Homestead, Florida, just outside of Miami, is the location of a world-famous structure which stands to this day as one of earth’s greatest mysteries. Known as Coral Castle, the extraordinary structure is made up of more than 1,000 tons of oolite limestone, meticulously carved and arranged.
There are walls and towers, tables and chairs, a water fountain and a well; there is a functioning Polaris telescope perfectly aligned with the North Star, an accurate sundial which still keeps time to the minute, and the incredible Coral Castle door, a 9-ton gate which swings open with the touch of a finger, all of it carved from stone blocks weighing up to 35 tons and astonishingly placed together using no mortar at all.
But where the mystery of Coral Castle really begins is in how it was built. Coral Castle is no megalith. No, Coral Castle was built in the 20th century by one man, by hand, using nothing but homemade tools.
Edward Leedskalnin, the man who built Coral Castle, was born in Riga, Latvia in 1877. He came to the United States in his 20s after his fiancé broke off their engagement days before the wedding. From 1923 to 1951, Leedskalnin worked on the construction of his magnificent castle, which some say was a monument to his unrequited love.
What makes Leedskalnin’s accomplishment even more unbelievable is that he was only five feet tall and weighed barely 100 pounds. Plus, he was chronically sick with respiratory illness, and had only a 4th grade education. How had he managed to move, shape, and position so many tons of rock with such precision?
Many modern scientists and engineers liken the mystery of Coral Castle to Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Giza, or even to the mysterious work of Tesla and Grebennikov.
So how did he do it?
How was Coral Castle built?
Though he was asked many times how Coral Castle was built, Edward Leedskalnin always refused to reveal his secrets, stating cryptically that he simply understood the laws of weight and leverage.
We’ll have to take his word for it, because Leedskalnin never let anyone watch him work. In fact, he always worked at night, by lantern, to maintain privacy, and even built numerous lookouts along Coral Castle’s walls.
Why was he so secretive? And what kind of secrets allowed a small, chronically ill man with no formal education to cut, shape, and lift all that rock into place by himself? Consider that when Coral Castle’s gate broke in 1986, long after Leedskalnin’s death, it took six men and a 45-ton crane to fix it.
As the years passed, the mystery of how Coral Castle was built only grew as a series of curious stories began to emerge. First, Leedskalnin’s neighbors reported having heard him singing to his stones at various times. Then, a group of teenagers shockingly insisted that late one night they had seen Leedskalnin “float coral blocks through the air like hydrogen balloons.”
Stories like these led some to believe that Leedskalnin had some sort of supernatural powers.
So, did he?
Coral Castle Debunked
Some say that the Coral Castle mystery has been solved, that theories of any sort of supernatural powers have been debunked.
To start, the repair workers who were fixing Coral Castle’s gate in 1986 discovered that the reason it would swing open at the touch of a finger was because it had a metal shaft drilled through it which rotated on a truck bearing.
But this did not explain the mystery of how the stones had been cut, lifted, and precisely placed.
Some say the explanation for this was given in a 1996 book written by Orval Irwin, who claimed to have been one of Leedskalnin’s friends at the time he was constructing Coral Castle. In the book – Mr. Can’t is dead: the story of Coral Castle – Irwin used photographs, drawings, and schematics to show “how it was done,” how, using a pine tripod, pulleys, and leverage, Coral Castle was built.
Except, Irwin didn’t explain “how it was done,” as mainstream reviews of the book claimed, but rather, how he thought it was done. Remember, Leedskalnin never let anyone watch him work, not even his friends.
Moreover, Irwin’s book was written nearly 50 years after the project was completed. How precisely was he remembering complicated details, and how much was he inferring from an aging memory? Frankly, there isn’t really any evidence that Irwin ever knew Leedskalnin at all. His book, far from exposing “how it was done,” is mere speculation at best, pure imagination at worst.
More recently, engineers have examined Irwin’s work alongside old pictures Leedskalnin took of his setup, and concluded that Leedskalnin may have been able to move some of the blocks used in Coral Castle with a pine tripod and pulleys, but certainly not the “tallest and heaviest pieces,” never mind “moving and placing those pieces so precisely.”
In other words, the mystery of Coral Castle remains unsolved.
Interestingly, it was while looking at these old pictures of Leedskalnin’s setup that people noticed something most curious, something which might explain everything …
Coral Castle Black Box
In Leedskalnin’s old pictures of his setup, there sits a strange black box atop his pine tripod. Leedskalnin referred to this box in his notes as a “perpetual motion holder” for “making all kinds of light.”
What could this mean? According to at least one scientist, “it has something to do with how he got these massive, heavy, brittle pieces of rock up in the air.”
But what?
Coral Castle Mystery Solved
Throughout his life, Edward Leedskalnin wrote numerous books and pamphlets on a variety of unusual topics, which he would offer to visitors of Coral Castle. One field which was of particular interest to Leedskalnin, was that of magnetism, frequency, and energy.
He wrote a book on magnetic currents, and pamphlets detailing experiments he conducted with a homemade Tesla coil capacitor. Was it the results of this work which led him to the creation of his black box?
Some have suggested that Leedskalnin must have discovered the secrets of magnetism, and used these secrets to “make these rocks not as heavy as they seem otherwise.”
Some have gone further.
Within his written work, Leedskalnin cryptically asserted,
“I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids and have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucutan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons!”
Perhaps he was referring to the abundant evidence which exists suggesting that the ancients of Egypt, South America, and Asia knew how to use frequency and vibration to carve and levitate heavy stones.
It is interesting to note that after Leedskalnin’s death, an extensive collection of radio equipment was found within the castle, along with a tightly sealed sound-proof room. Could this have been part of his understanding of frequency and vibration?
Perhaps Edward Leedskalnin and his amazing Coral Castle deserve to be put alongside similar work by Tesla and Grebennikov. Remember, it was Tesla who said, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
Perhaps Edward Leedskalnin discovered these secrets and used them to build his amazing Coral Castle.
Mystery solved?
Check it out for yourself.
Coral Castle Google Earth Location: 25°30’03.3″N 80°26’38.5″W (Street View is amazing)
Visit the Coral Castle museum in person!
Want to know more about the secrets of frequency and vibration? Click here!