loner
14-04-2009, 09:16 PM
a 5-ft. tall, 100-lb. Latvian immigrant. Many men have single-handedly built their own homes, but Leedskalnin's choice of building materials is what makes his undertaking so incredible. He used huge blocks of coral rock, some weighing as much as 30 tons, and somehow was able to move them and set them in place without assistance or the use of modern machinery. It's estimated that 1,000 tons of coral rock were used in construction of the walls and towers, and an additional 100 tons of it were carved into furniture and art objects. How did he do it?
Coral Castle was not built by stone-dragging slaves of an ancient civilization. The entire complex was built between 1920 and 1940 by one man working alone and in secret. Edward Leedskalnin was born in 1887 into a farming family at Stramereens Pogosta, a small village near Riga, Latvia, but emigrated to North America before the outbreak of World War I. While working in a Canadian lumber camp, Leedskalnin contracted tuberculosis and moved to the warmer climate of Florida. He purchased an acre of land near Florida City for $12.
Here he began building the first structures of the Castle. Among its oddities is a scattering of oversized chairs made of coral, each one weighing a half-ton. Although they look extremely uncomfortable, the chairs are, in fact, exceptionally restful and balanced into perfect rockers. Remarkably, not a single tool mark has been found on any of them. At five feet tall, weighing 100 pounds, and in uncertain health, Leedskalnin would be an unlikely candidate to quarry and move the tons of coral that even a robust man would have found impossible. And his fourth-grade education hardly qualified him as a construction engineer.
Leedskalnin was a fanatic for secrecy and worked only after sundown, when he was certain no one was watching him. It was reported that some curious neighbors did see Leedskalnin moved the stones. They say he placed his hands on the stone to be lifted... but what was in his hands? Somehow this levitated the great rocks. According to an article in Fate magazine, "some teenagers spying on him one evening claimed they saw him 'float coral blocks through the air like hydrogen balloons,' but no one took them seriously. When he was personally asked how he managed the feat, Leedskalnin replied only that he understood the laws of weight and leverage.
He is quoted as saying, "I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids. I have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons." " The very stones of Coral Castle support his story -- at an average of six tons, they are twice the weight of the blocks in Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza. According to The Enigma of Coral Castle, "Ed disagreed with modern science, and claimed that the scientists were wrong, 'that nature is simple.' He believed all matter consisted of individual magnets, and it is the movement of these magnets within materials, and through space, that produce measurable phenomena, magnetism, and electricity. In 1936, when developers threatened to set up a subdivision near Florida City, Leedskalnin bought ten acres in nearby Homestead.
He dismantled the largely finished Castle and transferred it block by block to the new location. Each piece was placed on a pair of iron girders mounted on a makeshift truck chassis and transported over ten miles to Homestead. Traditions from various parts of the ancient world describe levitation as the construction means used by the unknown builders of miraculous structures. In Britain, Merlin was said to have originally found Stonehenge in Ireland, where, like Ed Leedskalnin, he inglehandedly took apart its massive stones and transported them through the air to England's Salisbury Plain. A world away in distance and time, the South Pacific islanders of Ponape still tell how the 20-ton basalt column of Nan Madol, an enormous megalithic site, was floated across the sky by two Merlin-like magicians. After the move to Homestead, Ed added walls eight feet high and four feet wide at the base, with an average thickness of three feet. These forbidding ramparts weigh at least 6.5 tons.
Carrol A. Lake, a colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, stated that "Leedskalnin proved for all the world to see today that he knew the construction secrets of the ancients." He was seconded by one of America's leading investigators, Vincent H. Gaddis, who said of the mysterious Latvian immigrant, "There is no doubt that he applied some principle in weight lifting that remains a secret today."
Was Leedskalnin being deceptive when he talked about magnetism and electricity, trying to make his accomplishment more mystical and mysterious than it actually was? Had he merely found a special tool to manipulate the great stones without levers and pulleys? We may never know the answer. Leedskalnin took his secrets with him to his grave ... secrets that still wait to be rediscovered. Leedskalnin passed away in his sleep in 1951, of malnutrition and kidney failure. His only living relative, Harry, inherited what was then known as "Rock Gate Park." Ed's life savings, ($3,500.00) was buried within the castle. He left written instructions as to where to find it. Perhaps he also buried the special tool he used to move the stones somewhere within the castle. Shortly before he died in 1953, Harry sold the property to a Chicago family, who gave it its present name. Coral Castle is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it is doubtful that any extensive excavation will ever be undertaken.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Discoveries are really re-discoveries but someone somewhere must know what this secret is..
