WILLIAM SHATNER: A sprawling, ancient city
located entirely underground.
A giant, stone tomb built to be a gateway
to the afterlife.
And 11 enormous churches that were carved
out of solid rock.
Throughout the world, there are ancient structures
that seem to defy explanation.
Monuments so massive
and so intricately constructed
that even with today's technology,
they would be nearly impossible to duplicate.
How were ancient civilizations able
to build such extraordinary structures?
And perhaps more importantly,
what purpose did they serve?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
High in the mountains of northern Ethiopia,
a mile and a half above sea level,
lies the city of Lalibela.
Each year, tens of thousands of worshippers
make the arduous journey here,
despite its remote location,
to visit 11 of the strangest
holy places on Earth.
Lalibela is one of Africa's
most mysterious sites.
It's a complex of 11 monolithic churches that are
hewn right out of the bedrock.
Most churches are built on the surface,
and they're built from the bottom up.
Whereas in Lalibela, they're built from the top down.
It's the only place on the Earth that has cathedrals that are
built underground as opposed to being built on the surface.
ANDREW COLLINS: What makes the Lalibela churches so unique
is not just their building construction,
which is unlike anything else in the world,
but also the otherworldly feel of the complexes
where these different monuments can be found.
Entering into the complex of churches
was almost like entering another realm.
Almost as if those who constructed Lalibela
had a ritual function,
and that was to bring themselves closer to God.
STEVE BURROWS: It's an incredible piece of engineering,
this idea that you build 11 churches below ground,
but it creates its own unique problems.
How do people get down there?
How did they move all of the rock out and where did it go?
Uh, those are the things that start running through my mind.
SHATNER: Dating back to the 12th century A.D.,
each of Lalibela's 11 churches
was painstakingly carved by hand,
and from the outside, like enormous sculptures.
The complex also includes an extensive system of tunnels
and catacombs, all carved out of solid bedrock.
But why?
Why build a magnificent series of structures
in the toughest way possible?
COLLINS: The builder of Lalibela was a king
by this very name, Lalibela.
And it is said that, in the 12th century,
he was living in Jerusalem, and decided to come back
into Ethiopia and create
these monolithic churches.
And it's very clear that Lalibela,
in the design of these different churches,
was trying to replicate Jerusalem.
Indeed, he was trying to create a new Jerusalem.
So, by entering into this complex, it's almost like
you were entering into Jerusalem itself,
which was considered to be the most
holy shrine in the world.
MICHAEL GERVERS: It is described that Lalibela had a dream.
And in the dream he was instructed by God to go back and
make a copy of Jerusalem at the site.
And, in order to fulfill God's request,
King Lalibela and others who were involved
worked night and day for 20 years.
So, in their minds, right at the beginning,
they had a three-dimensional structure in mind.
Because, when they started, it was just a big piece of rock.
And how did they know that, if they were going to go
150 feet down into the ground,
that everything was okay?
Because the worst possible thing
would be that you'd almost finished, and then
you found that there was a massive problem at the bottom.
SHATNER: 11 underground churches,
some over 100 feet deep,
each carved from a single block
of stone in only 20 years' time?
Archaeologists date the churches back nearly a thousand years.
But even with today's modern technology,
such an incredible architectural feat
would be considered impossible.
So, how was it accomplished?
TRAVIS TAYLOR: If we go and build a big structure today, a skyscraper,
we have blueprints, we have engineering,
design pathways, and we have a construction plan.
It tells us how we will do every step of the way,
where every screw, nut, bolt, weld, poured concrete goes.
None of that exists for these large, ancient structures.
So, we really got to think outside the box
and try to find how they were done,
why they were done, and who built them.
WHITEHEAD: A very curious thing at Lalibela is that there are some
very unique carvings there, some very interesting symbols
that are carved into these churches.
Do they mean something if you put them together?
COLLINS: In the church of St. Mary at Lalibela,
there is the Star of David,
and this, along with a number of other mementos
and designs, are extremely indicative
of the presence of the Knights Templar.
This has suggested to many
that they may well have been present
during the construction
of the churches at Lalibela.
TOK THOMPSON: Now, the Knights Templar were a very interesting
religious order that became very powerful
during the Middle Ages,
but what people don't often realize is
they were very interested in building,
in, uh, geometry,
in, uh, numerology,
uh, and so, they're at once very practical
and pragmatic, and on the other hand,
also very spiritual and mystic.
WHITEHEAD: The Knights Templar had
a great amount of knowledge in masonry
and architecture and building structures.
