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Speaker 1: You're listening to the second and final part of Unexplained,

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Speaker 1: Season nine, episode four, to Each Man His Castle. In

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Speaker 1: January of nineteen thirty two, a small, poorly written advertisement

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Speaker 1: in the Miami Daily News invited curious sightseers to visit

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Speaker 1: an obscure corner of southern Florida. The directions were clear,

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Speaker 1: if somewhat reliant on local knowledge, go towards Florida City,

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Speaker 1: then follow Palm Avenue south to Redland Road. After half

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Speaker 1: a mile, turn west and continue for another quarter mile. There,

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Speaker 1: the ad promised, you will find Ed's place. The cost

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Speaker 1: of entry was ten cents. Two photographs accompanied the advert.

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Speaker 1: The first depicted a maze like arrangement of stones, though

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Speaker 1: the coarse grain image made it hard to discern the

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Speaker 1: exact layout. The second photo is clearer and shows a

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Speaker 1: man in a shirt tie and dark formal trousers. His

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Speaker 1: hair is crisply parted, and his posture is as tense

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Speaker 1: as his face is haggard. He is unrecognizable from the

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Speaker 1: first photograph taken of him on American shores some twenty

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Speaker 1: years previously, but the most noteworthy thing in the photo

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Speaker 1: is not the man. It's the chair. He is sitting

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Speaker 1: on a carved block of rough stone over two tons

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Speaker 1: in weight. Next to it is a huge table top

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Speaker 1: sitting on rough hewn stone legs. In the photograph, the dimensions,

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Speaker 1: shape and true size are hard to make out, but

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Speaker 1: visitors to the strange exhibition were discovered that the table

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Speaker 1: is carved into the sh of the state of Florida.

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Speaker 1: This vast furniture as the sole work of the man

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Speaker 1: sitting at them, rocking in his colossal armchair, trying and

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Speaker 1: failing to convey a sense of ease and relaxation. His

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Speaker 1: diminutive frame only serves to highlight the sheer scale of

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Speaker 1: the stone that surrounds him. It is Edward Leedscownin, of course,

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Speaker 1: and all that stone is the first iteration of his

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Speaker 1: life's work. It would have many names over the years.

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Speaker 1: At the time the photo was taken, it was Ed's Place.

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Speaker 1: Later it would be known as Rockgate Park, but in

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Speaker 1: the enduring public imagination, it's best known as Coral Castle,

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Speaker 1: America's Stonehenge, and just how it came to be remains

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Speaker 1: one of the abiding enigmas of modern Americana. No one

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Speaker 1: really knows when Edward Leedskownen first began the project that

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Speaker 1: would carve his name into the annals of the American Bazaar.

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Speaker 1: The nineteen thirty two advertisement is the first known mention

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Speaker 1: of it in print, but Ed had been living and

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Speaker 1: presumably working on the site for almost ten years by

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Speaker 1: that point, ever since he bought two acres of Florida

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Speaker 1: City land from the Moser family after they'd saved his

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Speaker 1: life and helped him recuperate from near fatal tuberculosis. Ed

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Speaker 1: had chosen the land because of the ready availability of

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Speaker 1: oolite limestone, known in laypersons terms as coral. It was

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Speaker 1: abundant in the area, and nowhere more so than on

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Speaker 1: the extensive plot belonging to the Moses. During the decade

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Speaker 1: that Ed spent on his two acres, he quarried the coral,

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Speaker 1: heaved it from the ground, carved it into fantastic shapes,

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Speaker 1: and arranged it into startling configurations. Visitors to Ed's place

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Speaker 1: could wander through his larger than life creation, taking in

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Speaker 1: the exquisite craftsmanship and the inexplicable heft of what he'd made.

