he's joined them in the search, though a total skeptic. We're a little worried that a light through the windows would show us against the cliff. I plan to shine a light straight back if someone's pointing right at me, but that would be a last resort. Otherwise, I'm dressed in black and try to look like a rock. Erin thinks maybe we should run back against the wall, so we can't be seen from the inside. I want to stay put and quiet. Good thing--suddenly a light from above seems to spot the very place she was thinking of hiding.

The voices and flashlights move to the second floor of the building. We run back into the gallery and throw rocks onto the first floor, but they don't hear us this time. Finally the voices and lights disappear.

Might as well continue to the end of the catwalk. At the end, rusty metal stairs go up to the second-floor gun gallery. Gulp. Erin starts up and I, of course, follow. But I'm in the lead as we start walking back across the second floor. Good thing I'm using my flashlight--a gaping hole in the floor is all that remains of the metal grate that used to be there, and the drop is some fifteen, twenty feet to the gun gallery below. If I fell screaming through that, everyone would have a real Alcatraz Halloween ghost.

I show Erin, and she passes me, with a hand atop the three-foot wall on each side, swinging over the hole. I hug one wall and edge past it, shuddering. There's another hole we traverse in like manner. The third hole--"I can't do it," I say. There's debris fallen from the wall I usually hug, so there's even less foot room. Erin goes ahead of me to see if there's a way down at the end. There is. A staircase. "Does it look safe?" I ask. I make her come back to offer moral support as I pass the third hole. We go down the fairly sturdy staircase and then climb over the wall and we're back where we entered. Erin squeezes back through headfirst, getting caught a few times. I go out feet first, which feels awkward but works out well. We shove rocks back into place. We've done it! Now to get our story straight when they ask us where we've been. We brush the grass off each other's backs.

"The Agave Trail," I suggest. It's on the other side of the island. "We were having a long philosophical conversation, looking at the city lights across the water." Meanwhile, we unlock a gate and climb up to the plateau where our friends were standing. We shine lights down.

"No way they could have seen us," Erin observes. We head down toward the Parade Ground and the Agave Trail without getting intercepted. We do spend some time on the trail, marveling at how clearly we can hear sounds from the City--the sea lions at Pier 39, sirens, even a single motorcycle. I had no idea what it must have been like for the inmates until tonight. We get to the bottom of the trail at the shoreline.

"Please don't make me climb over that gate," I plead with Erin, knowing it's useless. She'll go over and I'll want to, too. We're down on the tidepools in no time, and in spite of some slippery rocks, we touch the cool water of the San Francisco Bay. As we walk further from the gate, Erin says, "Maybe we'll find the dead babies." Recent news articles were full of the story of a crazy woman who had thrown her three children into the bay. They'd only found one body so far.

Eventually we reach a spot where the slope on our right steepens. Erin climbs up and past it, and I quit. I haven't even skinned my knee tonight and don't intend to. "Okay," she says, "but you'll be stuck on that side when the serial killer loose on the island comes after you."

"All right," I say, "but you'll have to watch him stab me and cut me up into little pieces, knowing you're next and there's nowhere to go."

She says, "I could go practically all the way around the island."

I say, "I know," which is the acknowledgement she needs to get her to come back. We climb back over the gate and saunter to the end of the Agave Trail, unlocking a gate to come out on the dock.

Marc sees us coming from the office: "Where were you guys?"

"Oh, just over here on the Agave Trail." We are studiously nonchalant, and the story of what they heard comes out. I say (truthfully) that they couldn't pay me enough to do his job. Erin and I avoid each other's eyes and hope we ask the right questions. We talk about how clearly we could hear noises from the City, and he tells us about his ability to lie on the floor in the dock office and tell what kind of boat is approaching what part of the island. Then we see a mouse in the office, and he's busy trying to get it out before Jennifer, his fiancee, comes in.

Jason, Al, and Tom show up and start talking about it, too. The sound is described as heavy barricades being moved, or a raccoon in garbage cans. They want to know where we were, too. Marc corroborates our story: "I saw them come from that side of the dock."

We say we were looking for dead babies but didn't find anything. Al says, "If you were playing a prank, it was a good one." We ask about the others, and start heading back to the cellhouse. It's still before midnight. We're not tired like the others, which raises Jason's suspicions...

When we hear the story from Jude and Jane, they say they stayed up on the rec yard wall (I wonder aloud whether that catwalk is safe), while the others searched the building. They didn't hear anything after the others left. I become worried that they did hear us--we didn't know there was anyone left on top. Maybe they're onto us... But then my favorite story emerges: After hearing the sound, Steven, another volunteer, admits that he had a weird experience in that building before. He was leading a group in, and there was a big piece of scrap metal in the middle of the floor. He moves it aside, but the next night, it's back in the original spot. So now there's a precedent for ghosts moving metal. I start to relax.

At one point, I ask Sean the skeptic if he heard anything. He says no. When we talk about the area, I said I'd heard from Allison that a Japanese family had gotten in there, "but it's all sealed up now." Is it my imagination or is he looking at me curiously?

The rest of the night passes without much more incident. Byron's brought some horror movies, but we all choose a non-scary 1933 classic, Freaks. When I go to bed in my nice cozy cell, I kick myself for choosing the third tier, because with all the tea and soda I've drunk (the event was non-alcoholic), I have to use the bathroom twice in the first hour. Pad, pad, pad, down two flights of stairs, across the length of the cellhouse, outside, down a few steps, building to the left. Erin's sleeping under the stars. We've had a couple times to exchange high-fives (and admit that we suck at high-fives) and pinky-swear to secrecy. We think we might become part of Alcatraz lore.

I have a hard time falling asleep. Others pad down those same stairs, and a couple times I hear a loud banging, like someone hitting a metal wall. Reba is officially freaked out and whispers, "What was that?!" I feel a little irritated that someone would make such a loud noise but am finally tired enough at 4:00 a.m. to drop off.

In the morning, all the talk over coffee and tea is about the night sounds. Reba's convinced that some people are more sensitive on a psychic level than others, with which I concur. I say I didn't hear anything and don't even realize I'm lying! (That's the secret to telling a good lie, I suppose.) Jennifer asks what about the banging in the cellhouse. I heard that but accept Sean's explanation that it's just the metal walls in D-block "breathing," expanding and contracting. Marc says the noises all start once the tourist boats depart! Al's been thinking about the industry sounds and supposes if somebody knows the grounds well, perhaps they wouldn't need a light. I say I think Ranger Jake's been around the longest--"Was this before or after he took you up to the lighthouse?" Allison reminds me Byron's the original member of our staff, but I object that he's nearsighted even by day. Jane and Jennifer don't think there's any logical explanation. If anyone had done it, they'd have been covered with dirt and dust. Jude figures no one would set up an elaborate prank on the off-chance that a whole group would be standing in the right spot. (This is true!) Pragmatic Allison thinks it must have been one of us. I think she suspects Jake. Al and Tom say they had a great time, and I think they did. Besides the odd sounds, they got toured all over the grounds. Reba and Jennifer had the chance to get hospital and citadel tours from Byron, who knows the history of those areas well.

All in all, this may be the start of a great tradition of Alcatraz overnights. For my part, I just hope to contribute a little to island lore. You can keep a secret, can't you?