1 00:00:00,364 --> 00:00:07,144 In search of has investigated the mystery of many ancient monuments, the pyramids, 2 00:00:07,144 --> 00:00:13,104 stonehenge, and Easter Island. A solution to these puzzles may be concealed in 3 00:00:13,104 --> 00:00:19,624 Florida's Coral Castle. This monumental structure was created by one man with his 4 00:00:19,624 --> 00:00:27,464 bare hands in the 20th century. What strange forces created this castle of 5 00:00:27,464 --> 00:00:29,784 secrets? 6 00:00:49,105 --> 00:00:54,265 Coral Castle has been called the eighth wonder of the world. This place is a 7 00:00:54,305 --> 00:01:00,225 fantasy garden and an engineering marvel. The blocks are cut and set with 8 00:01:00,225 --> 00:01:07,545 great precision, locked without mortar. At 30 tons, the greatest single stone in 9 00:01:07,545 --> 00:01:14,305 Coral Castle is twice as massive as any in the pyramid. Here are massive megalits, 10 00:01:14,305 --> 00:01:22,265 huge astrological symbols, and structures whose purpose is a total mystery. 11 00:01:22,705 --> 00:01:30,426 Surprisingly, 25 miles away is Cosmopolitan Miami. Coral Castle was built 12 00:01:30,426 --> 00:01:37,146 not in ancient times, but in the 20th century. Most curious of all, Coral 13 00:01:37,146 --> 00:01:43,266 Castle was built in secret by one man, Edward Leedskalman, a frail little 14 00:01:43,266 --> 00:01:50,146 hermit. With no modern machinery and with no help, he somehow hand-carved and 15 00:01:50,146 --> 00:01:57,266 lifted every single block, a total of three million pounds. 16 00:02:04,306 --> 00:02:09,426 With all our modern technology, we might be able to duplicate the pyramids, but 17 00:02:09,426 --> 00:02:13,746 how could we ever do it with our bare hands? Dreamers beyond the fringe of 18 00:02:13,746 --> 00:02:19,426 science have postulated a long lost art of harnessing anti-gravity. It seems 19 00:02:19,466 --> 00:02:23,626 incredible, but Ed Leedskalman may have rediscovered these ancient secrets. 20 00:02:23,626 --> 00:02:29,506 Let's look at his life story. The mystery of Coral Castle began in rural 21 00:02:29,506 --> 00:02:34,067 South Florida just after World War I. 22 00:02:37,387 --> 00:02:42,667 Settlers and land speculators began to move down from the East Coast, displacing 23 00:02:42,667 --> 00:02:49,507 the indigenous Seminole Indians. The newcomers found a humid, sprawling, 24 00:02:49,507 --> 00:02:54,667 tropical land full of mosquitoes and opportunities. 25 00:02:56,667 --> 00:03:01,667 The great Florida land boom was on. 26 00:03:03,667 --> 00:03:10,427 In 1919, as recreated here, a real estate man named Moser was scouting land 27 00:03:10,427 --> 00:03:17,987 along back roads near the Everglades. He spotted a stranger. At first, he thought 28 00:03:17,987 --> 00:03:24,347 it was a board and was surprised to encounter a very small grown man. The 29 00:03:24,347 --> 00:03:28,667 stranger couldn't weigh more than 90 pounds. 30 00:03:30,428 --> 00:03:35,428 Moser, always friendly, offered a ride. 31 00:03:36,428 --> 00:03:44,308 The little man introduced himself. Edward Leedskalman. Recently immigrated from 32 00:03:44,308 --> 00:03:48,628 Latvia, he said with a smile, was searching this part of Florida for a 33 00:03:48,628 --> 00:03:51,908 specific plot of land. 34 00:03:53,628 --> 00:04:00,028 Moser realized the little man had advanced tuberculosis. 35 00:04:06,428 --> 00:04:14,548 Mrs. Moser always welcomed the strangers her husband brought home. Life was lonely 36 00:04:14,548 --> 00:04:20,628 in this new land. Edward Leedskalman was very friendly, very polite, and confessed 37 00:04:20,628 --> 00:04:24,868 outright he hadn't a penny to his name. 38 00:04:29,428 --> 00:04:34,789 The Mosers selflessly took young Ed into their home and nursed him back to 39 00:04:34,789 --> 00:04:36,789 health. 40 00:04:43,109 --> 00:04:48,589 They listened with respect to his story of leaving Latvia, of his search all 41 00:04:48,589 --> 00:04:55,029 over America for the right type of land. I'll know when I find it, he said. It's 42 00:04:55,029 --> 00:05:01,909 for my sweet 16. He would never explain who she was, but Ed was obviously haunted 43 00:05:01,909 --> 00:05:09,909 by a dream or a memory of land and a castle for his sweet 16. 44 00:05:13,749 --> 00:05:18,709 As soon as he regained his health, Ed continued searching the back country. 