Now, it's debated as to whether or not the Knights Templar
would have been in Ethiopia at this time.
But there's some interesting evidence that
an Armenian geographer at the time
documented seeing men with red and white regalia,
blonde or reddish hair, long hair,
which could indicate that he's talking about Templars.
So, it could be that the Templars themselves
were the ones that built Lalibela
or that they helped King Lalibela build the site.
SHATNER: Could Templar stone masons have influenced
the construction of the churches at Lalibela?
And if so, for what purpose?
COLLINS: If you look around Lalibela, there are altars there
that have spaces in them that would
precisely fit the Ark of the Covenant,
which was approximately four feet in length,
two feet wide, and around two feet in height.
It has been suggested that the rock-cut churches
at Lalibela were built to house the Ark of the Covenant.
SHATNER: The lost Ark of the Covenant--
the gold box which contained the original Ten Commandments--
could it have been hidden at Lalibela centuries ago?
During the Crusades, we know that the Templars
occupied the Temple of Solomon.
And so, it could be that they were
the keepers of the Ark of the Covenant.
And the more you look at Lalibela and given the fact
that we see that it's built underground,
you start to think, here we have these churches
that are hewn out of these megalithic rocks.
They're built like defensive structures.
They have all kinds of interesting
symbolism there that indicate Templars.
And you start getting the impression that this is
actually some kind of defensive fortress to protect something.
Was Lalibela originally built to house and hide
the Ark of the Covenant?
Well, if that's true, then it would certainly
explain why the churches resemble fortresses.
There's another ancient structure, located in Turkey,
that may also have a connection to the divine.
It's an ancient temple that some believe was built on the site
of the Garden of Eden.
SHATNER: While plowing his field, shepherd Safak Yildiz spots
a strangely-shaped stone emerging from the parched earth.
When he brushes away the dirt, he realizes the stone
may be part of a much larger object.
After reporting his find,
he is visited by archaeologist Klaus Schmidt
and a team from the German Archaeological Institute.
Further excavation reveals the stone is actually part
of a massive, elaborately carved
stone pillar, one
in what turns out to be dozens
that form an ancient underground complex.
Göbekli Tepe is arguably the most important
archaeological discovery in recent years.
We're talking about a whole series
of stone circles
built on the top of a mountain.
If you can imagine Stonehenge in England,
but multiply it by 20 times
and have these stones in circles
facing towards two massive, great monoliths,
as much as 18 and a half feet tall,
weighing between 15 and 20 tons,
this is what we see at Göbekli Tepe.
Göbekli Tepe could very well be the first lost civilization.
We've only uncovered a small percentage
of it, like ten or 15%.
We have no idea, really, how much bigger this is
and what else we're gonna find there.
We have to ask ourselves, "Could Göbekli Tepe
been a place of commerce and trade?"
And I think the answer is an undoubted yes
because its construction would have necessitated
the presence of not just hundreds,
but many thousands of people
coming from across the region who,
at the beginning, were hunter-gatherers.
SHATNER: While there are many theories,
the true purpose of Göbekli Tepe remains shrouded in mystery.
But no less mysterious than the stones themselves
is the lost civilization that fashioned them.
Because when sediment layers of the site
were carbon dated, it was shockingly revealed
that Göbekli Tepe is more than 12,000 years old.
PAUL BAHN: Göbekli Tepe really did send shockwaves
through the whole world of early pre-history
because we'd never before known or imagined, even,
that simple hunter-gatherers
could produce such spectacular monumental
structures as are found at Göbekli Tepe.
Now, many of these pillars also have remarkable carvings
on them, wonderful carvings
and bas-reliefs of animals,
birds, insects, all kinds of things.
So, to fashion those and carve them and set them up in these
structures was just absolutely amazing.
SHATNER: More than one-third of Göbekli Tepe's stone pillars
contain elaborate bas-relief carvings of various animals.
But what has many archaeologists and historians puzzled
is that many of the species depicted-- like geese
and armadillos and wild boar--
are not indigenous to the area.
That location just happens to be near where
Noah and the animals and the ark
ended the long journey through the flood.
And these giant pillars in Göbekli Tepe
have carvings of animals, many different kinds of animals.
Are these the animals from the ark?
Did the stories about those animals
end up being depicted in stone?
SHATNER: Could there really be a connection
between Göbekli Tepe and the great flood?
Perhaps.
But according to another audacious theory,
the animal carvings at Göbekli Tepe may have been
inspired by another, even older, Biblical story.