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Speaker 1: All in all, Ed extracted more than eleven hundred tons

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Speaker 1: of stone from the ground, and somehow he did it

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Speaker 1: all single handedly a man in ill health, standing little

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Speaker 1: more than five feet tall and weighing a mere one

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Speaker 1: hundred twenty pounds. It's a feat that has confounded visitors

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Speaker 1: and commentators alike, and which comes with a fair share

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Speaker 1: of local legend. In their two thousand and nine book

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Speaker 1: Coral Castle, The Mystery of ed Leedscalnen and his American Stonehenge,

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Speaker 1: authors Rusty mc cure and Jack Heffron have compiled the

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Speaker 1: most comprehensive accounts from witnesses to ed Leedscownon's labors. They

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Speaker 1: quote neighbors of its people who knew him well, but

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Speaker 1: who were none the less as founded by what he achieved. Accounts,

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Speaker 1: details and theories vary, but all agree on a few

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Speaker 1: common facts. Ed worked alone, without any help from man

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Speaker 1: or any other animal. He worked only at night, illuminated

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Speaker 1: by the moon or by a lantern, depending on the weather.

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Speaker 1: And he was only ever seen using simple handheld quarrying

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Speaker 1: tools that he himself had personally crafted from car parts

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Speaker 1: he scavenged from a nearby junk yard. The tools alone

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Speaker 1: were a work of strange genius, let alone what he

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Speaker 1: did with them. Earl s Lee was a boyhood neighbour

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Speaker 1: of Ed's in nineteen twenty nine, when he was lucky

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Speaker 1: enough to witness how the quarrying was done. According to Lee,

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Speaker 1: he saw Ed cut and dig out the huge slab

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Speaker 1: that would become the Florida shaped tabletop. Lee describes how

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Speaker 1: Ed would mark out his desired shape and then dig

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Speaker 1: a narrow foot wide ditch around its edges. He would

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Speaker 1: then drive metal wedges into the gap, breaking the stone

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Speaker 1: loose in one single piece to prize the cut shape

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Speaker 1: out of the hole. Lee claims that Ed used nothing

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Speaker 1: more than a few simple poles with a heavy bucket

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Speaker 1: attached to the end for leverage. Other photographs collected in

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Speaker 1: mcure and Heffron's book show Ed using a large ten

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Speaker 1: foot tripod built from telephone poles. His block and tackle

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Speaker 1: pulley system is attached to a large chain which Ed

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Speaker 1: would slip beneath the cut stone once it was wedged up.

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Speaker 1: In this way, it seems he was able to lift

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Speaker 1: massive pieces of coral from the ground all on his own.

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Speaker 1: But on top of the tripod is a strange black

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Speaker 1: metal box. It seems to serve no obvious purpose, but

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Speaker 1: over the years many have speculated the degenerated strange powers,

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Speaker 1: powers that only Ed alone was privy to, and which

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Speaker 1: he put to use in his Titanic undertaking. More prosaically,

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Speaker 1: Ed's skill and knowledge is often attributed to his early

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Speaker 1: apprenticeship in stonemasonry back in the Baltics, where he learned

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Speaker 1: from his father. He certainly had a better than average

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Speaker 1: understanding of how to cut and maneuver stone. Yet working

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Speaker 1: on gravestones, it's one thing at Ed's place. Some of

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Speaker 1: the stones, such as the gigantic single piece known as

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Speaker 1: the Obelisk, stood over forty feet in length and weighed

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Speaker 1: more than thirty tons. That's five times the weight of

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Speaker 1: the average male African bush elephant. Could any level of

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Speaker 1: expertise with handmade tools and a basic pulley system ex

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Speaker 1: explain how Ed was able to so finely cut and

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Speaker 1: position such monoliths. The engineering sophistication on display was often

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Speaker 1: even more impressive and confounding than the scale of the

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Speaker 1: end product. One of Ed's most famous sculptures, known as

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Speaker 1: the Rock Gate, is constructed from a single nine ton

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Speaker 1: slab of coral. The size is daunting, but what's more

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Speaker 1: amazing still is that the door does not simply stand there,

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Speaker 1: inert and imposing no all of its vast weight is

