Haunted Coral Castle
It’s just weird.
All around the world, there are weird bizarre, truly odd constructions that simply defy human comprehension. Man-made structures that fray the very edges of sanity and make you do double-takes wondering what wild dream-inspired them. Buildings shrouded in mystery, purpose unknown, poking and prodding the surreal. Frames snatched from the creative fueled fevered mind of Dali. Spots riding the knife’s edge of beautiful and awful. Places not as weird as the haunted Coral Castle.
Then, there are places where you turn to your loved one and simply go:
“Shrooms… That’s the only explanation.”
Those wild college nights with Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz gifting you with on-point insight into the cerebral workings of the mad… or the terminally chilled and mellow.
Well, time to put on your stoner cap, switch Willie Nelson on, and find the Cheech to your Chong, because we are heading into a spot so out of left field that left field was pulled over by the pigs and kicked into the drunk tank. Reality on edge because someone spiked her punch and then went:
“You’ve never had molly? Damn, you have to give it a try. Here, I’m sure I have some…”
Coral Castle is reality two days after that exchange, pants on her forehead, and her neurons rewire. The sort of bad trip that makes Brian May come up with “Animal Sounds”. Everyone taking notice… even the supernatural.
Coral Castle is not only haunted, it’s also the only place on the planet where the supernatural visits religiously, almost on a pilgrimage, and scratches its head. It’s weird on weird action. It’s a conglomerate of the abnormal, visited by the outlandish and then worshipped by the peculiar… and that’s just a description of what happens during opening hours. Some of the tourists simply don’t pass the smell test; the place should employ a staff of lab coat wearing docs’ with butterfly nets. And it’s 24-hour madness. Once the day crew calls it quits, and the last doomsday prophet and tin foil wearing buffoon is kicked out, the nightly riff-raff, with sharp teeth, UFOs and ectoplasm, take up the baton and gives the shrine to the looney a look over. Aliens, boogiemen, vampires, the very Elder Gods, transdimensional deities, angels, demons, werewolves, pixie and the Winter Court of Fairy staring up at the conglomerate of structures and going, in unison:
“Holy Moley, what was this guy on?”
Coral Castle, where even the ethereal and omniscient is left dumbfounded.
What The Heck Is Coral Castle?
It’s something… ???Well, to be more exact it’s an oolite limestone structure, weighing several tons, in the unincorporated Miami-Dade County. It’s various carved out megalithic stones found between Homestead and Leisure City.
The whole bizarre menagerie of rocks was crafted by Edward Leedskalnin. The oddball genius did such a fine and intricate job that he connected the pieces such precision that no light passes through the joints. He did all of that on his own, without the aid of machines – moving tons of limestones from the coast, AFTER he dug it out by bare hand – and forgoing even mortar or cement.
The thing is so well built that the various structures haven’t even shifted an inch… in honeycombed land of shifting soul, sinkholes, and category 5 hurricanes.
The man sculpted from whole unbroken pieces of limestone, with few exceptions, dozens of patterns and designs. Sofas, obelisks, tables, thrones, crescent moons, chairs, and various outre objects.
“If anyone ever questioned Ed about how he moved the blocks of coral, Ed would only reply that he understood the laws of weight and leverage well. He also stated that he had “discovered the secrets of the pyramids”.
Who was Edward Leedskalnin?
The best way to do this in a quick dirty way, before you close the browser on account of “too much reading”, is to rip the band-aid off and do a timeline of Edward.
- Edward Leedskalnin leaves and migrates to America from Latvia after he was rejected and dumped by his 16-year-old fiancé in 1912.
- On the trip over he develops a terminal case of Tuberculosis. Physicians give him zero chance and start labeling him as a lost cause.
- Edward flips the docs’ the middle finger, not only survives but makes a miraculous recovery. Spontaneously he’s healed. The reason he later states: “magnets!”
- He moves from New York to Florida.
- He purchases a parcel of land in Florida City and makes forefather of Coral Castle, “Ed’s Place.”
- He decides to move, once more, from Florida City to Homestead. He picks up his structure and starts to transport it by land – mind you, this is Florida in the 30s, a place where roads were all but pipe-dreams and gators governed the land like the velociraptors they are. Ed transports, for about 3 years his art project through Jurassic Park.
- Once on Homestead, he starts creating Coral Castle.
- Ed publishes pamphlets and books on various subjects, his primary interest being magnetism.
