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NARRATOR: There is a hidden side of America,
secret, mysterious, forbidden, where nothing is what it seems.
If the unthinkable happens, where will you be?
We are gonna be prepared.
NARRATOR: It's a 15-story complex of high-security, luxury condos
designed to survive Armageddon.
It's a secret location.
NARRATOR: They're built inside a converted missile silo...
The concrete is 9 feet thick.
...guarded by a heavily-armed security force...
Stop your vehicle!
Keep your hands on the wheel.
...and they offer survival
to anyone who can pay the high price.
Get exclusive access to this restricted site...
All right. I'm in position on this side.
NARRATOR: ...as it's put to the test.
But be warned.
This doomsday facility will test you right back.
We're gonna have you take all of your clothes off.
I'm going to escape from Alcatraz.
NARRATOR: June 1962.
MAN: The escape triggered the greatest manhunt in San Francisco's history.
NARRATOR: Three inmates break out of Alcatraz.
It's a mystery that confounds America.
Did they survive or not?
There may be one way to find out --
re-create the daring plan.
BAKER: We're spending most of our energy
just fighting against the current.
NARRATOR: Is it actually possible
to escape from Alcatraz?
It's time to look behind the secrets,
mysteries, and conspiracies.
This is "America Declassified."
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Not that long ago, in the cornfields of Kansas,
nuclear missiles were armed and ready,
pointed at the Soviet Union.
It was the Cold War, when one press of the button
could have meant the end of the world...
...a nuclear holocaust that thankfully never happened.
When the Cold War ended, these missile silos became obsolete.
They were decommissioned,
and some were even sold off to the general public.
Six years ago, Larry Hall had a vision.
He decided to purchase and transform one of the silos
into a 15-story, post-apocalyptic survival base
200 feet underground.
Common sense and our own history tell you that, inevitably,
something catastrophic is going to happen.
I just choose the boy scout route,
where we are gonna be prepared.
NARRATOR: But would this complex really survive
and protect its residents from a world disaster?
How long could its inhabitants live underground?
Who's defending it inside and out?
And what's the price of admission?
Geoscientist Ben McGee is in search of answers.
McGEE: I'm driving through Kansas right now,
and I can't tell you exactly where
because it's a secret location.
It's a luxury survival condo facility,
a retrofitted missile silo
where, for a cool couple million dollars or so,
you can go survive, allegedly,
any apocalypse the world can throw at you.
So, let's go check it out and see if it lives up to the hype.
NARRATOR: Ben begins his mission
by assessing the facility known as Raven Ridge
from an outlying vantage point.
McGEE: Concrete-reinforced structures.
There's a decent perimeter fence.
This whole thing basically says, "Go away."
NARRATOR: But is there more to the isolated location
than meets the eye?
Well, let's go see if this place is worth the 2 million bucks
people are shelling out to go live here.
NARRATOR: Ben has been granted exclusive access to tour Raven Ridge.
But he suddenly feels uninvited.
Stop your vehicle! Keep your hands on the wheel!
Doing a security check.
Yeah.
Why don't you go ahead and grab your I.D., and you can step on out?
Okay.
No problem.
But there is a problem.
The guards are packing assault rifles loaded with V-MAX bullets
fully capable of penetrating metal, doors, and walls.
These are fully loaded. They're hot, ready to fire.
Basically, an unloaded weapon is useless.
NARRATOR: Heightened security measures such as this
might be essential under martial law,
but are they necessary now?
MAN: When Ben pulled up from Travel Channel,
we've been told to expect someone,
but we still have no idea who he is,
what he looks like, or anything else.
All right. I'm gonna open the gate.
As soon as you go through the gate,
go to the left up on the parking ramp.
Park your vehicle. You'll be met.
All right. Thank you.
Ben enters and is greeted by the architect
of this post-apocalyptic safe haven.
Very nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you. Welcome to Raven Ridge.
According to Larry,
the 200-foot-deep Atlas F missile silo
was originally built to carry out two missions --
withstand the blast from a Soviet nuclear missile strike
and be able to launch a nuclear weapon right back.
