In the city of Homestead, in the very south of Florida, there is an amazing architectural ensemble. This is a complex of residential and utility buildings, as well as decorative structures - sculptures and sculptural groups. And all this is made of one single material - coral reef limestone. But the complex has one more feature, which, from the standpoint of common sense, defies explanation.
The Suffering of Young Edward
Edward Lidskalnins was born in 1887 in a Latvian village near Riga. In his youth, he served as an official in the village council, but then suddenly decided to become a bricklayer. And this is with a growth of a little more than one and a half meters and a weight of only 45 kilograms.
In 1912, Edward became engaged to a 16-year-old girl with whom he had long been in love. But the day before the wedding, his chosen one unexpectedly and without explanation broke off the engagement.
In desperation, Edward left the village and left the country. First, he stayed in Western Europe, and then moved to Canada. During the years of his wanderings, Edward became interested in the study of sciences, especially astronomy and the history of Ancient Egypt. However, in Canada, he had health problems, and he moved south to the United States, where, in the end, he finally settled in Florida. This happened in 1918, when he was already 31 years old.
Promotional video:
The beginning of creativity
Having bought a plot of land in the city of Florida City in one acre (40 acres), Edward began a grandiose construction, dedicating the conceived structure to the bride who rejected him. He called it "Monument to the 16-year-old beloved."
At night, Edward carved sculptures from coral limestone, and during the day he was engaged in self-education - he studied the laws of magnetism and the interaction of cosmic forces. He was an open, friendly person and often invited neighbors and passers-by to "Ed's dwelling", where he proudly showed them his truly impressive successes in construction and stone carving. Over time, rumors about an unusual bricklayer and sculptor spread throughout the district, and literally crowds of visitors began to come to Ed. And for a small fee, he began to conduct something like excursions with them.
In 1936, Ed decided to move to a new location. He bought a much larger and more elevated piece of land of ten acres (four hectares) near Homestead, a few miles from his former residence. After that, he faced a task: how to move several hundred tons of stone structures and works of art to a new site.
Wonder of the world
He borrowed a tractor with a trailer from a neighbor and for several months loaded his products into it at night. During the day he transported them to a new place, and unloaded them the next night. No one had ever seen him put them on and off the trailer. Ed initially named his new estate Stone Gate Park, but then renamed it Coral Castle. It is this name that went into the legend about Edward Lidskalninsh.
Until his death in 1951, Ed led the life of a hermit in the castle. He was fenced off from the outside world by stone walls two and a half meters high, and the only gate of the castle was closed most of the time. But from time to time he opened them for visitors who willingly paid for the pleasure of admiring his amazing works.
And when asked how he could move huge boulders alone without the help of powerful lifting machines and mechanisms, Ed replied with a smile that he managed to penetrate the secrets of those methods and techniques that the ancient builders of the Egyptian pyramids possessed.
Today, Ed's Castle is considered one of the modern "wonders of the world" and the finest example of stone architecture in the United States. Up to 100,000 tourists visit it annually. And it still remains a mystery how such, frankly, a very puny person could single-handedly turn over multi-ton stone blanks and products.
Masterpieces of architecture and art
The stone door of the castle gate weighs nine tons. But to open or close it, very little effort is enough. Engineers and scientists are at a loss as to how Ed managed to balance the suspension of the huge slab so perfectly. Ed built his dwelling in the corner of the castle and called it the Tower. The total weight of the Tower is approximately 243 tons, and the weight of its individual stone blocks reaches nine tons. By the way, the blocks of the Great Pyramid, or the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza, weighed less. Ed took the entire first floor of his Tower for workshops, and arranged living quarters on the second. And he never allowed any visitor to enter the Tower. Near the Tower, Ed dug a well and built a pavilion with a bathtub.
Throughout the castle, you can see many amazing structures, products and sculptures carved from stone. There are very comfortable rocking chairs and reading chairs. There is also a large table, the surface of which follows the shape of the state of Florida. And the sundial is striking in its accuracy: it is possible to determine not only hours, but also minutes, as well as local standard time in different parts of the globe.
The territory of the castle is decorated with stone sculptures of Mars and Saturn with all its rings, as well as our satellite - the Moon, weighing 18 tons each. The weight of the composition "The Crescent of Islam" is 23 tons. There is a fountain, the ensemble of which, carved from three monoliths, Ed named after the Moon. And the pipe of the stone telescope standing on the dais is always directed to the North Star.
The tallest structure on the territory of the castle is the 12-meter "Obelisk" weighing 28.5 tons. The heaviest block is the "brick" of the northern wall of the castle, it weighs over 30 tons.
Ed spent 25 years to create the entire complex of buildings and sculptural ensembles of the castle, the total weight of which exceeds 1100 tons. In 1984, by the decision of the American government, Coral Castle was included in the National Register of Historic Landmarks of the country.
Ed did all his work, using only the simplest tools and devices: tripods, hammered from logs, blocks and pulleys. primitive winches, as well as wedges made from the springs of an old pickup truck. And he also had the most ordinary car.
How could he?
Perhaps the answer lies in this statement by Ed: “Any form of existence, be it a stone, a tree or an animal, has its beginning and end. But the three things that make up matter have no beginning or end. These things are magnets, which are an integral part of the South and North Poles, as well as neutral particles of matter. These three different things are the constructive elements of everything."
With his statement, Ed probably wanted to express the idea that the beginning of all beginnings is a certain single energy, or force field. This approach is consistent with the hypothesis of invisible lines of force that encircle our planet and are called the Earth's grid energy system. One of the researchers of the "riddle of Ed" - Bruce Cattier, a former pilot who has repeatedly met with UFOs in the air, has devoted a number of articles and books to the hypothesis. In them he, relying on Einstein's theory of relativity, mathematically proves that the force of gravity, like the speed of light on Earth, is not a constant value, but depends on the geographical coordinates of the area. In addition, in places located in the zone of passage of energy lines, the force of gravity can sharply decrease due to the phenomenon of harmonic resonance.
Katje came to the conclusion that Edward Lidskalninsh managed to master the secret of harmonic resonance and could, with the help of special equipment, "reduce" the weight of stone blocks many times, provided that they were given certain sizes and shapes.
And in the book by Ray Stoner "The Mystery of the Coral Castle", written during Ed's lifetime, the author describes the process of processing the next stone block. claims that concentric circles of strictly defined diameter, width and depth were cut on one of the planes. When the block took its place in the structure, it was laid precisely on this edge, so that subsequently the circles were not visible at all.
According to Cattier, Stoner's description confirms that Ed knew how to change the distribution of masses over the volume of the monolith, so that then, using special equipment, to largely neutralize the effect of gravity.
With the help of a computer program developed by Katya, it was possible to find out that Ed did not choose the places for construction sites by chance, but precisely where the influence of energy lines of force could be used to the greatest extent. In this sense, the first site Ed bought was less suitable, and, most likely, Ed was well aware of this and considered it a temporary place of his activities.
According to Cattier, Ed really unraveled the secret of the pyramid builders in ancient Egypt. But he himself left us a monumental riddle, perhaps no less difficult to solve than the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
Instead of an epilogue
As you know, Ed built Coral Castle as a monument to the dashed hopes of a happy family life with his girlfriend. 25 years after Ed's death. in 1976, the then keepers of the castle found in Latvia his old bride, who had already become a lady of very advanced years, and invited to visit an architectural masterpiece erected in her honor by her ex-fiance. In response, they heard the following: “He was not of interest to me when I was sixteen years old. And he is not interesting to me in my current eighty.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №12. Author: Vadim Ilyin