Alcatraz

Alcatraz operated as a federal penitentiary from 1934 to 1963. Its bloodiest episode was the Battle of Alcatraz, from May 2 to 4, 1946: an armed escape attempt inside the cellhouse left two correctional officers and three inmates dead and more than a dozen officers wounded, and two more prisoners were later executed for their part in it. The place most often described as haunted is D-Block, the isolation wing inmates called "the Hole", and especially cell 14-D, which visitors and staff describe as noticeably colder than the cells around it. People report voices in the former dining hall and cell blocks when no one is there, footsteps, cell doors opening and closing, and a persistent sense of being watched. Investigators working D-Block say they have recorded voices, and a banjo is sometimes reported near Al Capone's old cell in B-Block; Capone really did play the banjo during his years on the island. In 1992 several National Park Service staff spoke on the television program Sightings about their own experiences, describing crashing sounds, running footsteps, screams and rattling chains. Ghost Files, the YouTube series with Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, investigated Alcatraz in the second episode of its first season, "The Ghostly Prisoners of Alcatraz" (2022).