You can see where the concrete is 9-feet-thick here.
That's incredible.
It's this kind of structural strength
that allows it to withstand a nuclear shock wave.
Ben gets a sneak peek of the entire facility
from the elevator's control panel,
which is a cross section of the structure.
WOMAN: Theater and lounge level.
[ Elevator bell dings ]
Americans built fallout shelters like this one
during the 1950s and '60s, the heart of the Cold War.
But many had a fatal flaw.
They weren't built to support their occupants long enough
until radiation levels outside dropped enough to be safe.
Now feast your eyes on Larry's fully-realized vision,
a new-age Armageddon condo for long-term survival.
This unit features 9-foot ceilings,
three bedrooms, two baths,
a state-of-the-art kitchen, and a dining room.
It's astonishing we're so far underground and it looks like this.
Come on in here, Ben. I'll show you these windows.
The windows are actually high-definition monitors,
and they can project any scenes residents want.
Right now, it's a live feed of the ground level.
We've taken a weapon of mass destruction,
which was a nuclear missile silo,
and we've turned it into the complete opposite.
It's now a survival facility.
It's actually a 15-story, 200-foot-tall high-rise,
only it's buried underground.
It features a swimming pool and spa,
a general store, a bar, classrooms,
a movie theater, and even a jail cell.
So, Ben, if you come in here,
we can show you the jail for people who are having a bad day.
It's all been designed to county jail lockup standards.
So, is this a short-term or long-term?
The intent is not to keep people in here long-term.
I couldn't imagine anyone being in here for more than a week.
I know you said these walls are impenetrable.
How about the door? Is that secure?
Yep. The door is to county lockup.
It's a steel door and impact-resistant glass,
and it has its own dead bolt.
We're in the brig.
Amenities like these
are what helped sell Tyler Allen on Raven Ridge.
ALLEN: I chose Larry's facility
because there's nothing else like it in the world.
The whole point of this facility
is to make surviving a disaster like a day at the Hilton Hotel.
This is a $100-million facility guarded by Navy S.E.A.L.s,
basically a 14-story Hilton Hotel
underneath the ground that can survive indefinitely.
NARRATOR: But a luxury hotel doesn't have a 25,000-volt security fence
or trained security guards led by a special-ops veteran.
Larry has already sold all 12 units
at prices up to $2 million apiece.
Residents can move in any time,
but Larry's priority is planning for the fallout
from a world disaster.
HALL: Whether it's a meteorite
or a food shortage or economic collapse...
...this facility will protect you
from the resulting civil unrest that would occur.
NARRATOR: When Ben's guided tour ends,
he's anxious to put the facility
through some of his own operational testing.
His plan is to hit the silo from two sides --
the physical and the mental.
With my background, I can take a decent look
at the physical aspects of this facility.
But when it comes to the people, I need a little backup.
So, I've called in a friend of mine, Dr. Mindy Howard,
who actually trains commercial astronauts
to deal with the psychological stresses of space flight.
So, you're familiar with the concept of this facility.
What are some of the things you're gonna zero in on?
Well, similarly to long-term space flight,
we're gonna have the same kind of issues --
people dealing with individual stresses
of being cooped up inside,
as well as how they get along with each other
and how the place is run.
In other words, once the shelter seals its doors,
it could turn into a pressure cooker of personalities
for the 75 people hunkered down inside.
Raven Ridge must be ready
for every kind of catastrophe imaginable.
It could be a pandemic disease,
an asteroid collision, or chemical warfare.
The air outside might not be breathable.
Not to worry, says Raven Ridge.
They have an industrial air-filtration system.
The three-sediment air filter is supposed to handle
even extreme biological and chemical agents.
So, this is an example of the high-grade systems
that they have working here.
NARRATOR: But is it just for show,
or does it really work?
To find out,
Ben will test the facility's air-filtration system.
He plans to use an industrial-grade fogger
and blast one of the silo's prime intake vents
to test the system's effectiveness.
