A gravity-defying spiral staircase at Loretto Chapel, a half-mile from the Capitol in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was built without any support, nails, screws, or the use of any power tools. The staircase is held together by wooden pegs (with no glue).[1] It does two full 360-degree turns to reach a choir loft 22 feet above. Its builder was an unknown visitor to the Chapel around 1880, who worked without pay and used wood unavailable in the area. This helix staircase was featured on an Unsolved Mysteries television episode and is widely discussed on the internet. Diane Ladd, an Academy Award-nominated actress and the mother of actress Laura Dern, starred in a movie about this entitled The Staircase.[2]
| “ | Three mysteries surround the spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel: the identity of its builder, the type of wood used, and the physics of its construction.[3] | ” |
There are precisely 33 steps in this helix staircase - apparently one for each year in the life of Jesus.[4] Almost certainly its builder was an angel.
This spiral staircase is analogous to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is written in perfect, magnificent Greek by an unknown author. Today the spiral staircase is a marvel of carpentry that would be exceedingly difficult to duplicate even with the use of modern power tools and metal, let alone with merely pegs and glue by a single carpenter in 1880.
This spectacular spiral staircase is a central attraction for visitors to Santa Fe to this day, and is also the location of special events such as weddings.
Mysterious wood
| “ | [T]he manager of the privately owned chapel (1991-2006), Richard Lindsley, took a piece of wood from the staircase and sent it for analysis to find out what kind of wood it was. When the results came back, they showed that it was spruce, but of an unknown subspecies. This specific wood was very strong with molecules dense and square which is something that you usually find in trees that grow very slowly in very cold places – like Alaska. However there was no such wood in the area and no local trees grow in the Alpine tundra (approximately 2,000 to 3,000 meters) in the surrounding area. The closest place that he would find this density in trees was in Alaska, but of course back then transport was not the same as it is now and wood was not transported over such long distances.[5] | ” |
The U.S. Navy tested the wood and determined that it is unique from no known type of tree or DNA.[6]
Skeptics
Skeptics cannot deny that the helix staircase exists, as many visit it annually. They also cannot deny that it lacks a center supporting column as other spiral staircases have support. Skeptics have denied that the Loretto staircase can support much weight, but the foregoing photo proves them wrong about that too.
Snopes tries to downplay this achievement and dispel this mystery, but its arguments are unpersuasive. For example, Snopes implies that a side connector added later (and visible above), to stop the springiness of the stairs, is somehow a support.[7] It plainly is not. Snopes also tries to disparage the original staircase as possibly being unsafe because it lacked a hand-railing, but that obviously misses the point and the hand-railing was trivial to add when desired. The Snopes analysis concludes with a slap at the private ownership of the chapel, by saying that they somehow have "a strong financial motive" to perpetuate a legend, as though anyone is getting rich off this.
Wikipedia's entry about this staircase likewise suffers from liberal bias. The wood is not even from New Mexico, which Wikipedia confirms but then ignores how that and other undeniable facts confirm this miracle.
Visits
This staircase attracts 300 to 1000 visitors per day.[6]
See also
- Official site
- News video story on YouTube
- Conference of experts study this staircase in 2024, and comment
- Gene Hackman described the Santa Fe area as having a "magic", and he moved there to live his final 35 years
- Road to Emmaus - this account in the Gospel of Luke echoes the playful disappearance of the carpenter who constructed this staircase.
References
- ↑ The Loretto Chapel, Loretto Chapel website
- ↑ See also the book Loretto and the Miraculous Staircase, by Alice Bullock.
- ↑ https://www.lorettochapel.com/info/staircase
- ↑ http://www.vcatholic.com/articles/supernatural-staircase-saint-joseph/
- ↑ https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/mysterious-helix-staircase-loretto-chapel-001295
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://youtu.be/u61Zi0X1Lw0
- ↑ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stairway-from-heaven/