45 00:05:18,709 --> 00:05:27,149 Crazy Ed and his rusty bike became the butt of many local jokes. Neighbors 46 00:05:27,149 --> 00:05:31,310 watching him prod the ground began rumors that he was hunting for buried 47 00:05:31,310 --> 00:05:33,830 treasure. 48 00:05:37,990 --> 00:05:47,270 Ed always rejected the good farmland. When people wondered why, he only smiled. 49 00:05:48,270 --> 00:05:57,790 Finally, he excitedly brought Moser to a remote plot. Moser was astounded, for Ed 50 00:05:57,790 --> 00:06:03,790 had unerringly located the worst acre in the state. It was all bedrock, right up 51 00:06:03,790 --> 00:06:09,830 to the surface. You couldn't plow it, you couldn't farm it. Moser gladly gave a 52 00:06:09,830 --> 00:06:13,630 small section to his friend. 53 00:06:17,270 --> 00:06:26,030 A few weeks later, Moser's curiosity got the better of him. He dragged his wife 54 00:06:26,030 --> 00:06:32,151 out through the brush to see what Ed could possibly do with that land. 55 00:06:32,151 --> 00:06:49,311 They couldn't believe their eyes. Ed had somehow cut a 10-ton block of solid 56 00:06:49,311 --> 00:06:55,311 coral right out of the bedrock and hoisted it into the air. As they nervously 57 00:06:55,311 --> 00:06:58,871 approached his flimsy tripod and the block which could crush them in an 58 00:06:58,911 --> 00:07:05,551 instant, they realized there was something more than craziness in Ed. How did he do it? 59 00:07:05,551 --> 00:07:13,711 Ed smiled and said, it's not difficult really. The secret is in knowing how. Why 60 00:07:13,711 --> 00:07:22,471 did he do it? He smiled again. Someday my sweet 16 will come. 61 00:07:29,631 --> 00:07:37,392 Working alone, he cut more blocks. All the locals had to visit and gape at this 62 00:07:37,392 --> 00:07:43,192 accomplishment. Ed was friendly but firm. He would never tell his secret 63 00:07:43,192 --> 00:07:48,792 techniques and he would always stop work when people came near. 64 00:07:49,112 --> 00:07:57,752 Trying to catch him at work, the neighbors took to spying. 65 00:08:06,752 --> 00:08:13,632 Some people swear they saw the rocks move. Ed could somehow sense their 66 00:08:13,672 --> 00:08:19,712 inquiring gaze. He would simply stop working and patiently wait until they gave 67 00:08:19,712 --> 00:08:32,033 up trying to discover his secrets. 60 years later, the completed coral castle 68 00:08:32,033 --> 00:08:42,313 still embodies a number of unsolved mysteries. Francis Wilson. This block weighs 69 00:08:42,353 --> 00:08:47,193 nine tons. It's just one piece of rock. See what you can do with one hand? 70 00:09:00,193 --> 00:09:03,313 It's quite interesting the safety. I know that. And he always wanted to make sure 71 00:09:03,313 --> 00:09:07,553 the children couldn't get down in here and that was his gate to keep children 72 00:09:07,593 --> 00:09:11,713 from going down the steps. Those who knew Ed remember him with great respect. 73 00:09:11,713 --> 00:09:17,673 Charles Williams and Vodal Lowe. I guess I was maybe six, seven years old. I was 74 00:09:17,673 --> 00:09:22,753 born and raised about 300 yards from this place and I would see Ed quite often 75 00:09:22,753 --> 00:09:26,433 at the little country store we had and he was a very slight man. I don't think he 76 00:09:26,433 --> 00:09:29,634 was probably any taller than I am. I'm about five, six. Probably weighed 77 00:09:29,634 --> 00:09:32,674 somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds. He always looked frail and 78 00:09:32,754 --> 00:09:38,314 thickly but obviously very strong. He'd say this is because of the stars and the 79 00:09:38,314 --> 00:09:42,354 moon and he would go on and he would show us his electrical machine now. He 80 00:09:42,354 --> 00:09:48,034 made electricity and he would jump in his bathtub and show how the water would 81 00:09:48,034 --> 00:09:52,834 come to certain levels and how he heated it with the sun. He'd always divert 82 00:09:52,834 --> 00:09:58,274 your question. As I say, a very gentle kind person. He was of course highly 83 00:09:58,314 --> 00:10:04,314 intelligent. Many people thought he was a little cracked because he was smarter, 84 00:10:04,314 --> 00:10:08,074 I think than they were probably. His whole life and whole being was very frugal. 