And if you wouldn't mind, would you stay here
and then fire this up when I give you the signal?
Okay. Will do.
Ben gets ready beneath an air duct on Level 2.
All right. I'm in position on this side.
Counting down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Smoke is on.
The intake is flooded with smoke for more than 40 seconds.
But inside, there's no sign of it.
I think we can definitely conclude
that the filtration system's catching it.
Mindy wants to get psychological profiles
of Raven Ridge's future residents...
Maybe you can describe yourself for me.
I've always been the boss, you know?
So, I'm pretty used to leading people.
...including owner Larry Hall, who will live here
and run the facility during a doomsday lockdown.
I've been tested as being a benevolent dictator.
Each test lasts 30 minutes.
Her assessment?
HOWARD: I see Larry as a very competent, well-trained individual,
but these positives for him as an individual
could actually be negatives for other people around him.
So, lots of nice ideas of democracy, I think,
would probably go out of the window.
NARRATOR: When doomsday comes, plenty of law-and-order situations
could take place outside the facility.
How would guards handle this scenario?
A condo owner arrives
contaminated with radioactive materials.
I'm gonna use a simulant, a mineral,
which is gonna represent radioactive material,
some contamination on me.
And it's a powder that you can't really see when you put it on,
but when you take it under ultraviolet light...
...it lights right up.
NARRATOR: And that's when Ben remembers something vital.
McGEE: I'm about to start this demonstration,
and they're actually using their real weapons, which are live.
So, they're checking right now
to make sure there are no chambered rounds
so they don't accidentally shoot me or each other.
NARRATOR: A Raven Ridge condo owner
tainted with a radioactive substance
could poison everyone in the facility.
But he has the right to enter.
How will the security team solve this problem?
[ Dog barks, growls ]
NARRATOR: If a doomsday event ever hits America,
a select few might believe they can survive inside Raven Ridge,
a luxury condo complex
built from an underground missile silo.
Geoscientist Ben McGee and psychologist Mindy Howard
have completed their exclusive tour of the silo.
T-plus 40 seconds.
And they've checked for weak points in its design.
Let the smoke go.
The air-filtration system passed the test.
But what about the human factor?
How will the security team respond
to this doomsday crisis --
a condo owner who wants to get inside
but is contaminated with radioactive materials?
MAN: Stop! Do not move! Stop!
Put your hands up!
Do not move.
We'll come to you. Stay there, or you'll be shot.
NARRATOR: With the armed security team in threat-containment mode,
the scene gets very real fast.
All right, we're gonna walk you inside
because our detectors have gone off
and show you are contaminated.
Follow every order we give you. Do you understand?
Yes, I understand.
Okay, sir. I need you to step this way.
Do not approach me. Approach the wall.
Stop right there.
Can you hear me all right?
Yes, I can.
Keep your hands where I can see them.
We're gonna have you take all of your clothes off.
We're going to be spraying a water mist
to keep contamination to a minimum.
We will then hand you a suit, which you will put on.
Yes, I do.
NARRATOR: Radioactive materials can be lethal,
so everyone involved needs to take extra precautions.
Ben puts on a decon suit to ensure
the contamination remains restricted to his body
as he moves through the facility.
His security escort,
who will be running the decontamination process,
also has to wear protective gear.
This tactical team is the real thing.
Well, I'm actually in mid-transition
between the light exterior decon and the heavier interior decon,
and I want to really see if these guys got it all.
Sir, you need to come with me.
Okay.
NARRATOR: The next step -- a thorough scrub-down.
I have to admit,
I underestimated the decon system here at the facility.
Residents here
should feel pretty good about the system, then.
So, we're gonna see how the decon process did.
I'm not very --
Yeah, look, they got it all, even below the hair,
which tends to be a problem.
NARRATOR: Ben's assessment...
I thought it was gonna be really easy
for me to poke holes in their decon procedure.
They've got a real decon system here
which I think would be effective for real threats.
NARRATOR: Psychologist Dr. Mindy Howard is with Larry on Level 4.