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Speaker 1: set to turn with the merest pressure. Somehow, Ed first

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Speaker 1: managed to hang the door perfectly. Then, having identified the

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Speaker 1: exact center of mass, he bored a hole through the

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Speaker 1: coral and inserted a metal rod into it. The rod

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Speaker 1: is balanced so precisely on ball bearings scavenged from a

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Speaker 1: model t Ford that, when pushed, the door smoothly swivels

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Speaker 1: with less than a quarter inch clearance between it and

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Speaker 1: the surrounding doorframe. Extracting the slab is one thing, Maneuvering

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Speaker 1: it into place is yet another. But the accuracy required

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Speaker 1: to sow perfectly suspend nine tons of stone that seems

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Speaker 1: beyond the reach of even the most skilled stone masons.

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Speaker 1: As a paper in the Journal Civil Engineering would later

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Speaker 1: point out, not one piece of stonework showed any sign

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Speaker 1: of a crack or damage, suggesting that Ed had somehow

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Speaker 1: managed to create this great work without any need for

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Speaker 1: trial and error. In other words, it seems he got

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Speaker 1: it all correct first time. By the late nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: Ed was welcoming plenty of visitors to see his hand

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Speaker 1: carved wonders. The ad he placed in the Miami Daily

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Speaker 1: News in nineteen thirty two claimed that over seventeen thousand

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Speaker 1: people had walked his grounds, a figure that seems strikingly

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Speaker 1: optimistic for such a rural stretch of the state. Florida

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Speaker 1: City only had approximately one thousand inhabitants, so it's hard

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Speaker 1: to believe that Ed's estimated footfall is anything more than

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Speaker 1: crude boosterism. But Ed dismissed the notion that he was

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Speaker 1: interested in fame or profit. Instead, those who took his

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Speaker 1: tour would be treated to a well honed speech that

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Speaker 1: implied far more romantic motivations. Ed's place, he said, was

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Speaker 1: dedicated to his great love, young Agnes Scuffs, the bride

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Speaker 1: who jilted him at the Altar back in Europe, who

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Speaker 1: he'd never forgotten. As Ed's story went, he'd undertaken his

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Speaker 1: great task in her honor. It was intended as a

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Speaker 1: castle fit for his queen. Some of the sculptures tied

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Speaker 1: firmly into his tail. One structure, which Ed called his

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Speaker 1: Feast of Love Table, was a five thousand pound block

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Speaker 1: of coral carved into the shape of a heart. In

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Speaker 1: the center was a small hole into which Ed placed

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Speaker 1: an Exora flower or West Indian jasmine. He would tell

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Speaker 1: his tour groups that men too often neglected their wives,

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Speaker 1: and he wanted his lost love to have flowers in

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Speaker 1: her honor every day. Another part of the site, known

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Speaker 1: as the Throne Room, contained several chairs. The largest, Ed's

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Speaker 1: throne sat atop a stone plinth. Next to that was

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Speaker 1: a smaller version of the same design, just waiting for

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Speaker 1: Agnes should she ever come back to him. A few

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Speaker 1: feet away was a sinuous slab of stone that Ed

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Speaker 1: called his love seat. This would allow two people to

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Speaker 1: sit side by side yet faced to f and was intended,

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Speaker 1: Ed explained, to help him and his fantasy princess to

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Speaker 1: resolve their quarrels. Whether Ed really expected Agnes to join

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Speaker 1: him in America is doubtful. In all his papers and writings,

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Speaker 1: there's no indication he ever once wrote to her, or

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Speaker 1: indeed to any of his loved ones back home. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there are those who think that Agnes Scuffs never truly existed.