85 00:10:08,074 --> 00:10:12,114 Just sustained himself, I think more or less. And some nights we'd come in the 86 00:10:12,114 --> 00:10:18,594 moonlight and sit and walk around in his park and he would come out and tell us 87 00:10:18,594 --> 00:10:23,714 his story if he had a small audience and he would go along in a very normal sort 88 00:10:23,714 --> 00:10:27,994 of a voice and then we'd ask him why he did it and they say, oh well someday 89 00:10:28,034 --> 00:10:33,035 my sweet 16 is coming and he'd look up in the stars and he would get very 90 00:10:33,035 --> 00:10:38,515 ethereal in his voice and he just loved talking about his sweet 16. Then he 91 00:10:38,515 --> 00:10:43,115 always spoke of her as sweet 16. She never grew any older. It's kind of nice. 92 00:10:44,635 --> 00:10:49,395 There were many rumors about mysterious Ed. One held that he was an eccentric 93 00:10:49,395 --> 00:10:55,875 miser and kept a stash of money. Late one evening in the 1930s, a band of 94 00:10:55,915 --> 00:11:01,795 tufts waited until he was alone in Coral Castle. Little Ed could never have 95 00:11:01,795 --> 00:11:05,315 imagined such a shocking intrusion into his private world. 96 00:11:19,875 --> 00:11:23,795 The attack prompted the most extraordinary feat of his life. 97 00:11:26,475 --> 00:11:32,876 Coral Castle was originally built in a remote area of Florida. For years, Ed 98 00:11:32,876 --> 00:11:38,476 Lee Scownen felt safe in isolation away from the harsh realities of the cities. 99 00:11:38,476 --> 00:11:44,316 He had carved this place with his bare hands as a Shangri-La for his sweet 16. 100 00:11:47,316 --> 00:11:52,436 Barely surviving a brutal robbery, however, Ed decided to seek safer ground. 101 00:11:52,476 --> 00:11:58,436 When he moved, Ed took more than his toothbrush. He took Coral Castle itself. 102 00:12:01,436 --> 00:12:06,356 He hired a local truck owner and with characteristic secrecy, politely asked 103 00:12:06,356 --> 00:12:10,716 the man to step around the corner. The truck would be loaded in just a minute. 104 00:12:22,436 --> 00:12:51,757 Peace by Peace, Ed moved all three million pounds of rock 10 miles to its 105 00:12:51,757 --> 00:12:58,377 present location near Homestead, Florida. As usual, no one ever managed to see how he 106 00:12:58,377 --> 00:13:02,677 lifted the giant rocks, which weighed up to 30 tons apiece. 107 00:13:02,677 --> 00:13:07,977 How did he do it? There are many theories. 108 00:13:07,977 --> 00:13:16,177 60 million years ago, this was all of South Florida. Thousands of miles of living coral 109 00:13:16,177 --> 00:13:23,697 reef. The rock which he used, fossil coral, may have internal forces which only Ed understood. 110 00:13:23,697 --> 00:13:34,538 A huge brain coral seems almost conscious, perhaps contemplating ancient secrets. 111 00:13:34,538 --> 00:13:42,578 Living coral constructs its own undersea castles. 112 00:13:42,578 --> 00:13:52,418 Forces deep in the earth fuse dead coral into oolite, a dense, strong organic rock. 113 00:13:52,418 --> 00:13:56,578 And most of South Florida has little topsoil over this bedrock. 114 00:13:56,578 --> 00:14:04,298 We asked the men at a rock quarry to try an experiment, to cut and lift a giant block 115 00:14:04,298 --> 00:14:13,658 of oolite. With diamond-tipped power saws, the cutting alone took several hours. 116 00:14:13,658 --> 00:14:32,859 The only way to break the block free, through force. 117 00:14:32,859 --> 00:14:43,059 Then the test. Could they detect any unusual buoyancy in the rock itself? 118 00:14:43,059 --> 00:14:58,379 Using a 600 horsepower crane, could they lift the rock? 119 00:14:58,379 --> 00:15:24,419 After the crane almost tipped over, they managed to drag the block a few yards. 120 00:15:24,419 --> 00:15:31,180 What modern equipment would it take to duplicate coral castle? 121 00:15:31,180 --> 00:15:51,140 Charles Valois comments. This is the only known photo of Ed, apparently working. 122 00:15:51,140 --> 00:15:55,540 Although he seems to be breaking the block free with wedges, a close look reveals that 123 00:15:55,540 --> 00:16:01,060 the block is already cut free with a cable underneath. 124 00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:04,220 Engineers have been puzzled by this photo. 125 00:16:04,220 --> 00:16:08,260 Bruce Cathy has extensively studied and written on earth forces. 