Her main concern --
How does the facility plan to feed 75 people
for what could be an indefinite amount of time?
This is the upper level of the hydroponics and aquaponics.
The first thing you notice is that it's a big, round room.
The lower-level pie-shaped containers are for plants.
These taller, round tanks are all the fish culture tanks.
If doomsday comes,
these tanks will be teeming with a fish called tilapia.
And why tilapia, as opposed to any other kind of fish?
Well, the studies have shown
that for pounds of input of food,
they yield the most growth in terms of body weight.
So, you have a higher yield of fish protein.
Larry aims to cultivate
70 different kinds of plants, fruits, and vegetables
with the help of LED lighting.
For morale, he has a general store
that will feature a produce section,
a bakery, and food prep areas.
And for backup, there's also an abundance
of freeze-dried foods and canned goods.
Bad food equals bad mood.
And so we really need to be careful
that there's enough variety and enough things that people like.
I'm thinking people are gonna get sick of fish,
but it's at least something that's live.
And the fresh fruits and vegetables
are gonna be really important to this place.
NARRATOR: Raven Ridge might be as advertised,
the ultimate luxury survival condo.
But there are limitations.
Each owner of a full-floor condo
can bring in no more than nine other people.
HALL: This facility is engineered to support a maximum of 75 people.
It's not a matter of, how many people can you fit
in this garage space to protect them?
It's, how long can you keep them breathing clean air?
NARRATOR: Imagine families lined up at the gate
having to make impossible choices
if they've brought more people to the facility
than they're allowed to take inside.
What happens in any type of a life-or-death situation?
I mean, you don't have choices all the time.
Everyone has been briefed and explained that very scenario
before they sign the paper.
Now, this is a hard number. You can't go over it.
If you've got more people, they will not be allowed in.
NARRATOR: If Armageddon comes
and the residents have been safely tucked away,
Raven Ridge will go into lockdown mode.
This means nobody will be allowed to go outside.
Security forces will be on high alert,
protecting the complex from attack.
Desperate people in need of food and shelter
will make this silo one massive target.
Residents could face a frenzied army of people
trying to break into the only safe haven in middle America.
Security will be monitored
from the command center within the silo.
This is the first time Larry's allowing cameras
into this highly-restricted area.
We're in the building management and control area.
Essentially, it allows two people to run this place
and have a 360-degree view
of the entire facility inside and out.
Everyone is specially trained to run in here,
and you're gonna have to --
4-8-3.
As you see, we have a situation developing here.
One of our officers is checking his I.D.
Towards the end of their visit,
Ben and Mindy initiate one last test
of the facility's security system.
McGEE: We're getting pretty close
to the perimeter of the facility right now.
NARRATOR: Does Raven Ridge let down its guard after dark?
NARRATOR: A luxury doomsday survival bunker
built into a decommissioned missile silo
somewhere in Kansas.
Geoscientist Ben McGee and psychologist Mindy Howard
have been testing the viability of the facility.
Now they'll find out
if the Raven Ridge security team gets lax on the night shift.
McGEE: We're getting pretty close
to the perimeter of the facility right now.
Will they still be on full alert after dark?
We don't know exactly what they've got pointed at us.
They could have night vision.
I'm not exactly sure what distance scopes.
But let's see how good their perimeter security is at night.
There's one armored vehicle right there at the perimeter.
At least a couple personnel. Looks like they're scanning.
We may have already tipped them off.
The security team has night vision capability.
They can see just as effectively in the dark
as they can during the day.
Command, 10-33.
Two subjects, south,
incoming to the perimeter, possibly armed.
Keep your hands on top of your head
and approach the front of the vehicle.
Stop.
McGEE: Well, I guess, uh, with thermal cameras,
they got no problems seeing anyone approaching in the dark.
I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
We are in Kansas.
The facility's security that they have here is top-notch.
I came here thinking it was gonna be pretty straightforward
to poke a hole in the usual things
that facilities like this do wrong --
decontamination, air handling, filtration.
