The Unexplainable

The Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico was originally a girls’ school. As was common in the 19th century, no stairway to the loft of the sanctuary was built, and the only way to access the loft was via an unstable ladder. The school needed stable access to the loft, but a full stairway would have taken too much space from the seating in the sanctuary below. 

To solve this, the nuns who ran the school gave a “novena” (nine-day-long prayer) to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, to solve their problem. On the ninth day, an unnamed and unidentified carpenter showed up and started building a tight stairway using rudimentary tools, and left without payment. The stairway is an architectural marvel, and for decades no one knew how it still stood, as there is no support in the middle. 

The carpenter was never found and never identified.