126 00:16:08,260 --> 00:16:14,660 He believes that a harmonic grid inside the earth's surface can create actual anti-gravity 127 00:16:14,660 --> 00:16:20,500 at certain nodes on the grid. And that coral castle was built on a position of harmonic 128 00:16:20,860 --> 00:16:31,861 resonance. He's moved stones up to or coral blocks up to 25 tons. And he put them up overnight 129 00:16:31,861 --> 00:16:36,501 just on his own. After he died, he checked some of the instruments he was using and they're 130 00:16:36,501 --> 00:16:41,461 very, very primitive. Chisels and hammers and rapes and pulleys and things. Nobody can 131 00:16:41,461 --> 00:16:44,221 understand even today how he's done this. 132 00:16:44,301 --> 00:16:50,141 I found when I applied the harmonic mathematical basis to his position on the earth's surface 133 00:16:50,141 --> 00:16:56,981 geometrically that the same harmonic values popped up on the area where he was. 134 00:16:56,981 --> 00:17:03,701 He always said that he had the secrets of anti-gravity and magnetic fields and he also 135 00:17:03,701 --> 00:17:07,941 said that he knew how they built the pyramids. So it appears if he was telling the truth 136 00:17:07,941 --> 00:17:11,341 that it looks like he did have these secrets. 137 00:17:15,221 --> 00:17:24,221 Ed performed many strange experiments with magnetism, although he had no source of conventional 138 00:17:24,861 --> 00:17:30,822 electricity. He hinted to neighbors he was on the verge of a monumental breakthrough and 139 00:17:30,822 --> 00:17:37,822 published his preliminary results. His book, however, is as incomprehensible as Einstein's 140 00:17:37,822 --> 00:17:44,822 unified field theory. Just as Ed always worked in secret, he also preferred to take his own 141 00:17:46,182 --> 00:17:53,182 photographs, posing in his one suit with a self-timed box brownie. 142 00:17:53,182 --> 00:18:00,182 These films are not the best quality, but they are the only known movies of Ed Leedskalnan. 143 00:18:08,942 --> 00:18:15,942 They were discovered in 1980 in the back of a closet. They revealed the Ed that most 144 00:18:23,262 --> 00:18:30,263 visitors knew. Animated, friendly, a simple man. 145 00:18:42,383 --> 00:18:48,383 With this same simplicity, Ed awoke one morning in December of 1951. He put on his one suit 146 00:18:48,383 --> 00:18:53,823 off the bus and checked into Miami's county hospital. The doctors were appalled to find 147 00:18:53,823 --> 00:19:00,103 him near death from malnutrition. For a while he rallied under their care and then died 148 00:19:00,103 --> 00:19:03,103 quietly in his sleep. 149 00:19:10,943 --> 00:19:17,063 Even after his death, Ed left a few surprises. Neighbors guarded the grounds until authorities 150 00:19:17,063 --> 00:19:24,063 could make an official investigation. They found his living quarters as Spartan and as 151 00:19:33,624 --> 00:19:40,624 ingenious as the rest of Coral Castle. 152 00:19:47,064 --> 00:19:54,064 They also found $3,800 in crisp $100 bills and what resembled a treasure map. All attempts 153 00:20:08,224 --> 00:20:13,544 to follow the directions on the map were futile. Nothing seemed to correspond to our 154 00:20:13,544 --> 00:20:20,544 normal three dimensional geometry. Ed left many mysteries, a lot of money and a castle 155 00:20:21,024 --> 00:20:28,024 for his sweet 16. Was she a real person or was she a dream, an ideal of all that is 156 00:20:29,145 --> 00:20:36,145 good? 157 00:20:36,745 --> 00:20:42,025 Children loved to visit Coral Castle. They instinctively respond to the childlike sense 158 00:20:42,025 --> 00:20:48,505 of play which is so magnificently sculpted here. In his life, Ed would lead Scounden 159 00:20:48,505 --> 00:20:55,505 Carved and lifted over 3 million pounds of rock. Yet there is one small stone weighing 160 00:20:56,465 --> 00:21:03,465 50 pounds which he never managed to lift. Ironically, on both sides of his simple grave 161 00:21:04,625 --> 00:21:11,625 in Miami are the graves of two little children. We think he would have felt at home. 162 00:21:12,025 --> 00:21:19,025 Coming up next, 20th century with Mike Wallace reports on the pros and cons of United Nations 163 00:21:27,745 --> 00:21:32,366 peacekeeping and peace building missions. Then weapons at war takes you from the beaches 164 00:21:32,366 --> 00:21:37,266 of Normandy and Iwo Jima to the sands of the Persian Gulf with a history of amphibious 165 00:21:37,266 --> 00:21:44,266 warfare.