Instead, they completely blew away my expectations.
NARRATOR: But Mindy envisions
survivors who escape disaster on the outside
only to face conflict on the inside.
What I've seen are a lot of alpha males in one place,
or let me put it another way --
too many chiefs, not enough Indians --
thus creating another risk factor from within the facility.
For a long-term period, I do fear
that residents will actually get a bit bored in the long-term
based on the analogous research
from other kinds of places similar to this.
NARRATOR: So, how long might its inhabitants survive underground?
HOWARD: My gut feel says a couple of months,
and any longer than that,
you're really gonna start to see some things happening.
And I think you could realistically make it here
a year or two.
I think I'd rather be on the outside.
It's not a place for me.
HALL: Everyone's got different potential disasters
that they may be worried about,
and I don't like to throw stones at any of them.
I wanted to come up with a solution
that would help me sleep better,
so I kind of came up with this one-size-fits-all solution.
NARRATOR: Whether it be World War III or World War Z,
there might not be a more luxurious setting
to watch it all play out
than the Raven Ridge survival condos.
Enter at your own risk.
San Francisco, California,
as viewed from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary,
also known as "the Rock."
To inmates doing hard time, the city only a mile away
was a reminder of the freedom they had lost.
Few inmates could imagine their worst nightmare
would one day become a tourist destination,
attracting visitors from all over the world.
I'm on a tourist ferry
heading out to one of the most iconic sites in America,
Alcatraz.
It's the most notorious prison in U.S. history.
All these tourists, at the end of their day on the Rock,
they're taking the ferry back home.
That's not my plan.
I'm not going to sight-see on Alcatraz.
I'm going to escape from Alcatraz.
NARRATOR: Mike's investigating a mystery
that has mesmerized the world for more than 50 years
and even inspired a 1979 feature film
starring Clint Eastwood.
Three inmates escaped from Alcatraz
on the night of June 11, 1962.
They slipped into the treacherous San Francisco Bay
on a crude handmade raft,
never to be seen again.
The question is,
did they escape to freedom, or did they drown in the bay?
Mike's investigation will be extreme.
He'll re-create the escape,
launching a raft made to the same specs as the original
with two accomplices.
They will subject themselves
to the brutally dangerous San Francisco Bay
as the inmates did in 1962.
We've re-created that raft.
We're about to put it in the water.
NARRATOR: What happens in the bay
will help Mike determine if the inmates survived.
Will the raft sink,
or will Mike and his team be able to reach land?
That was the terrifying challenge
facing the inmates in 1962.
But first, they had to engineer a breakout
from the maximum-security prison
that was supposedly escape-proof.
Alcatraz could hold 270 inmates, often the worst of the worst.
It was a maximum-security prison
with a unique deterrent to escape --
the treacherous San Francisco Bay.
The legendary prison break was hatched
by four men locked up here on Cellblock D.
Two brothers, Clarence and John Anglin,
robbed banks together.
They had adjacent cells.
Allen West was a car thief and had escaped other prisons.
Next to his cell, armed robber Frank Morris,
believed to have a genius IQ over 130.
He had also escaped several prisons.
The inmates began plotting their break in December 1961.
To escape, they needed tools to cut through their cell walls.
They also needed waterproof materials to build their raft.
They got much of what they needed
in the new industries building.
Today, it's empty.
But Patrick Mahoney remembers
when it was the prison's factory,
where inmates were allowed to work.
Pat was an Alcatraz correctional officer
and was on the Rock at the time of the escape.
This was a clothing factory here in this end down here.
And on the other side was a laundry.
BAKER: And, so, the prisoners would come in here.
They'd work every day?
They would work every day
making every type of hospital gowns to army fatigues.
The inmates planning the escape
found glue to make their raft in the cobbler shop.
They also located wood to make paddles.
Where you move material around, that's all wood.
All the pallets were always out of wood.
And that's where it would come from.
Inmate Frank Morris even stole a motor from a vacuum cleaner,
which he turned into a drill.
