ALCATRAZ BOMBSHELL: Shock discovery made BENEATH famous prison island

A team from Binghamton University unearthed a secret 19th century military base beneath the infamous Alcatraz prison. The group used high-tech radar and laser scans, which revealed an array of historical remains including a bombproof earthwork traverse. The group also found a vaulted brick masonry tunnel, said Timothy de Smet, who led the study. He said: “The remains of these historical archaeology features were just a few centimetres beneath the surface and they were miraculously and impeccably preserved.

“The concrete veneer of the Recreation Yard floor is incredibly thin and, in fact, in places sitting directly atop the architecture from the 1860s.

“We also learned that some of the earthwork traverses were covered over with thin concrete layers through time, likely to decrease erosion on the rainy windy island.”

He added: “It was wonderful to find the history just beneath our feet that we can visualise for the public.”

The majority of tourists that visit Alcatraz, a remote island off San Fransisco, attend the prison and are unaware it was previously a 19th century coastal fort.

Mr de Smet said: “The area was essentially bulldozed from the former military installation to the modern prison we see today.

“In converting the area to a prison, the vast majority of the previous military history of the island had been erased, but we wondered if perhaps something of that significant time in both the islands and American history remained, but buried and preserved beneath the subsurface.”

The radars and lasers used meant the team were able to access the site without digging anything up.

Mr de Smet added: “With modern remote sensing methods like these, we can answer fundamental archaeological research questions about human behaviour, social organisation and cultural change through time without costly and destructive excavation, thereby preserving these non-renewable archaeological resources in the ground – or in situ as we say in the field – for future generations.”

Alcatraz Prison was a maximum security penitentiary on the island, which measures 1.25 miles.

It operated from 1934 to 1963 and was closed because it was far too expensive to run and prisoners were shipped off to other institutions that ran for a fraction of the cost.

source: express.co.uk