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Speaker 1: Some offer a more sinister interpretation that the true focus

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Speaker 1: of Ed's desire was Lois Moser, the teenage daughter of

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Speaker 1: his neighbors, the family who had saved his life. There

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Speaker 1: is no evidence of this However, beyond scurrulous local gossip,

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Speaker 1: the truth of Ed's Agnes is just one more unresolved

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Speaker 1: chapter in his story. Whether she was an authentic lost love,

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Speaker 1: a mythicized piece of Ed's past, or just a cynical

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Speaker 1: narrative construction, you shall likely never know. What is certain

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Speaker 1: about Edward Leedskownen is that he was a well known

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Speaker 1: and generally well liked member of the local community. People

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Speaker 1: would often go to his place to socialize, where he'd

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Speaker 1: hold cookouts and would welcome them generously. After his itinerant

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Speaker 1: start in America, it seemed as if ed had finally

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Speaker 1: found a place to call home. But by nineteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: Ed was once again looking to move, and just as

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Speaker 1: he had built it all on his own, he would

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Speaker 1: move it with the same mystifying independence. Ed paid just

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Speaker 1: ten dollars for the ten acre plot that would become

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Speaker 1: known forevermore as Coral Castle. It wasn't far away, in

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Speaker 1: the nearby town of Homestead. But when you're transporting over

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Speaker 1: a thousand tons of stone any distance at all problem,

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Speaker 1: and that problem is multiplied by magnitudes when said stones

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Speaker 1: weigh enough to blow out the tires of most vehicles.

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Speaker 1: Ed approached the issue with his trademark homespun innovation. First,

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Speaker 1: he built a trailer from the chassis of a junked truck,

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Speaker 1: over which he laid thick boards with the weight then spread.

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Speaker 1: The trailer could support even the heaviest of his stones.

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Speaker 1: With that in place, he sought the only help he

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Speaker 1: ever solicited from a local farmer named Bob Biggers. It

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Speaker 1: was Biggers who owned the solid tied tractor capable of

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Speaker 1: pulling the burdened trailer up the highway to the new site,

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Speaker 1: which he did repeatedly until every single stone was relocated

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Speaker 1: from Florida City to Homestead. But Bob never saw how

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Speaker 1: the stones were loaded and unloaded. All he knew was

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Speaker 1: that Ed would call and Bob would then arrive to

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Speaker 1: find the trailer already laid with huge blocks at the

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Speaker 1: other end. Ed would thank him and ask him to

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Speaker 1: come back in two or three days, by which time

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Speaker 1: the trailer would be empty and the stones would be

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Speaker 1: in their new and final position. How Ed managed this

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Speaker 1: with no help or industrial equipment, Bob couldn't say. Ed's

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Speaker 1: later biographer Rville Irwin was just fourteen at the time

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Speaker 1: and remembers asking Ed how long it would take him

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Speaker 1: to move his entire castle. According to Orville, Ed smiled

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Speaker 1: a peculiar smile and simply replied, it'll take a long time,

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Speaker 1: but I'll do it. By mid nineteen thirty nine, Ed's

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Speaker 1: entire complex sat in its new grounds. The relocation is

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Speaker 1: commonly attributed to his need for privacy. Supposedly, word had

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Speaker 1: gotten around about plans for a new housing development, and

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Speaker 1: Ed wanted to escape the prying eyes of all those

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Speaker 1: new neighbors. In truth, Ed lived in a relatively isolated

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Speaker 1: stretch on the edge of town, and even now, nearly

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Speaker 1: a century later, it remains largely undeveloped. Would he really

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Speaker 1: have gone to the colossal task of moving over a

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Speaker 1: thousand tons of stone just on the basis of a rumor.

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Speaker 1: In his nineteen ninety six biography of Ed, mister cant

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Speaker 1: is Dead, Awvial Irwin opines that his move was motivated

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Speaker 1: by far more business minded interests, and that he had

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Speaker 1: drained his pool of visitors, and the mere two acres

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Speaker 1: of his previous home were inconveniently placed to attract more.