Pat, it's amazing. I'm in Frank Morris' cell.
Here's the cover to the vent, and there's the hole.
Tell me how he did it.
He pulled off a real caper.
NARRATOR: June 11, 1962.
Three inmates escape from Alcatraz,
but how did they slip out?
Mike Baker is getting the inside story
from former prison guard Pat Mahoney.
How did he get away with this?
When they were drilling,
they'd maybe have big stainless-steel spoons,
would break the spoon part off,
and create a drill with a little wood.
Mm-hmm.
And then that one electric thing you got down here
off of a vacuum cleaner.
But the noise. I mean, tell me about the noise.
Well, everyone would cooperate.
They'd make a lot of noise in the cell house.
Could they have done this
No. Hell no.
The inmates stole cardboard to make papier-mâché grills
to hide their work.
And then before they can finish
and get back in their bed to go to sleep,
they have to hide this.
They have to put the papier-mâché back in there
so that it passes scrutiny when the guards walk by.
That's right. Absolutely.
Are you amazed that they got away with this?
They pulled off a real caper.
The goal was to open up a hole big enough to crawl through.
Once out of their cells,
the inmates were inside a rarely inspected, locked corridor.
BAKER: I'm in the utility corridor.
It's a narrow space between the prison blocks,
cells on both sides.
Now, there's a huge assortment
of water and waste and steam pipes,
and on occasion, inmates would be given responsibility
to come back here and do plumbing work.
Well, it didn't take them very long to realize
that more than steam could escape from back here.
Each cell has a vent,
and it faces out here into the corridor.
At night, after lights out, they would crawl up these pipes
three stories to the top of the cellblock.
NARRATOR: Prison officials had assigned inmate Allen West
the job of cleaning the open area on top of the cellblock
and painting the ceiling.
Michael ***, the U.S. Marshal now investigating the case,
meets Mike in Allen West's work area.
It was surrounded by open bars, right?
I mean, we're visible basically from all sides,
including where the guards would walk by in the gun gallery.
So, how did they get away with this?
Well, Allen West was detailed to do maintenance and painting,
and this is one of the sections
he was supposed to be taking care of.
So, he had asked permission from the prison guards
to hang blankets up,
and his reason for this was to, in his words,
to prevent debris from falling
down onto the other tiers of the cellblock.
So, he basically got permission from the guards
to put curtains all around this area
so that they could work in private.
Exactly.
The inmates worked up here night after night,
concealed by blankets, in secret, building a raft.
I mean, it all pretty much started
with raincoats like this, right?
They used about 55 raincoats.
If a prisoner wanted a raincoat,
they could just go check one out.
And they didn't even have to bring it back the next day.
They could check another one out.
While the inmates toiled in secret,
Mike's raft will be made in Hollywood, California,
by movie prop maker Clair Joseph.
These are rubberized raincoats
similar to what the inmates and the guards had access to
in Alcatraz.
NARRATOR: Clair cuts the raincoats into squares,
then starts building pontoons.
JOSEPH: They sewed it with needle and thread,
and then they used rubber cement.
NARRATOR: The rubber cement waterproofs the seams.
And here's a finished product.
NARRATOR: In two days, the team builds the raft
to the same specifications as the one used by the inmates.
On Alcatraz, it took the inmates over a month.
After each night of work,
they hid the paddles for the raft they were making.
They had to clean this area up just in case it was inspected.
So, they put all the parts up here inside the vent.
And that's the same vent that goes up to the ceiling
that they got out of the night of the escape.
The night of the escape, June 11, 1962, 9:30 p.m.,
lights out in Cellblock D.
After months of planning, zero hour is here.
Morris and the Anglins each set a plaster head in place
to make it look like they're still in bed
when the guards pass by.
They open the wall vent
and leave their cells for the last time.
Then they climb the utility pipes
to the top of the cellblock.
At the last minute, Allen West decides to stay in his cell.
The others continue on without him.
Unseen by prison guards,
the inmates squeeze through a ceiling vent and onto the roof.
