By recreating the 1962 Alcatraz prison escape using modern technology and engineering analysis, it's possible to determine whether the three prisoners who executed history's most ingenious prison break actually survived their escape across San Francisco Bay.
On the night of June 11, 1962, inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, executing what many consider the most ingenious prison escape in history. The video recreates this escape using the same methods and materials the prisoners employed. Frank Morris was considered highly intelligent by federal officials, with an I.Q. of 133, though some sources report it as 130. The escapees constructed life preservers based on a design Morris found in the March 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics, and turned more than 50 raincoats into makeshift life preservers and a 6x14 foot rubber raft, the seams carefully stitched together and 'vulcanized' by the hot steam pipes in the prison. They masked the noise with Morris's accordion on top of the ambient din of music hour. The escape's plausibility has been tested multiple times: The MythBusters team successfully made it across the bay to the Marin Headlands and declared it 'Plausible' because the fate of the prisoners remains unknown. In 2014, Dutch scientists using 3Di hydraulic software showed that if the prisoners had left before 23.00, they would have had absolutely no chance of surviving, but if they left between 23.00 and midnight, there is a good chance they reached Horseshoe Bay north of the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1979, the FBI officially concluded that the three inmates likely drowned in the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay, but the U.S. Marshals Service case file remains open and active, and Morris and the Anglin brothers will remain on its wanted list until September 2026. In 2018, the FBI disclosed the existence of a letter received by the San Francisco Police Department in 2013, where the writer claimed to be John Anglin and asserted that Frank Morris died in 2008 and Clarence Anglin died in 2011, but the letter's authenticity was deemed inconclusive. In a November 15, 2025 YouTube video, Mark Rober, along with Johnny Harris and video journalist Cleo Abram, recreated the prison escape using the same plans and period items, successfully reaching near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Modern engineering analysis recreates the infamous 1962 Alcatraz prison break to determine if Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers could have survived their daring escape across San Francisco Bay.