The Alcatraz Christmas Ghost

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It’s the most impenetrable federal prison of its time and has captivated the minds of ghost hunters, history buffs, and general tourists in the city by the bay for years. Before the closure of Alcatraz in 1963, the 22-acre island located 1.5 miles off the coast of San Francisco housed some of the most hardened criminals of the 20th century. 

The solitude of the Island of Pelicans, as it is known in Spanish, provided the prison with one of the lowest escape rates in United States history. The frigid waters, powerful currents, and heightened security, with a bit of special help from the aquatic shark population, deterred most criminals from even attempting such a feat. 

Despite its treacherous restraints, some inmates attempted to flee captivity, only to die a horrific death. Various cell blocks, individual cells, and other areas of the prison are considered extremely haunted, filled with the beleaguered souls of the deranged still looking for a reprieve in the afterlife. 

On Christmas Eve, one such spirit made its presence known to the staunch warden. Dressed in Victorian garb, complete with full mutton chops, his story remains a mystery to this day. Join US Ghost Adventures as we take a deep, terror-filled dive into the tale of one of the former prison’s most notable hauntings. 

Want to give the gift of ghosts from the Golden Gate City? A tour with San Francisco Ghosts makes a great stocking stuffer!

Alcatraz Means Pelican

Photo property of US Ghost Adventures

“La Isla de Los Alcatraces” was first Christianized by the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775. “The Island of Pelicans” was aptly named after the large seabird population that filled its craggy shores. Its modern moniker, an ode to the dangerous crags the pelicans sat so calmly upon, “The Rock,” is far less endearing and far more appropriate. 

Before the European settlement of Alcatraz, the Ohlone and Miwok native population saw Alcatraz as a place where evil spirits gathered. They used the local seabird population to hunt them and gather their eggs but stayed far away from the island. The isolation made it the perfect place to send society’s most unsavory and malevolent characters. 

In 1852, the United States government caught up to this idea, and Alcatraz became a military outpost. The island was composed of a forty-foot tall lighthouse with an $8,000 dollar Parisian lens, military garrisons, and, of course, a prison. They were initially holding Confederate sympathizers in the days after the Civil War, but their usage increased as American expansion continued. 

19 Hopi Native Americans were held at Alcatraz during an 1895 land dispute in Arizona. Later, soldiers who joined the Filipino army during the Spanish-American War of 1898 were held on the island.

By 1912, a new, much larger facility was built to house 600 inmates. Twenty-two years later, the prison was used for federal purposes. The most infamous and notorious mobsters of the era were kept under tight watch here. Despite its large capacity, no more than 250 prisoners were held here at any time. 

The prisoner maximum was put in place to pay closer attention to notorious gangsters like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun,” Kelly Barnes, and Robert “The Birdman” Stroud. Interment in Alcatraz was not meant to be permanent, however. It was initially meant to serve as a “prison for the prison system.” Inmates were given little privileges and kept under close watch in an attempt to help them understand the immense lack of freedom while being incarcerated.

The Ghosts of Alcatraz

Photo property of US Ghost Adventures

These limitations were not always enforced with kindness. In 1946, a large riot and attempted prison break ended with violence and the US Marines being called in. In 1963, the most famous escape attempt, immortalized in the 1979 film Escape From Alcatraz, occurred. Two brothers, Clarence, John Anglin, and Frank Morris, escaped. 

Their bodies were never found, and they were presumed to have drowned. A year later, the prison closed due to the cost of importing food and other resources to the island. However, various spirits of gangsters, prisoners, security guards, and other inhabitants of The Rock remain behind bars to this day. 

It’s said that the sounds of a banjo can be heard, playing from the showers where Al Capone used to study the popular instrument. Cell blocks A, B, and C are filled with the anguished disembodied cries and moans of former prisoners. Cell 14d, a particular punishment cell where a man was once found mysteriously strangled, is one of the most haunted. 

But before Alcatraz landed on every paranormal investigator’s bucket list, it was host to an unexplained, chilling event that solidified its possessed legacy. On one chilly Christmas Eve, a mysterious man appeared to the warden and all the merry revelers at his annual Christmas party. 

Warden James Johnston did not believe in the ghosts of Alcatraz. Certain events, however, quickly changed his mind. Johnston had run two of the most notorious federal prisons in California, Folsom and San Quinton, before coming to Alcatraz in 1934. He offered inmates rehabilitation through education, drug treatment, and employment programs. 

His progressive outlook on the prison system helped to improve many lives. Liked by both inmates – those not subjected to his preference for solitary confinement – and guards, Johnson often held social events for the working population of Alcatraz. One year, in the 1940s, his annual Christmas Eve party was disrupted by a strange ghostly visitor—a man with a black-brimmed cap, hefty mutton chops, and a grey suit from the Victorian era.

Who Was The Christmas Ghost?

The fire went out, and a bone-chilling cold swept the room. Its presence colder than the Pacific waters surrounding them, the party gasped in horror. Then, as if burned away like the San Francisco fog dissipating in the early morning hours, he disappeared. Needless to say, the atmosphere of the party had been ruined, and the warden was now a true believer. 

So, who was this mysterious man? He could have been a number of people, as the island had seen its fair share of death during the Victorian times. But the way he was dressed implied a working-class man as opposed to a prisoner of war or treasonous soldier. 

On January 21st, 1857, the Nevada Democrat reported that a man named Michael Mann drowned off Alcatraz’s coast. He and two of his associates were heading from Alcatraz to North Beach in San Francisco. After an hour of rowing and getting lost amidst the fog, they saw the light from the lighthouse and decided to turn back. A series of larger breakers burst upon the side of their small rowboat. Mann was lost in the chaos and never seen again. 

Could the spirit be that of the unfortunate Michael Mann, trying to reclaim his place amongst the living? Is he doomed to spend eternity with the evil entities and demonic figures that fill the abandoned walls of Alcatraz?

The warden’s house, now decrepit and in disrepair due to years of decay and mishap, still attracts high levels of otherworldly activity. Visitors come far and wide to Alcatraz to hear the spooky stories of this infamous prison and possibly catch a glimpse of one of its many eternal prisoners. 

Next Christmas, plan your visit to Pelican Island. You never know; you may see the mysterious Christmas party ghost. Keep reading US Ghost Adventures “25 Days of Christmas” for more hauntingly horrific holiday horrors.

 

Sources: 

 

https://ghosts.fandom.com/wiki/Alcatraz

https://www.newspapers.com/image/77939403/?terms=alcatraz%20lighthouse&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/897317541/?terms=alcatraz%20lighthouse&match=2

https://www.britannica.com/place/Alcatraz-Island

https://abc7.com/did-anyone-escape-alcatraz-prisoners-john-anglin-frank-morris/11988780/#:~:text=The%20three%20men%20in%20question,holes%20of%20a%20concrete%20wall.

https://bayareaequityatlas.org/about/indigenous-populations-in-the-bay-area

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-alcatraz/

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-alcatrazghosts/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Johnston