One of the most feared entities in the former prison is “The Thing.” The Thing has glowing eyes, and the inmates and the guards have supposedly seen it. There have been reports of disembodied voices, putrid smells, sobbing, and banging metal doors.

Being a high-security prison, anger, grief, and death aren’t strangers to Alcatraz. Jacob Unger and Daniel Pewter are two of the first to die in prison. They passed away in a landslide while doing some excavation work.

There was also an incident in the part of the prison, which is referred to as "The Cell." It’s in Cell Block D, where inmates who tried to break the rules were kept. They would be stripped naked and held in a cold cell where they had access to just the basics. Mattresses were only given at night and promptly taken away in the morning.

A guard reported that there was a figure haunting the block. The apparition had been seen numerous times, and several people have claimed to have been attacked by a man with glowing eyes.

On one occasion, a prisoner screamed and claimed he was being attacked throughout the night. The guards ignored him, thinking he was hallucinating or just trying to aggravate them.

After screaming for some hours in the night, he finally fell silent. When guards opened the cell in the morning, they found the man dead, and there were visible hand-prints on his throat.

Psychics that have visited the prison have reported cold spots; sudden emotional outbursts while in the building; apparitions that claimed they had been abused; and other traces that point to ghosts and spirits in unrest.

The American gangster, Al Capone, lived some of his later years in Alcatraz. He lived in fear of a ghost named Jimmy throughout his time incarcerated here. Whether it was his deteriorating mental state or a real haunting is unknown.

The ghost of Al Capone himself haunts the shower area, where he would often play his banjo in peace away from other prisoners.