"X" marks the spot.
I'm up here on the roof of the Alcatraz Penitentiary.
Just imagine it, late at night, 11 June, 1962.
After all of that work and all of that preparation,
Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers
come up out of this vent onto the roof,
each of them carrying a pontoon for the raft,
life preserver, and paddle.
They've got to get off of this roof
and down to the shore.
Here is their solution.
Carrying their gear,
they shimmy down these pipes right there over the fence
and down behind the Quartermaster's building.
Out of view of the watchtowers,
they set up their raft, and they're into the water.
NARRATOR: The inmates have escaped the penitentiary.
They inflate their raft using a pump they built
from an accordion-like musical instrument.
Then they launch themselves into the bay.
Now the question is, where did they go?
NARRATOR: Is it possible to escape from Alcatraz Island
on a primitive inflatable raft?
Former CIA officer Mike Baker and his team
will put themselves on the line to find out.
They'll be paddling a full-scale copy of the raft
that inmates used during their escape in 1962.
Mike will face the same question the inmates did --
Where should he go?
Alcatraz is surrounded by several possible destinations.
The closest --
the city of San Francisco, just over a mile away.
But a U.S. Marshal thinks
that's an unlikely choice for escaping inmates.
You're gonna be on the service streets of San Francisco.
You're gonna be on the Fisherman's Wharf area,
a lot of people around.
You're gonna be wearing prisoner clothes.
There's a likelihood somebody's gonna see you.
Other possibilities include...
But many believe the evidence points to Angel Island,
two miles away.
At the time, it was a semi-abandoned military base.
Standing on Angel Island, this is the view of Alcatraz,
right where the inmates put their raft in the water.
Soon after the escape, a crudely-made paddle
was found floating just off Angel Island.
That paddle wasn't so waterlogged.
So, they knew it hadn't been in here that long.
So, they did recover that paddle,
and it was about 100 yards off the shore.
Based on the evidence,
Mike chooses Angel Island as his escape destination.
BAKER: It doesn't look that far, but on a homemade raft
with a homemade paddle and in these currents,
it's got to be almost impossible.
NARRATOR: The Rock
is now a federally-protected bird sanctuary.
Trespassing on its shoreline is against the law.
You could say it's still illegal to escape from Alcatraz.
They won't allow us to set right off of the rock.
NARRATOR: That means Mike has to launch his raft from a boat.
BAKER: I'm excited.
I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime experiment.
NARRATOR: Mike arms himself with advantages
the inmates didn't have, starting with daylight.
BAKER: We're also, of course, wearing wet suits and life vests.
I mean, we may be crazy, but we're not stupid.
NARRATOR: The water today is 55 degrees Fahrenheit,
close to the night of the escape
when it was no more than 54 degrees
and possibly as low as 50.
If the men went overboard,
they'd feel the effects of hypothermia
in less than an hour.
The inmates had expected to build a square raft.
But Allen West backed out at the last minute,
keeping his pontoon with him.
So, the three escaping prisoners
were forced to improvise a triangle-shaped raft.
The paddles Mike will be using
are similar to those made by the convicts.
Mike also needs two accomplices to re-create the escape.
So, joining me now on the escape from the Rock
are two professional swimmers,
Mike Lockwood and Jake Glodowski.
They are now my two absolute best friends.
But we're already starting to see that the biggest problem
isn't necessarily keeping air in the pontoons.
It's just staying balanced
so that we can actually start paddling.
Despite the difficulty,
everyone will try to stay on the pontoons.
Their paddle strokes have more power from there
than if they stayed in the center of the raft.
The current's already got us.
The team must travel two miles to Angel Island,
and they'll have to be stronger
than the steady 2.5-mile-per-hour current.
Ready.
The escape from Alcatraz is on.
NARRATOR: Mike Baker and his team are testing
whether three inmates who escaped Alcatraz in 1962
could have paddled to freedom.
Authorities believe the escapees headed towards Angel Island,
and Mike's on the same course.