Coral Castle was not built by stone-dragging slaves of an ancient civilization. The entire complex was built between 1920 and 1940 by one man working alone and in secret. Edward Leedskalnin was born in 1887 into a farming family at Stramereens Pogosta, a small village near Riga, Latvia, but emigrated to North America before the outbreak of World War I. While working in a Canadian lumber camp, Leedskalnin contracted tuberculosis and moved to the warmer climate of Florida. He purchased an acre of land near Florida City for $12.
Here he began building the first structures of the Castle. Among its oddities is a scattering of oversized chairs made of coral, each one weighing a half-ton. Although they look extremely uncomfortable, the chairs are, in fact, exceptionally restful and balanced into perfect rockers. Remarkably, not a single tool mark has been found on any of them. At five feet tall, weighing 100 pounds, and in uncertain health, Leedskalnin would be an unlikely candidate to quarry and move the tons of coral that even a robust man would have found impossible. And his fourth-grade education hardly qualified him as a construction engineer.
Leedskalnin was a fanatic for secrecy and worked only after sundown, when he was certain no one was watching him. It was reported that some curious neighbors did see Leedskalnin moved the stones. They say he placed his hands on the stone to be lifted... but what was in his hands? Somehow this levitated the great rocks. According to an article in Fate magazine, "some teenagers spying on him one evening claimed they saw him 'float coral blocks through the air like hydrogen balloons,' but no one took them seriously. When he was personally asked how he managed the feat, Leedskalnin replied only that he understood the laws of weight and leverage.
He is quoted as saying, "I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids. I have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons." " The very stones of Coral Castle support his story -- at an average of six tons, they are twice the weight of the blocks in Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza. According to The Enigma of Coral Castle, "Ed disagreed with modern science, and claimed that the scientists were wrong, 'that nature is simple.' He believed all matter consisted of individual magnets, and it is the movement of these magnets within materials, and through space, that produce measurable phenomena, magnetism, and electricity. In 1936, when developers threatened to set up a subdivision near Florida City, Leedskalnin bought ten acres in nearby Homestead.
He dismantled the largely finished Castle and transferred it block by block to the new location. Each piece was placed on a pair of iron girders mounted on a makeshift truck chassis and transported over ten miles to Homestead. Traditions from various parts of the ancient world describe levitation as the construction means used by the unknown builders of miraculous structures. In Britain, Merlin was said to have originally found Stonehenge in Ireland, where, like Ed Leedskalnin, he inglehandedly took apart its massive stones and transported them through the air to England's Salisbury Plain. A world away in distance and time, the South Pacific islanders of Ponape still tell how the 20-ton basalt column of Nan Madol, an enormous megalithic site, was floated across the sky by two Merlin-like magicians. After the move to Homestead, Ed added walls eight feet high and four feet wide at the base, with an average thickness of three feet. These forbidding ramparts weigh at least 6.5 tons.
Carrol A. Lake, a colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, stated that "Leedskalnin proved for all the world to see today that he knew the construction secrets of the ancients." He was seconded by one of America's leading investigators, Vincent H. Gaddis, who said of the mysterious Latvian immigrant, "There is no doubt that he applied some principle in weight lifting that remains a secret today."
Was Leedskalnin being deceptive when he talked about magnetism and electricity, trying to make his accomplishment more mystical and mysterious than it actually was? Had he merely found a special tool to manipulate the great stones without levers and pulleys? We may never know the answer. Leedskalnin took his secrets with him to his grave ... secrets that still wait to be rediscovered. Leedskalnin passed away in his sleep in 1951, of malnutrition and kidney failure. His only living relative, Harry, inherited what was then known as "Rock Gate Park." Ed's life savings, ($3,500.00) was buried within the castle. He left written instructions as to where to find it. Perhaps he also buried the special tool he used to move the stones somewhere within the castle. Shortly before he died in 1953, Harry sold the property to a Chicago family, who gave it its present name. Coral Castle is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and it is doubtful that any extensive excavation will ever be undertaken.
There is nothing new under the Sun. Discoveries are really re-discoveries but someone somewhere must know what this secret is..