- No one knows how but Ed, singlehandedly manages to move limestone rocks – some weighing more than a ton – from the coastline up to his encampment.
- For years he keeps his project a secret. The natives swear – whenever they get a gander at his structures – that the eccentric hermit is using magic, the supernatural and reverse magnetism to carve and move the rocks.
- Ed continues to build his castle until the day of his death,1951. The man had a stroke as a consequence of kidney failure.
- Years before he kicked the bucket, Ed was asked why he built the Castle. His only response was an enigmatic:
“Sweet sixteen.”
- Writers and scientists start to dig into Ed’s writings as if each is a DaVinci code waiting to be cracked. Numerological experts use his “Sweet Sixteen” reference as the key to deciphering the code of Ed’s far-fetched theories and ramblings.
- Billy Idol records the song “Sweet Sixteen” for his Whiplash Smile album. It was based on the love story of Leedskalnin and his girl. The music video was recorded at Coral Castle in 1986.
Given the aforementioned pedigree, is it any wonder that the modern-day Stonehenge attracts all manner of bat-guano insanity? Weird? Coral Castle left that mile marker in its rear mirror a long time ago… now it’s gone to a moorland where even that concept seems mundane by comparison.
The Strange Happenings of Coral Castle.
The massive roadside attraction is a carnival of weird.“Leedskalnin also crafted a sundial that tells the time within two minutes of accuracy. This solar clock stands directly across from a water pool carved from a huge slab of coral, with coral crescent moons on each side of the basin. The crescents represent the waxing and waning lunar cycles; the circular pool represents the full moon.”
- Michelle Delio, Wired.
The area seems to have an energy to it. Some have pinpointed the thaumaturgical surge to Ed’s genius-level manipulation of magnetic and natural forces, a sort of mutant power he long hinted at.
The Pandemonium Of Weirdness That is Haunted Coral Castle.UFOs
Florida is known for its alien sightings. Off the coast, you have the Bermuda Triangle, and up by the panhandle a place called Gulf-Breeze that’s a Spring Break bonanza for ETs and College snowbirds.
But The Coral Castle has all those places beat. The spot is a pit-stop for UFOs. The region is swamped by continuous sightings of little green man – or grey, depending on your beliefs – and massive formations of UFOs.
“The throne is really a representation of the seats used by alien pilots to control their ships. The attraction is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.”
- Bettina Rodriquez Aquilera 2018 candidate for Congress representing Florida’s 27th District; endorsed by the Miami Herald.
Ghosts
The region has more spooks than an Indian burial ground after land developers decide to “relocate” pesky relics.“At night you can see, near the tree lines, fireballs, and St. Elmo’s fire. During the day, cameras fritz out and when people develop the film they usually catch a specter or figure where there was none. The staff often report shrieks and screams coming from certain spots.”
One of the most recognizable phantoms in the area is that of Ed. He’s usually seen before dawn, taking measurements and looking at his kingdom dreaming on how to expand it.
Wildlife and Cryptids
Before the area around the castle flourished and land mongols beat back the brush, the Castle had a reputation for attracting wildlife. The place has a mystique to it and certain apex predators, like Florida panthers and gators, flocked to the spot like it was doused in AXE body spray.And, if that wasn’t enough, many people claim that a colony of the region’s Big Foot – The Skunk Ape – used to habitat the area around the Castle.
Fae
Fairy, pixies, hobgoblins, the Wild Hunt… The United States as a whole looks on the fairy folks in the same way little girls look at Tinker-bell – in awe and mesmerized by their cute innocent magic. In Europe, where the legends originated, the Fae make Jack The Ripper look cuddly. They are bloodthirsty, sinister tricksters that want nothing more than to play Chinese Stick on our dried-out rib bones.
The Castle seems to have become a favorite hunting ground to them. For some odd reason, there are always reports of strange creatures and elf-like beings prowling the massive structures. On certain nights people swear they hear the chattering of fearful beings in the Castle’s grounds.
“Some folks even come to strike a bargain with whatever is out there. Some think it’s a wendigo or some sort of wraith, but whenever we get some old-timer from the North – the European North – he comes up to us and tells us we got ourselves a fairy infestation. ‘You even got fairy road,’ so have even said. We used to laugh our tits off. Fairies! Then we went online and did a bit of reading. No wonder some of Europeans come out of this place as white as a sheet.”
Sometimes, going to the Coral Castle as a whole is like coming out of science experiment conducted by Timothy Leary.
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