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I'm providing a few links on this staircase....of course I prefer the nuns' theory but I'll be fair and include Snopes too.

In short, this spiral staircase was built for Sante Fe NM nuns by an unknown mysterious carpenter. No nails, no support means, just pegs. They attributed this to something miraculous. Snopes says no, but whichever way you go, I think it's an interesting story.

http://www.evanderputten.org/special/ne ... oretto.htm

http://www.csicop.org/si/9811/i-files.html

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/loretto.asp

Yikes, it didn't originally have a railing!

Starring Barbara Hershey as the terminally ill mother superior and William Peterson as the enigmatic carpenter


:wah: That's realistic!

of the two wood stringers (or spiral structural members) the inner one is of such small radius that it "functions as an almost solid pole" (Easley 1997).

There is also another support -- one that goes unmentioned, but which I observed when I visited the now-privately owned chapel in 1993. This is an iron brace or bracket that stabilizes the staircase by rigidly connecting the outer stringer to one of the columns that support the loft