BAKER: I'm gaining a real appreciation
for just how difficult it must have been for those three
that evening.
We're spending most of our energy
just fighting against the current.
NARRATOR: A camera on Angel Island
at its most powerful telephoto setting
shows Mike and his team are a long way off,
and they appear to be losing ground.
BAKER: We're not gonna be able to beat the current
and fight out way to the beach at Angel Island,
where we've been hoping to land.
NARRATOR: On this day, at least, the bay's treacherous currents
are stronger than these highly-conditioned men,
even with the advantages of daylight and wet suits.
If the prisoners' raft
was similarly pushed by the currents,
they might have been desperate enough to climb into the water
in the low 50 degrees.
At some point, they probably just got
completely worn out from paddling
and said to themselves, "Let's just get in and swim and kick.
At least they had the raft to hold onto.
But there's also the chance the inmates' raft leaked and sank.
That would drop them into the cold water of the bay
without wet suits.
There'd be no boat to see them
and rescue them in the black of the night.
The life-sapping effects of hypothermia
would kick in some 60 minutes later.
Death would be a virtual certainty.
If the inmates drowned,
odds are at least one of the bodies would have surfaced.
Generally, about half to two-third of the bodies
that go into the water are recovered.
NARRATOR: It wasn't until 7:00 a.m. the next morning,
10 hours after the breakout,
that authorities noticed the fake heads
in the inmates' empty cells.
[ Whistle blows ]
Then all hell broke loose.
MAHONEY: They had notified the control center.
The siren went off, and the steam whistles blew.
MAN: The escape triggered the greatest manhunt
in San Francisco's history.
NARRATOR: Pat Mahoney was part of the manhunt.
He searched for the inmates in a speedboat on the bay.
MAHONEY: I was going back and forth
between San Francisco and Angel Island.
NARRATOR: And near Angel Island, Pat found personal items
floating in the water that belonged to the inmates.
MAHONEY: A photograph,
two or three letters that were written by the Anglin brothers,
things that were very precious to them.
And for this reason, I felt that they probably didn't make it.
This bay is so brutal and so cold,
and if that tide's going out,
your chance of making it are very slim.
NARRATOR: But what if the tides and currents
were different on the night of the escape?
What if the inmates could predict them
based on charts from local newspapers?
Things could have been much easier for them.
Mike's given himself the ultimate advantage.
He's having the boat deposit his raft
a stone's throw from Angel Island.
Now his team will see
what an Angel Island landing could have been like.
BAKER: I'm liking my odds at this point.
NARRATOR: This is the beach landing
some believe the three inmates made in 1962,
off one island and onto another.
BAKER: They get here,
and they know they're gonna be the subjects of a massive manhunt.
So they got to get off of this island.
NARRATOR: One theory is the inmates made it here and stole a boat,
then headed to points unknown.
But there were no reports of a missing boat,
and no raft was recovered on Angel Island.
They wouldn't have been stupid enough
to leave it laying around,
so they would have taken it with them, I think.
Or they would have buried it.
It's gonna surface at some point.
NARRATOR: But the raft has never been found.
And in the end, the absence of evidence
is why the case continues to fascinate.
No raft, no bodies, no sightings of the men alive.
The three convicts were career criminals and repeat offenders.
If they survived, it's likely that at least one of the men
would have continued committing crimes
and ultimately been rearrested.
But that never happened.
Today the U.S. Marshal Service believes
it's possible the men survived.
All three would be in their 80s now,
and the case is still open.
***: There's only three ways we're gonna close the case.
One, we arrest them.
Two, we find out they're dead and can prove it.
And, three, they reach the age of 99.
NARRATOR: The 1962 escape from Alcatraz
remains on of America's most enduring mysteries.
Did they make it, or did they drown?
Mike's recent experience on the Rock
leaves him with a strong opinion.
The ingenuity and determination
of Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers,
incredibly impressive.
But do I think they survived?
Not on that homemade raft.
There's only one way to get off of Alcatraz alive,
and that's on a real boat.