Investigative journalist Joe Bullard returned to discuss the mysteries surrounding Florida's Coral Castle and its creator Ed Leedskalnin. The Castle and its gardens feature thousands of tons of coral rock that Leedskalnin, a frail man who weighed just 100 pounds, carved into artistic yet functional objects such as tables and chairs, a sundial and a huge perfectly balanced gate. While he made and moved these objects in secret, he claimed he used the same technology that the Egyptians built the pyramids with.

Leedskalnin said he built Coral Castle for his lost love Agnes who jilted him back in Latvia, but Bullard suggested that this tale might have been a cleverly disguised cover story for hiding his secret knowledge and scientific achievements. When Leedskalnin was in a hospital in 1951, shortly before his death, thieves stole some of his tools. Bullard believes this might have been a planned confiscation.

Leedskalnin left a message over his bedroom at the site: THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE IS 7129/6105195. One caller said that was the number from Leedskalnin's federal application for citizenship; another caller related the number to the "golden ratio." Bullard's book Waiting for Agnes, a fictionalized account of the Coral Castle story, incorporates the lore of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle into the plot.

Joe Bullard was born in Florida in 1951. He attended the University of West Florida and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism in 1974. He found out about the Coral Castle on the television series called "In Search Of" in September of 1984. During this time he was working at Lake City Community College as Public Information Director and Professor of a newspaper class. Joe spent 10 years of research at Coral Castle and started writing "Waiting for Agnes" in February of 1995. It took him five years to get the story on paper and almost four years to publish it.

April 3rd, 2007

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