COLLINS: Göbekli Tepe is located in the very area
that the Bible tells us the Garden of Eden was located.
It is said that Eden was where the four rivers
of paradise took their rise.
Two of those rivers were the Euphrates
and the Tigris that flowed through Mesopotamia.
And these both rose in the same area as Göbekli Tepe.
Professor Klaus Schmidt, the German archeologist,
even suggested himself
that this could be the area of Eden
and the point of foundation of civilization.
SHATNER: The Garden of Eden?
It's a fascinating theory,
but one that is not without its problems.
Because archeological evidence shows that Göbekli Tepe
was not only later abandoned,
but also backfilled and deliberately buried.
Why would anyone want to leave and bury
paradise?
COLLINS: Around 8,000 B.C.,
the people of Göbekli Tepe just vanish.
They just disappear.
So, we have to ask ourself, where did they go?
Did they just vanish into oblivion?
What we know is that, recently, archeologists discovered
a number of human skulls that had been modified.
And what this means is that they had been sculpted
or that they had been pierced,
uh, so that they could be hung up,
perhaps on some kind of frame or platform.
WHITEHEAD: They found skulls that are smashed in,
they've found remains that look as if there's been
some kind of mass ritual or murder or sacrifice going on.
There may have actually been a skull cult there.
Do we know what these people were doing? Of course not
because they were doing this thousands
of years before writing took place.
We can try and guess.
We-we know important rituals took place there.
Klaus Schmidt would talk about this as Eden.
I think what he meant was this is an Edenic society because
if you look at the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible,
that's a hunter-gatherer society,
that's before we discover agriculture.
And so, the fact that here's this place, Göbekli Tepe,
it's really challenging our understandings
of our own origins, our own religious origins.
And you start thinking about what else we're gonna find.
BAHN: It remains to be seen what will be found
in the rest of the site.
But certainly, I'm sure Göbekli Tepe
has plenty more surprises for us.
Every new enclosure excavated, every new piece of evidence
puts another piece in the jigsaw,
but also at the same time raises new questions
that we find very difficult to answer.
Whether or not Göbekli Tepe has a connection to stories
from the Bible, one thing appears to be certain:
it was built for a profound purpose.
Which is also the case with another massive stone structure.
One that can be found in the Irish countryside,
and may have served as a bridge between the living
and the dead.
SHATNER: Rising above this region's lush fields,
not far from the banks of the River Boyne,
is one of the most mysterious ancient tombs in the world.
Newgrange.
This massive stone structure
has a diameter of 87 yards,
or nearly the size of a football field.
Newgrange is the envy of monuments all around the planet.
The thing that people say when they come here is
they're surprised how big it is.
It is huge. It takes up over an acre
of ground, and there is an estimated
200,000 tons of stone in the monument.
SHATNER: According to archaeological findings,
Newgrange was built around the year 3200 BC,
making it centuries older than both Stonehenge
and the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
Because Newgrange is so ancient,
there's still much that we don't know about the people
who built this extraordinary tomb.
MURPHY: Probably one of the most fascinating
things about Newgrange is the fact that it was built
in pre-metal days,
just as the Stone Age was kind of sort of coming to a close.
And it's difficult to imagine how ancient people were able to
assemble this massive monument, but they managed to do so.
TUFFY: A lot of work went into the building of this monument,
and it was all done with extreme precision.
Inside, there are carved stones.
And then you come into a chamber, which is quite roomy.
So, you have this cathedral-like feeling when you walk inside.
MURPHY: Newgrange is what archaeologists refer to as a passage tomb.
It has a passage leading into the interior.
And in that interior, human bones have generally
been found, in different quantities.
THOMPSON: There are human remains in these places,
but the most common, um, burial practice
around this time was cremation.
So, we find most people would be cremated and then interred.
In the traditional Irish folklore
that dates way, way back,
the other world of the dead--
it sort of overlapped with our own.
So, the idea is that these sites would sort of allow
for this passage between the realm of the dead
and the realm of the living.
TUFFY: On the back recess of the inner chamber there is a tri-spiral.
The most common interpretation that people
come up with is that it represents
this constant cycle of renewal and regeneration.
On a spiritual level, it may promise rebirth
for the spirits of the dead.
The tri-spiral is unique to Newgrange.
And it's also found on the entrance stone
and throughout the tomb.
SHATNER: Archeologists who have studied Newgrange
have theorized that this ancient tomb
was intended to serve a profound and mystical purpose.
And as evidence, they point to a curious element of its design
that is visible only one day a year.
