Did They Survive? Alcatraz 1962

June, nineteen sixty-two. Three men vanish from Alcatraz, the prison nobody leaves. Dummy heads in the beds. A raft of raincoats in the dark. Then, silence. Did they survive? The evidence points both ways. Here is what we actually know.

Start with the Rock. Alcatraz sits on an island in San Francisco Bay, and in nineteen thirty-four it is re-fortified into what the FBI calls the world's most secure prison. Tougher bars. Guard towers. A dozen checks a day. And around the island, cold, rough water. In the years it runs, thirty-six men try fourteen separate escapes. Nearly all are caught, or do not survive the attempt. In January nineteen sixty, a bank robber named Frank Morris arrives. The FBI describes him as known for his intelligence. Later that year, John Anglin is sent in, and early in nineteen sixty-one his brother Clarence follows. Their cells sit side by side. And they have an idea.

It starts in December, nineteen sixty-one, when one of them finds some old saw blades. With those, a drill made from a broken vacuum cleaner motor, and a great deal of patience, each man drills tiny holes around the air vent at the back of his cell, until the whole panel can be lifted out. Behind the cells runs a utility corridor, and nobody guards it. So they go through the wall, along that corridor, and up to the roof of their cell block, inside the building. There they set up a secret workshop, with a lookout watching for guards. Then they build. More than fifty raincoats become life jackets, and a rubber raft, six feet by fourteen. The seams are stitched, and sealed with heat from the prison's steam pipes. It is a remarkable project, for men with spoons. All that is left is the night.

Now the night. It is June eleventh, nineteen sixty-two. Three men are ready. A fourth, Allen West, is not. His vent is not fully open, and he is left behind. On their pillows, the others leave dummy heads, made of plaster, paint, and real human hair. The night guards, checking in the dark, see what they expect to see. Three men, asleep. They are not asleep. They climb a network of pipes, a good thirty feet to the ceiling, and pry open the ventilator, which they had held shut with a fake bolt made of soap. They are on the roof. They shimmy down the bakery smokestack, climb the fence, and creep to the northeast shore of the island. Then they launch the raft into the dark water. Exactly when, nobody knows. Remember that. It will matter.

At the morning count, the routine goes wrong. Three men are not in their cells. In their beds are the dummy heads. The prison locks down, and the FBI is told at once. Boat operators in the Bay are asked to watch for debris. Within two days, a packet of letters, sealed in rubber, is recovered. Later come pieces of wood that look like paddles, and scraps of rubber inner tube. A homemade life vest washes up at Cronkhite Beach, outside the Golden Gate. Nothing else turns up. No raft. No men. What the finds cannot show is where the men went. Allen West, the one left behind, starts talking to the FBI. The plan, he says, was Angel Island, then across to Marin County, where they would steal clothes and a car. So the men may have reached land. Or the Bay may have won. The FBI works the case for seventeen years. Here is what it concludes.

Here is the case against. First, the water. Youngsters have swum from Alcatraz to Angel Island, more than a mile. But with strong currents and frigid water, the FBI says, the odds were clearly against these men. Second, no thefts. The plan was to steal clothes and a car, and the FBI never uncovered any such crime. Third, no help. If the families helped, the FBI could not substantiate it. Fourth, no trace. In seventeen years, it says, no credible evidence emerged that the men were alive. Then there is the sea. On July seventeenth, a Norwegian ship spots a body, about fifteen nautical miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. It cannot recover it. The coroner suggests it may be a baker who jumped from the bridge days earlier. So the body proves nothing either way. The FBI closes its case on the last day of nineteen seventy-nine. But the story does not close with it.

Now the case for. It comes in pieces, over sixty years. First, a sighting. That night, a San Francisco police officer reports a white boat on the Bay, with no lights. The FBI dismisses it. Then, a television test. In two thousand and three, the show MythBusters builds a raft from period materials, and reaches the Marin Headlands. A television test is not proof. But it says the plan was not absurd. Then, the clue we left hanging: the time. In December two thousand and fourteen, researchers at Delft University of Technology run the currents. They simulate launches from the island every half hour, from ten at night to four in the morning, using the tide data from that night. Their finding: leave around eleven, and the currents could carry you to land north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Leave earlier, and they carry you out to the Pacific. One researcher says this does not prove the men lived. Only that it was certainly possible. Then, a letter. In two thousand and thirteen, a San Francisco police station receives one, signed John Anglin. It says they all made it that night, but barely. It says he has cancer, and wants a deal. The FBI tests it for fingerprints, DNA, and handwriting. The results are inconclusive. The Marshals call the lead closed, and a likely hoax. Then a photograph. In two thousand and fifteen, a television documentary shows a picture said to show the brothers in Brazil. Experts hired by the family say it is probably them. A Marshals officer says the measurements suggest otherwise. And in twenty twenty-two, the Marshals release age-progressed images, in case anyone recognises a face. So what do we make of all this?

So where does that leave us? Against: the water, the missing thefts, the missing help, seventeen years of nothing credible. For: a launch window that reaches land, a letter that could not be tested to a verdict, a photograph disputed by the people who looked at it. Each side has real evidence. Neither has a confirmed body, or a confirmed living man. What is certain is short. Three men left their cells, built a raft, and went into the Bay. Whether they reached the other side, nobody can show. The Marshals still treat the case as open, in the unlikely event that the trio is alive. And the Bureau of Prisons holds that they drowned. The Rock itself closes less than a year later, in March nineteen sixty-three. If you want another case where men walk into the cold and are never seen again, there is one. This time it is a ship, and the ice. That is the next story.