Georgia Guidestones



The Georgia Guidestones were a granite monument created in 1980 in Elberton, Georgia, and demolished following vandalism via explosives in 2022. The monument consisted of four astronomically-aligned granite slabs, surrounding a central column, and topped by a capstone. Written on the four slabs were ten "guiding thoughts" left by the monument's anonymous sponsors. The monument was ordered by a pseudonymous Robert C. Christian, representing "a small group of loyal Americans", who referred to themselves only as "a small group of Americans who seek the age of reason" (referring to Thomas Paine's book on the Age of Enlightenment, The Age of Reason ).

Despite being designed to withstand most catastrophic events, the stones could not withstand the wrath of an irate conspiracy nut's bomb in 2022.

Inscriptions
I'm not sure what the inclusion of Swahili tells us, but the inclusion of Hebrew suggested to conspiracy theorists that a Zionist New World Order was responsible for the Guidestones. This, of course, presumes the existence of a Zionist New World Order conspiracy, and it presumes that such a conspiracy would be usefully served by the erection of a random granite monument in the middle of nowhere in Georgia. Both presumptions strain credibility. On each side of each of the four vertical slabs was an inscription of the ten "thoughts" in a different language, for a total of eight translations. Clockwise, from the northern stone, the languages were English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.

The "guiding thoughts" were as follows:

From the information available on Robert C. Christian, one could surmise that he was a deist:
 * He told the Guidestones' principle builder, John H. Fendley, Sr., that he represented "a small group of loyal Americans who believe in God."
 * He acknowledged Thomas Paine, a deist.
 * He did not include text specific to any religion.
 * He appealed to reason as a guiding principle.

Crank bonanza
I could also point out the ridiculousness of thinking that some sort of global Illuminati wrote down their plot for killing off 95% of humanity on a giant granite Post-It™ note, and left their secret plan somewhere no conservative would ever find it: rural Georgia.

Some conspiracy theorists (namely Alex Jones, who covers it in his movies) and miscellaneous religious folk demanded that the Guidestones be taken down, claiming that they were the blueprints for the New World Order. Because helping to cover up the warning of the impending NWO takeover would certainly stop the NWO (?). (Alas, these nutjobs finally got their wish after 40+ years of trying.) To be fair, the monument was kind of strange, but strange ≠ NWO conspiracy.

Van Smith is supposedly a "computer benchmarking expert, computer industry analyst and physicist". Smith is also an Arkansas Christian convinced that the Guidestones expressed totalitarian messages and intentionally foreshadowed the arrival of the Islamic Mahdi as an Antichrist figure. He also believed the Georgia Guidestones were linked through encoded numerological information to the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, which he viewed as a new Tower of Babel.

Similarly, conservative Christian conspiracy theorist Mark Dice mentioned the Georgia Guidestones in his 2005 book The Resistance Manifesto and argued for their destruction. He believes the Rosicrucian society — an alleged European "Satanic" Gnostic society originating in the 1600s — were responsible for the Georgia Guidestones, and that their aims were to leak these Satanic ideas written on the Guidestones into mainstream society. Dice also claimed that the "author" of the Georgia Guidestones text openly admitted to being a representative of the New World Order.

The main source of contention is with the first guiding thought. While most people at a fourth grade reading level know the word "maintain" doesn't mean the same as "cull", the NWO faithful claim it's a sure sign of their intent to kill 80 percent of the world's population. Because it's not likelier that the number chosen is just arbitrary — you know, like in much poetry and on much random art? Because it's far more likely that the entire monument was just one big, intentional surface-to-crank information missile, sent straight from the puppet masters.

The true identity of "Robert C. Christian" — the anonymous head of the supposed like-minded individuals — has never been revealed, and is purported to be only known by the owner of the quarry where the granite was taken from and built, and the banker who made the transaction. Many Elberton locals claim that it's most likely Ted Turner, a rich Georgian who's into New Age-type things, but we may never know. A 2015 Christian documentary Dark Clouds Over Elberton: The True Story of the Georgia Guidestones managed to film a case filled with alleged correspondence between one of the contractors and "Robert C. Christian" which suggest that the stones were commissioned by a Dr. Herbert Kersten of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Kirsten apparently had interests in conservation and population issues, but also wrote letters to newspapers praising none other than David Duke. If true, this gives the stone's second point of "guide reproduction wisely" rather unfortunate implications of race-based eugenics. Though if the eugenics allegation is true, why then write the inscriptions in Russian (spoken primarily by Europeans) and Swahili (spoken primarily by East Africans)?

In 2008, the Guidestones were vandalized by conspiracy theorists, who splattered it with polyurethane and painted on messages that read, among other things, "Jesus Will Prevail", "9/11 Inside Job", "Obama Iz [sic] a Muslim", "Fuck the NWO", "Skull and Bones Sucs [sic] Dick" and "The Elite Want 80% of Us Dead".

In early 2022, fringe GOP primary candidate for Governor of Georgia Kandiss Taylor made the demolishing of the Georgia Guidestones a foundational plank of her campaign, including it in her list of 10 Executive Orders she intended to pass as soon as she was elected (alongside banning furries from Georgia schools). Unfortunately for her, Taylor ended up finishing a distant third behind incumbent Brian Kemp and Trump-backed David Purdue, earning only 41,027 (3.4%) votes, meaning the stones would live to see another day (or at least until she and the MyPillow guy can prove the primary was rigged).

In July 2022, someone managed to destroy at least one of the four slabs using an explosive. Witnesses reported hearing an explosion or loud noise of some sort at approximately 4 AM local time, and aerial footage has shown one of the slabs reduced to rubble. The monument was subsequently demolished by authorities for "safety reasons". Memes of Trump blowing up the Guidestones appeared days and weeks before they were actually destroyed.