Newgrange is unusual in that it has
a very special aperture,
or opening, above the entrance.
On the day of winter solstice,
this glimmering golden beam of sunlight enters there
and pierces the darkness.
TUFFY: When the sun rises at winter solstice,
the light hits the chamber
for precisely 17 minutes.
And some even speculate that the spirits
would have used the light to leave the burial chamber
and go and join the deities.
SHATNER: Did the builders of Newgrange specifically
design it to be a gateway into the afterlife?
Some archaeologists believe that the answer is yes.
And they also claim that Newgrange was built
to allow those who stood within its inner chamber
to communicate directly with the dead.
MURPHY: In the case of Newgrange,
the notion of the sunbeam drawing out
the souls of the deceased and-and leading them
to that other world, is not just a one-way ticket.
It was a portal between worlds.
Were the people inside there-- the priests,
for instance, the druids-- were they in contact
with the ancestors who'd gone before?
TUFFY: The builders of the monument
have created a space which is separate,
which is a world for the dead.
There is always a feeling that this is a house for the spirits.
Where consulting with the ancestors,
asking advice from the ancestors,
would have happened 5,000 years ago,
which is extraordinary.
SHATNER: Was Newgrange constructed to be not only a tomb
but also a place where the living
communicated with the dead?
It's an intriguing theory,
which is why archaeologists continue to study Newgrange
in the hope of one day unraveling all of its mysteries.
THOMPSON: How people choose to handle their remains
always tells you a lot about what people
think about the afterlife.
Where are they going?
What is the relationship between the soul and the body?
And in Newgrange, this had a lot to do
with this notion that the dead are still around
and perhaps can see you even if you can't see them.
So, in a sense, with Newgrange,
we might even say that the dead did achieve immortality.
The theory that Newgrange was built to be not just a tomb
but also a gateway
between our world and the afterlife
suggests that some ancient structures may have served
a higher purpose than we might have once believed.
In fact, there's a vast underground city
that was constructed more than 2,000 years ago
that some believe was designed to ensure
the survival of the human race.
SHATNER: Bordered by the Black Sea to the north
and by the Taurus Mountains to the south
lies the craggy regions of Cappadocia.
Here, wind, water, and time
have sculpted the volcanic rocks into bizarre
and almost surreal shapes.
But, believe it or not, the most unusual thing
that was ever discovered in this otherworldly landscape
was found not above ground but far below.
In 1963, during a simple home renovation
in the town of Derinkuyu,
a cave wall was punctured, revealing a passageway
to what appeared to be an intricate underground city
thousands of years old and more than 280 feet deep.
Derinkuyu is a pretty amazing story 'cause,
just imagine that you're working in your basement one day,
you knock a hole in the wall,
and what you find is a-a city that is sort of the size
of a-a really large castle, but it's actually underground,
uh, and it was done in a time before there was
really any mechanical means to provide
water or ventilation or any of those things.
COLLINS: The only thing on the surface that you can see
are what appear to be wells.
As you approach Derinkuyu,
you would certainly not be aware
that you were walking over
the position of an underground city.
It would have been the home for thousands of people at a time
at some point in the distant past.
SHATNER: Experts believe that Derinkuyu housed an estimated
20,000 men, women, and children, and included
religious centers, storerooms, and living rooms.
Many archaeologists and scholars propose that Derinkuyu
was most likely built around 800 B.C. by the Phrygians,
a Bronze Age people related to the Trojans,
and was intended to serve as a temporary shelter from invasion.
But others believe it was built by the Hittites,
a warrior people mentioned in the Bible
who flourished a few hundred years before that.
BURROWS: It's in a place that's had multiple wars.
There's conflict taking place all the time.
And when you're above ground, people can see you for miles.
You know, each night, you're lighting fires
to get some light inside the space.
And so that can be seen from 20 miles or more.
Once they go below ground, they're invisible.
JOHN BRANDENBERG: It has massive stones that can be lowered to block
passageways that human beings can only go through
in single file, making it very easy to defend.
There are also rumors that it is connected by a vast
tunnel system going many, many kilometers to other
underground cities in the neighborhood.
So, it had emergency escape routes.
So, the whole thing was a quite remarkable
subterranean fortress.
SHATNER: While there is evidence to suggest
that several different cultures have used Derinkuyu
as a fortified sanctuary,
in the centuries that have passed since its initial
construction, some researchers
have theorized that it is much, much older
than mainstream archaeologists think.
And that its original architects had an even bigger threat
in mind when they built it.
