36 men have tried and 33 have failed.
What happened to the 3 men who made it the farthest?
Here’s the untold truth about the Alcatraz escape!
9 - Background on Alcatraz The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was a maximum-security
federal prison on Alcatraz Island, around one and a quarter miles off the coast of San
Francisco.
Given its high security and the island's location in the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was believed
to be escape-proof and America's strongest prison.
Alcatraz was used to hold prisoners who caused trouble at other federal prisons.
It housed roughly fifteen hundred federal inmates, including some of America's most
infamous criminals.
Al Capone and George "Machine Gun" Kelly are some examples.
The three-story cellhouse had four main cell blocks, A-block through D-block, right in
the center.
The warden's office and visitation room were on one end of the building.
The dining hall and kitchen areas were on the other side, along with the exercise yard.
The prison cells typically measured 9 feet by 5 feet and 7 feet high.
Each prisoner had their own cell, but they were primitive and lacked privacy.
They were only outfitted with the bare necessities.
Prisoners followed a strict daily routine and their whereabouts were known at all times.
To give you an idea of how closely they checked on prisoners, a total of 13 official counts
were made every 24 hours!
Escape seemed almost impossible!
Despite the odds, from 1934 until the prison was closed in 1963, 36 men tried 14 separate
escapes.
Nearly all were caught or didn’t survive the attempt.
However, the fate of three particular inmates remains a mystery to this day!
8 - The Escapees Inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and
Clarence Anglin were the prisoners who attempted the infamous 1962 prison break out of Alcatraz!
Frank Lee Morris was orphaned at age 11 and spent most of his childhood in foster homes.
He was convicted of his first crime at age 13, and by his late teens he had been arrested
for crimes such as armed robbery!
However, even with his criminal past, Morris was in the 98th percentile in intelligence.
Supposedly he had an IQ of 133.
Genius level is considered 140 and above.
Escaping from Alcatraz actually wasn’t his first escape!
He escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary while serving time for bank robbery.
He was caught again a year later sent to Alcatraz in January 1960.
The Anglin brothers, John and Clarence, were born into a family of thirteen children in
Georgia.
The brothers began robbing banks and other businesses as a team in the early 1950s.
They targeted places that were closed, to ensure that no one got injured.
They claimed that they used a weapon only once, during a bank heist, with a toy gun.
By the 1960s, both received sentences that brought them to Alcatraz.
But how did the brothers and Frank Morris come together?
They all had served time together at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta!
After repeated failed attempts to escape from the Atlanta facility, the brothers were transferred
to Alcatraz.
A fourth guy, Allen West, was also involved although he didn’t leave Alcatraz with the
trio.
West was serving his second term in Alcatraz.
He knew John Anglin from prison time together in Florida.
The escape plan started to take shape in December of 1961, beginning with a collection of several
old saw blades that West allegedly found in one of the utility corridors while cleaning.
And that’s why he was pulled into the escape.
In later interviews, West would take credit for masterminding the whole thing!
7 - The Plan While in Alcatraz, inmate Clarence Carnes
became friends with Morris and told him about the access tunnel behind their cells.
Morris used this information to develop the overall escape plan.
They then all carefully planned the escape for eight months, leaving nothing to coincidence.
Over the next six months, the men widened the ventilation ducts beneath their sinks
using the saw blades discovered by West.
They also used metal spoons smuggled in from the dining hall.
Amazingly enough, they also made an electric drill improvised from the motor of a vacuum
cleaner!
They hid the noise of their work with the louder noise of Morris playing his accordion
during music hour.
That was in addition to all the noise of instruments during music hour!
Yup, that’s right, Alcatraz had a music hour.
This was something new to the prison and a somewhat loosening of the extremely tight
rules.
Dozens of men simultaneously playing the accordion and other instruments was able to cover up
the sound of drilling.
Their progress was concealed by whatever they could find to cover the walls in their cells.
Behind their cells was a common, unguarded utility corridor.
They made their way down this corridor and climbed to the roof of their cell block, still
inside the building, where they set up a secret workshop.
This was a hidden place where it was always empty and guards pretty much never went.
But they would still take turns keeping watch for guards at night.
They used a variety of stolen and donated materials to build and hide what they needed
to escape.
6 - The raft The guys spent many weeks constructing an
improvised inflatable raft along with life jackets.
Swimming was just not an option with the conditions in the waters surrounding Alcatraz.
The raft and the jackets were made using material from more than fifty prison raincoats.
Of course, all of the materials were stolen.
So how were they able to figure out how to make a life raft?
The men had access to magazines, and it’s believed that information from magazines such
as Popular Mechanics helped the men with the construction.
The rubber raincoats were held together with thread and contact cement.
The seams were carefully stitched by hand and sealed by heat coming from steam pipes.
They were able to inflate the raft with a concertina, which is pretty much like an accordion,
ingeniously rigged to blow air into their raft.
The raft came out to be around 6 feet by 14 feet, just enough room to hold all of them.
They would typically take turns working on the raft beginning at 5:30pm and stop just
before 9:00pm.
That was the final lights-out count for the night.
While they were working on the raft, they were also looking for a good way to get out
of the actual building.
That’s because the ceiling was roughly 30 feet high!
But by using a network of pipes, they were able to climb up the walls.
They eventually pried open the ventilator at the top of the ventilation shaft.
They kept it in place temporarily by fashioning a fake bolt made out of soap.
This mystery kind of reminds us of the mystery of why Michael Jackson owned so much crazy
stuff.
Find out more with this video!
5 - The Escape The night of June 11, 1962 was when they decided
to make their escape.
They had finally made everything they needed, and everything was in place!
From the service corridor, Morris and the Anglin brothers climbed into the ventilation
shaft to the roof.
Guards actually did hear a loud crash as they broke out of the ventilation shaft.
But since nothing more was heard, they decided not to investigate.
C’mon, what could possibly be happening, people breaking out a maximum security prison
on an island?!
They descended 50 feet to the ground by sliding down a kitchen vent pipe, and then they climbed
two 12-foot barbed-wire perimeter fences.
They were able to do all this hauling the life raft and stuff to inflate the raft!
They decided to go to the northeast shoreline of Alcatraz, near the island’s power plant
to inflate their raft.
That spot was a blind spot in the prison's network of searchlights and gun towers.
It’s estimated that sometime after 10 PM, they left toward Angel Island two miles to
the north.
But really, authorities really had no way to tell how much of a head start they had.
And that was thanks to the crude plaster heads they had made!
Up close the heads obviously don’t look real at all.
But from a few feet away, they did the job of looking lifelike over and over again when
they were working in their workshop!
The heads were ingeniously made out of a mixture of soap, toothpaste, concrete dust, and toilet
paper!
They were able to make them look somewhat realistic with paint from art supplies for
prisoners.
The hair they used were from the barbershop floor.
For the actual bodies, they would just pile towels and clothes underneath their blankets!
4 - Left Behind It was supposed to have been the four of them
all escaping together.
But only 3 guys showed up!
What happened?
Allen West had trouble opening his vent covering in his cell.
He had used cement to cover up the crumbling concrete around the vent in his cell.
But it had actually hardened too much.
The other guys did try to kick open his vent cover but it didn’t work.
They had to leave since they had limited time.
By the time West managed to make the hole wider to escape, the other guys had already
left on the raft!
He escaped the building only to return to his cell around sunrise and go to sleep.
He decided to tell investigators exactly what they all did though.
He gave them a detailed description of the escape plan.
In return, he didn’t get punishment for his role in the escape.
3 - What’s the official story?
The official story by the FBI is that they believe the men didn’t survive their escape
attempt to Angel Island.
The FBI and the coast guard combed the area and found several items that they believed
belong to the men.
This included a paddle, a couple of life jackets, and a sealed plastic bag that belonged to
the Anglin brothers with letters, photos, and addresses.
Later, shreds of what’s believed to be the raft were found washed up on a beach.
Investigators thought that the high tides would have made it impossible for the three
men to safely get to shore.
Their bodies are assumed to have been swept out into the Pacific Ocean.
Also, there were reports of a body spotted in the days after.
The reports came from a Norwegian shipping freighter, that claimed to see a body floating
nearby.