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Speaker 1: The new site certainly solved that problem. Located in the

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Speaker 1: town of Homestead, just off Highway One. It was in

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Speaker 1: a prime position to grab the attention of travelers eager

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Speaker 1: for a quick distraction on their way to the Everglades

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Speaker 1: or the Florida Keys. It was also five times the

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Speaker 1: size of his original site, which allowed Ed to keep

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Speaker 1: expanding his megalithic work. Indeed, another theory for the move

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Speaker 1: is that Ed had exhausted the available oo light in

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Speaker 1: Florida City, Whether catalyzed by a fresh location or a

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Speaker 1: fresh reserve of stone, He set to work with renewed vigor. First,

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Speaker 1: he constructed a set of walls to curtain his new site.

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Speaker 1: Each of the three foot thick slabs weighed over six

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Speaker 1: tons apiece, and they were assembled with such precision that

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Speaker 1: no beam of light shone through them. The new additions

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Speaker 1: to the castle were easy to distinguish, as the stone

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Speaker 1: quarried at the new site at a darker, grainier tint

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Speaker 1: than the near white coral he'd been working with previously.

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Speaker 1: They are also even more sophisticated than his earlier pieces.

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Speaker 1: The telescope, for instance, is a twenty five foot twenty

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Speaker 1: ton column sitting just outside the main wall. It has

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Speaker 1: no lenses, mirrors, or magnification of any kind, merely a

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Speaker 1: large hole cut near the top with two wires overlapping

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Speaker 1: like a gunsight. If a viewer were to look through

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Speaker 1: the small holes carved in the curtain wall and line

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Speaker 1: up their perspective with the corresponding hole in the telescope,

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Speaker 1: they will find the location of the North Star on

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Speaker 1: any given night of the year. It's a feat of

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Speaker 1: astronomical mapping, not dissimilar from that encoded in Stonehenge or

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Speaker 1: other megalithic structures. Another nod to the stars is glimpsed

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Speaker 1: in the most photographed of all ed sculptures, the Crescent

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Speaker 1: of the East, a moon shaped slab of coral jutting

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Speaker 1: up from a low wall. Around it sat similarly massive

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Speaker 1: representations of Mars and Saturn. The castle also features a

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Speaker 1: large Sunday, carved from a single piece of stone and

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00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:06,720
Speaker 1: accurate enough to keep time within a few minutes throughout

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Speaker 1: the year. And there was the sun Couch, a huge

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Speaker 1: circular stone bed that could swivel at a touch to

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Speaker 1: face the sun throughout the day. It's this bet that

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Speaker 1: the writer Joe Bullet had suggested ed used to aid

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Speaker 1: his recovery from TB through self administered sun therapy. But

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Speaker 1: the greatest mysteries both of the man and his work

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Speaker 1: were found in the structure known as the Tower. The

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Speaker 1: tower is where Ed lived, worked and pursued his strange

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Speaker 1: scientific theories, and it's where the story of Ed slides

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Speaker 1: into the truly unfathomable. The tower itself is just one

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Speaker 1: more confidence with the seemingly superhuman. It is built from

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Speaker 1: blocks weighing five to ten tons and roofed with thirty

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Speaker 1: one ton blocks. Inside a staircase winds up to Ed's

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Speaker 1: living quarters, where his bed hung suspended from the ceiling

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Speaker 1: on chains allowing him to adjust the angle and height

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Speaker 1: to his whim. Designed to mitigate Ed's ongoing struggles with tuberculosis,

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Speaker 1: as elevated sleeping upright can help reduce breathing difficulties. Ed

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00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:35,840
Speaker 1: liked to claim that he was entirely cured of the disease,

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Speaker 1: but both the nature of his sleeping arrangements and his

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Speaker 1: steadily declining health suggest otherwise. It's mystery enough that he

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Speaker 1: lasted as long as he did. It's the ground floor workshop, however,

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Speaker 1: that contains the apparatus most central to the legends circling

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Speaker 1: Ed leeds gownen there Ed stored his radio and its generation,

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Speaker 1: both of which play a part in the more esoteric

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Speaker 1: theories about Coral Castle. Some have proposed that Ed's homemade

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Speaker 1: radio was used to contact extraterrestrial support. They point to