COLLINS: The curator of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia,
Ömer Demir, had found the evidence
suggesting that each of the different stories
or levels would seem to have been constructed
by different cultures at different times.
And what he found was incredible.
For he discovered that there were tools,
stone tools, here, that dated back to paleolithic times.
The implications of this are enormous
because what this suggests is that
Derinkuyu goes back at least 12,000 years
and was present at the end of the last ice age
and may well have been
a place where our ancestors sought refuge
at the time of a cataclysm,
a cataclysm that may well have devastated
large parts of the Earth
at the very end of the paleolithic era.
SHATNER: A cataclysm?
Could it be that the original inhabitants of Derinkuyu
built it as a shelter to protect them
during the Earth's last great ice age?
A time when the Earth's climate was estimated to be more than
ten degrees colder than it is now?
So cold that hardly anything could
grow or even survive above ground.
MICHAEL DENNIN: When you build your city underground,
you get two major off-the-top advantages,
one sort of environmental.
You're gonna have great thermal properties.
It's gonna be cool when you need it to be cool,
but it won't get too cold, so it'll be kind of warm enough
when you need it to be warm.
Thinking about when this was built and inhabited
really remains this exciting, mysterious, open question.
Even this idea of other cities underground,
like, how common was that for humans to build their homes
underground versus on the surface of the ground?
It does feel like we've just really
scratched the surface of what could be below us.
There could be much more. There could be many more
of these cave systems in Turkey.
So, there's mystery still to be found
deep within the Earth.
SHATNER: The truth is we may never know for sure why
or even how these ancient underground cities were built.
And that's especially true in the case of Derinkuyu,
because the secrets of its construction techniques
seem to have disappeared
along with whoever built it.
BURROWS: Even today, with all of the modern technology
that we have, it would be incredibly complicated and
a massive undertaking to do something like that.
And sometimes we look at these ancient marvels
and we try and figure out could we build that today
to that level of accuracy, that sort of quality
of construction in that amount of time?
And the answer's no, which is pretty amazing that,
several thousand years later,
they're better than us.
It's humbling to think that more than 2,000 years ago
the builders of Derinkuyu possessed
engineering knowledge that exceeds our own.
And it's also a reminder that our ancestors
were far more ingenious than we often realize.
For instance, the ancient Greeks constructed
a temple that is so brilliantly designed
that it's actually able
to deceive your eyes.
SHATNER: High atop the Acropolis in Athens, Greece
stands one of the most magnificent
and most aesthetically pleasing structures in the world:
the Parthenon.
This 23,000 square foot temple was
constructed using 100,000 tons of radiant white marble.
The exterior of the Parthenon is lined
with 46 colossal columns,
which strikingly appear to be laid out
in the shape of an exact rectangle.
And what's more astonishing is that
the more than 13,000 stone blocks
used to assemble the Parthenon
were precisely fitted together
without the use of mortar.
Which begs the question: how were the ancient Greeks
able to build something that looks so perfect?
YOUNG: The Parthenon is an amazingly beautiful structure.
The design, the spacing of each stone
is so perfect that it inspires just to look at.
The proportions are so exact for a large building
it is an amazing thing, and it lifts the spirit upward.
SHATNER: Built beginning in 447 B.C. on the orders of the famed
statesman and general Pericles,
the Parthenon celebrates the Athenians' victory
over Persian invaders
who had tried to conquer the city for 50 years.
DORAN: Athens during the time of the building of the Parthenon is
an incredible cosmopolitan, vibrant city.
It's producing art, literature,
sculpture, architecture.
It's the Manhattan of the fifth century B.C.
And I think if you're an Athenian citizen walking,
doing your everyday work, and then you see the Acropolis
in the center of the city, this incredible shining hill,
and then you see the Parthenon, the gleaming marble,
the biggest and most beautiful Greek temple
that existed, at least in mainland Greece at this point,
you'd be filled with a sense of wonder.
SHATNER: Although most of the interior of the Parthenon has decayed
due to the ravages of time,
the rectangular symmetry of its exterior
looks flawless to this day.
But strangely, for a temple that was clearly built
with perfection in mind,
what makes the Parthenon so fascinating
is actually its imperfections.
Not only were the Greeks masters of geometry,
they were also masters of optical illusions.
They knew the fact that your eye plays tricks on you.
Therefore they built the Parthenon
"slightly incorrectly" to compensate for this,
so that the net result is perfection.
DORAN: The Parthenon is a rectangle,
but there are no right angles in the entire building.
Everything is slightly off.
