Alcatraz Island Juan Manuel Diaz, who charted San Francisco Bay and named one of the three islands he identified as "La Isla de los Alcatraces," which translates as "The Island of the Gannets" but is commonly believed to translate as "The Island of the Pelicans (Spanish for Pelicans is Pelicanos)," from the archaic Spanish "" ("pelican"). Over the years, the Spanish version "Alcatraz" became popular and is now widely used. In August 1827, French Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly wrote "... running past Alcatraze's (Pelicans) Island ... covered with a countless number of these birds. A gun fired over the feathered legions caused
Legends of Alcatraz Karpis is said to haunt the prison bakery and kitchen. One visitor and his wife have claimed to have heard canaries singing in what was the cell of Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", and to have seen him on the bed reading a book, yet Stroud was never permitted to keep birds in his cell as he'd done at former prisons. Numerous investigators and psychics such as Annette Martin and Jeanne Borgen and paranormal teams have sought to "contact spirits" at Alcatraz. KGO Radio Morning News anchor Ted Wygant, a skeptic of the paranormal, visited Alcatraz in 1982 with