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Speaker 1: the surprising strength of his simple arrangement made from copper

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Speaker 1: wire and a mason jar, and when people queried how

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Speaker 1: he'd accomplish so much, with an enigmatic smile, Ed would

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Speaker 1: simply reply, I know the secrets of the ancient Egyptians. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: for conspiracy theorists comparing Coral Castle to the Pyramids of

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Speaker 1: Gezer or other mysterious ancient sites, extraterrestrial help is a

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00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:46,680
Speaker 1: tantalizing prospect. Some even suggest that Ed himself was an

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Speaker 1: alien who'd come to Earth with all the knowledge of

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Speaker 1: the heavens, though why he would use such universal wisdom

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Speaker 1: to build a coral castle in Florida remains to be answered.

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00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:03,679
Speaker 1: The generator, however, is implicated in the most obscure theory

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Speaker 1: about Coral Castle, one based on Ed's own scientific reasoning,

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Speaker 1: as we briefly covered in Part one. In nineteen thirty six,

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Speaker 1: Ed published a pamphlet concerning electromagnetism and the True nature

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Speaker 1: of matter, In Ed's hypothesis, it is magnets, not atoms,

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Speaker 1: that are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, that

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00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:33,119
Speaker 1: everything that is made up of subatomic magnets, each with

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Speaker 1: their own north and south pole. Gravity, to Ed's mind,

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00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:42,119
Speaker 1: was simply the pull of the Earth's vast magnetic core

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Speaker 1: on this magnetic fabric of the world. And if we

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Speaker 1: follow Ed's logic far enough by reversing the polarity of matter,

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00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 1: he would then be able to counteract the gravitational pull

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Speaker 1: of the Earth. But to do so, as Ed pointed out,

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00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 1: would require a great deal of consistent power. Could the

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00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: answer be found in that strange black box spotted on

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Speaker 1: top of its tripod? Edward Leedscowdin's writings are so convoluted

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00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: and compromised by his middling grasp of English that it's

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Speaker 1: difficult for the lay person to follow. Some of those

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00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 1: who claim to understand it believe that not only did

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Speaker 1: Edward manufacture a way to make his coral monoliths levitate,

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00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:38,400
Speaker 1: he had also invented a perpetual motion machine, a device that,

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00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 1: once set in motion, would spin, whir or tick forever,

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Speaker 1: drawing no fuel, losing no energy, and producing endless work,

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Speaker 1: as if it had stolen a secret from the universe itself.

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Speaker 1: Inventors have been chasing this impossible dream for centuries. Ancient sketches,

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00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: mysterious devices, whispers in dusty manuscripts all hint at humanity's

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00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: obsession with creating a machine that could self run forever.

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Speaker 1: If Ed had indeed made one, it would have required

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Speaker 1: breaking not only the first but also the second law

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Speaker 1: of thermodynamics, and bending the very fabric of reality as

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Speaker 1: we know it. Some have suggested this is exactly what

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00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: he was hiding in his black box. Others have suggested

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00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:32,919
Speaker 1: it was in fact his generator. Though it's a humble

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00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 1: looking combination of flywheel and handle. The theory suggests that

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00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: Ed could have attached strong magnets to the wheel, then

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00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: when it was turned, electromagnetic forces would ricochet between these magnets,

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Speaker 1: creating perpetual motion and a limitless energy source. All of

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00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: this speculation was put to work in the claim that

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00:24:55,640 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: Ed had somehow managed to overcome gravity. It sounds dubious

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00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 1: at best, but one local legend commonly retold in the

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Speaker 1: years before Ed published his magnetic hypothesis, offers a possible

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Speaker 1: glimpse into the truth. One night under the silvery glow

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Speaker 1: of the moon. As the story goes, a group of

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Speaker 1: teenagers spotted Ed walking across its land, singing to himself,

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Speaker 1: while a huge stone appeared to be levitating right in

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Speaker 1: front of him. Without the mirror's touch, the teen said

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Speaker 1: he was able to move it along and simply float

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Speaker 1: it into place. There is one stone at Coral Castle

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00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: that tour guides use even today to prompt questions about

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Speaker 1: Ed's secret understanding of strange forces. At the very start

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Speaker 1: of a modern tour, visitors will encounter the three ton gait.

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Speaker 1: This is a thick, triangular slab that, despite its weight

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Speaker 1: and bulk, is balanced gently on a car axle. Tour

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Speaker 1: guides will ask for a volunteer to step forward and

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Speaker 1: raise their arm above the stone. When they do, the

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Speaker 1: guide will try and fail to push the guests armed down.

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Speaker 1: The guide will then tilt the angle of the three

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Speaker 1: ton git on its axle and try again. Supposedly, this

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00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: time the visitor's arm will drop without resistance. This experiment

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00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: is offered as proof that the stones at Coral Castle

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Speaker 1: have a strange effect on the energy fields around them.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the nineteen forties, Ed was in

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Speaker 1: his early sixties and his health was in steady decline.

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Speaker 1: He was gaunt and half starved on a self administered

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Speaker 1: diet of crackers and sardines, and loneliness had taken its

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00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: own toll. The end was imminent. For a man who

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00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: lived a life cloaked in mystery and law, why would

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00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: death be any different. The oft told tale of Ed's

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00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: final days is that he simply hung a sign on

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Speaker 1: the doorway of Coral Castle that read going to the hospital,

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Speaker 1: where he died three days later. The truth is a

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Speaker 1: little less laconic. Ed checked himself into Miami's Jackson Hospital,

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Speaker 1: where he deteriorated over a span of four weeks. When

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Speaker 1: he finally slipped away, the cause of death was registered

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Speaker 1: as an acute kidney infection which had turned to sepsis.

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Speaker 1: It was a fittingly lonely end, perhaps for a man

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Speaker 1: whose life was always governed by a degree of solitary sadness.

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Speaker 1: But it was also a life that lasted far longer

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Speaker 1: than medical experts had ever thought possible, which included achievements

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Speaker 1: that no one has ever been able to sufficiently explain.

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Speaker 1: Some say that the mysteries of the man and his

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Speaker 1: Castle are entwined that Edward Leads Gownman emerged from the

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Speaker 1: anonymity of America in search of natural powers that allowed

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Speaker 1: him to live longer and do more than anyone could

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Speaker 1: have believed. Such a theory takes us full circle back

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Speaker 1: to where we began in episode one, A green corner

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Speaker 1: of Southwest England and the Puzzle of Stonehenge. It's long

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Speaker 1: been argued that Stonehenge sits on an important junction of

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Speaker 1: lay lines, and that that undeciphered power source holds an

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Speaker 1: answer to both the purpose and construction of the monument,

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Speaker 1: that it was built there to honor the power, and

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Speaker 1: because the power allowed it to be built. Lay Lines

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Speaker 1: are a global concept. If they do indeed exist, then

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Speaker 1: they gird the entire earth, and in a quiet corner

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Speaker 1: of southern Florida, some believe there is another vergence of

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Speaker 1: the lines right in the town of Homestead, home to

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Speaker 1: Edward Leeds Scownden's Coral Castle. For what it's worth, Homestead

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Speaker 1: just so happens to more or less mark the edge

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Speaker 1: of one particular region famous for its association with unseen

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Speaker 1: forces and inexplicable phenomena, a place where the rules of

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Speaker 1: reality are routinely said to bend Falter and break the

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Speaker 1: Bermuda triangle. This episode was written by Neil McRobert and

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Speaker 1: produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Thank you as ever

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00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: for listening Unexplained as an Avy Club production podcast created

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00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,

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00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.

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00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.

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00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and

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00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever

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00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in

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Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've

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00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or

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00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: a story of your own you'd like to share. You

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00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and

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00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: reach us online through x and Blue Sky at Unexplained

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Speaker 1: Podcast