The columns look straight from below,
but they are slightly tilted toward each other.
So, if you were standing at the base of the Parthenon
and if the columns didn't stop after a certain number of feet,
but they kept on going all the way up into the sky,
you would see the columns meeting
if they were long enough to actually meet.
This is a very curious thing that the builders did.
KAKU: It turns out that the Parthenon does not
have straight parallel lines at all.
The columns are not vertically cylindrical at all.
They bulge by about an inch at the center of the cylinder.
So, for example, the human brain looking at a column
will actually think that the waist is pinched.
Your eye thinks that the center of the cylinder is shrunk.
To compensate for that,
the columns at the Parthenon bulge.
There is no way this could have been an accident.
SHATNER: But is that all the Greeks were trying to achieve--
an optical illusion?
Or could they have had another purpose in mind
when they built the Parthenon?
COLLINS: Why do we create monuments like the Parthenon?
And the answer is
we want to try and imitate the divine.
The divine was seen as perfection.
The gods are seen as perfection.
And so, sacred geometry
has been incorporated into the Parthenon
in the belief that it was now endowed
with some kind of divine power.
And this was done very specifically
to connect the mundane with the divine,
to create the connection between this world and the next.
It's hard to look at the Parthenon
and other marvelous structures
from the ancient world and not feel a sense of awe
at what our ancestors accomplished.
But in the early 20th century, one man attempted
to unravel the engineering secrets
of the ancients by creating his own monuments
built entirely out of giant stones.
SHATNER: In this small town, tucked away between
Miami and Everglades National Park,
stands an elaborate stone edifice.
The locals call it Coral Castle.
Sculpted from massive blocks of coral,
this incredible structure features a five-ton,
heart-shaped table,
a 28-ton obelisk,
and a perfectly balanced nine-ton door
that opens with the touch of a finger.
And even more incredible than this marvel of design and
engineering is the fact that it was built by just one man,
and nobody knows how he did it.
R.L. POOLE: Ed Leedskalnin was an immigrant from Latvia
who immigrated to the United States, and
he built the only modern megalithic structure ever known.
The Coral Castle is 1,100 tons of coral bedrock
that he dug out of the property on which it rests.
He was only about five feet tall,
but he managed to move hundreds of tons of coral rock
into this megalithic modern temple.
He had no technology there that could have
lifted these stones or cut the stones
and yet it's there to this day.
And the story goes that Ed Leedskalnin built this
incredible megalithic site using only a few pulleys,
a tripod, he did it all by himself,
and he worked at night, and he was very secretive.
SHATNER: From 1923 until 1951,
Leedskalnin perfectly shaped, lifted, fitted,
and stacked over two million pounds of limestone.
For decades, hundreds of the world's
top architects and engineers have come to this place
to solve the mystery of its construction.
The tripods, for instance, were three pieces of Florida pine,
about the same size as a telephone pole.
He used five-ton chains, he used a ten-ton chain hoist,
yet, somehow, was able to impossibly
lift stones that were wider than the tripods' diameter,
that were taller than the tripods stood,
that weighed more than the chains were rated for.
TAYLOR: There has to be some other
technology being used here,
or this is one of the best magic tricks
ever pulled over on mankind.
So, what could it have been?
Did he learn some unique mechanical trick?
Or did he learn some new physics?
POOLE: He was found often at the public library
studying the Egyptians,
studying ancient megalithic structures.
Ed said he knew the secrets of the pyramids.
I believe this to be accurate.
He was able to replicate their accomplishments,
which enabled him to be able to create something
which, by any other standard, you cannot do.
TAYLOR: Ed claims in his notes
that he used reverse energy or antigravity.
The question is what did he mean by this?
The device that Ed used, or allegedly used,
to move these rocks were an old-school tripod
that had a large black box on top of it.
We don't know what was in that box,
and Ed never says what was in that box.
We could speculate that it's some device
that he's created that enables him to lift more weight
than he should be able to lift with this
rudimentary tripod fulcrum and lever system,
but we have no idea what it was he did.
What makes the Coral Castle so unique and mysterious
is that no one has ever been able
to replicate his results using his methods.
What this means is that he knew something that we do not know.
Did Edward Leedskalnin rediscover building techniques
used by our ancestors?
Well, if he did, he took their secrets to the grave.
So, for now, we'll continue to try
to understand just how ancient temples, churches
and tombs were constructed thousands of years ago.
And perhaps one day we too will unlock
the secrets of these extraordinary structures
that, for now, remain...
unexplained.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS