Alcatraz ghost caught on camera
A British couple claims that a digital photograph they took during a recent tour of the infamous Alcatraz prison captured evidence of a ghost.
Teaching assistant Sheila Sillery-Walsh from Birmingham was touring the San Francisco, California jail facility in April with her partner, Paul Rice, when she snapped a shot through the window of a prison block with her iPhone 5C mobile phone.
“When I glanced at the photo on my mobile, I saw this dark female figure in the picture. I looked at the window again and there was no one in the room,” she told the Daily Mail
“I knew straight away that the woman in the photo was a ghost and showed the snap to Paul,” she said to the paper. “From that point onwards, I wasn't interested in the Alcatraz tour anymore. I just kept looking at the picture over and over again!”
A copy of the image provided to News Dog Media shows what appears to be a young, dark-haired woman staring back at the camera from the other side of a solemn cell at what’s been called one of America’s most haunted sites.
Although the island penitentiary has not been operational in decades, visitors claim to have spotted apparitions numerous times in the past, and New York Magazine went as far as to say years later it “remains ultra sinister, perversely fascinating, iconic.”
Fascinating, indeed — Sillery-Walsh said she’s curious to know who the mystery woman was, and suggested to the Mail that “perhaps she was a female visitor of a prisoner and kept returning.”
“‘I would love to know why she’s shown herself in my photo,” she said.
"When I first saw the photo, I tried to rationalize the female figure away by saying it was just Sheila's reflection,” added Mr. Rice. "But with closer inspection, it's obvious that this is not the case at all. The woman's hair and clothing is from a different era - it looks like she's from the 1930s or 40s.”
“I have no logical explanation for the girl in the picture – I’m baffled,” he said. “She’s staring right at the camera, with a knowing look.”