The body was never recovered, but it was assumed as more proof of the men not making it.
Another reason to believe the men had drowned was the information West had given.
The men had intended to steal a car and perform a robbery once they reached Angel Island.
However, no robberies or stolen cars were reported in the days after their escape were
made.
The FBI’s official line was that the raft broke up and sank at some point after having
launched from Alcatraz.
They then tried to swim for it, but most likely succumbed to hypothermia and their bodies
were quickly swept out to sea.
After 17 years of searching for answers, the FBI decided to close the file in 1979.
2 - What REALLY happened?
Well, the only people that REALLY know for sure are the 3 escapees and whoever they told!
Anyone else doesn’t know for sure.
Despite the official statements, a number of family members have come forward and have
insisted that their relatives did survive that night.
In 2011, Bud Morris, a man who claimed to be Frank Morris's cousin, came forward and
said that he had previously delivered bribes to Alcatraz guards.
He also claimed to have met Frank in a San Diego park shortly after the escape.
His daughter claimed to have remembered being there as well, meeting with her quote, "father's
friend Frank".
In 2012, two of the Anglins' sisters, along with two of their nephews, claimed to have
received phone calls and Christmas cards from the brothers in December of 1962.
Then, in a 2015 History Channel documentary, it was revealed that handwriting on some of
the Christmas cards was found to match one of the brothers.
One of the more popular theories is that they traveled to Brazil.
A friend of the Anglin brothers, Fred Brizzi, claimed that he had met with them in Rio de
Janeiro in 1975.
He had even taken a photograph of them.
Forensic experts concluded that the photograph was "most likely" of the Anglins.
But c’mon, they’re wearing sunglasses here, how can someone really be sure?!
Robert, another Anglin brother, told his family members that he had been in contact with the
brothers until around 1987.
Finally, a letter was posted to the San Francisco police department in 2018, by a person claiming
to be John Anglin.
It read, in part quote My name is John Anglin.
I escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris.
I'm 83 years old and in bad shape.
I have cancer.
Yes, we all made it that night but barely!
He stated that he would turn himself in, in return for a minimal prison sentence and treatment
for his cancer.
The letter was tested for fingerprints, DNA, and handwriting analysis.
However, the results were inconclusive.
There are two main theories in how they made it off the island.
The first is that once they inflated their raft and lifejackets, they paddled hard towards
Angel Island.
This aligns with the assumed “physical” evidence from the escape.
Fellow prisoner Bob Schibline asserted that he had been providing Clarence Anglin tide
tables torn from newspapers thrown in the trash by the guards.
This shows that they had at least some knowledge on the tide conditions.
The Anglin Brothers also grew up on the Tampa Bay and the family members say the brothers
were great swimmers.
Supposedly they understood the currents and general conditions of swimming in open water
and the nature of swift ocean currents.
Their success was predicated on several factors, but the most important one was the time they
had entered the water.
Too early and they would have been swept to sea.
But if they timed it using the tidal charts and entered the water between 11:00 PM and
midnight, they could have survived without much effort.
The second main theory suggested that they had planned to make their escape with help
from a passenger ferry at a nearby dock.
A 120ft electrical wire was reported missing from that dock.
It’s been theorized that the men used the rope to attach themselves to the ferry and
hitch a ride to the mainland.
Then a boat was waiting for them near the St. Francis Yacht Club and sped them to a
distant harbor for safe passage out of San Francisco.
After hearing of the escape, Robert Checchi, a reputable San Francisco Police Officer,
contacted the FBI reporting that he had witnessed a suspicious boat in this very area.
He’s remained convinced he had witnessed activities linked to the escape.
1 - What’s the Most likely truth?
Most of the time the right answer is the simplest answer.
For every single piece of evidence or theory that suggests they didn’t make it is another
piece of evidence making a compelling case for survival.
There just simply isn’t any definitive evidence on either side of the debate to close the
case.
A lack of evidence doesn’t prove they died, nor does it prove they lived.
The untold truth is that we’ll never ever know unless one of the men actually shows
up today and is confirmed to be one of the escapees!
Too much time has passed for any stories remembered to be actually accurate.
Watch this next video to learn about the craziest things Michael Jackson owned!