An explosive device that "unknown persons" detonated early on Wednesday demolished a granite monument in Georgia that had been advertised by state officials as "America's Stonehenge" and had been created under strange circumstances more than 40 years earlier.
The Georgia Guidestones monument included four granite slabs joined to a central pillar with a capstone on top. It was constructed around nine miles north of Elberton, Georgia.
However, at about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, an explosive device detonated, demolishing "a major amount of the facility," according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In collaboration with the Elbert County Sheriff's Office, it is looking into the explosion.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation published CCTV footage of the explosion, which scattered dust into the air and sent pieces of the monument outward, on Wednesday night. According to the agency, a vehicle can be seen departing the site shortly after in the video.
(1/3) The GBI is releasing surveillance video from this morning’s explosion that destroyed the Georgia Guidestones. pic.twitter.com/Vo3RyjDxdN
— GA Bureau of Investigation (@GBI_GA) July 6, 2022
It stated that the remaining pillars had been "totally destroyed" "for safety considerations."
The Guidestones have towered above a field for more than 40 years, enthralling and perplexing many people. The 19-foot granite slabs' significance and purpose are unknown, and only one guy claimed to be able to identify the donor who paid for them.
Wyatt Martin said that a different individual, going by the name of R. C. Christian, had purchased the granite slabs in 1979 after visiting the city in East Georgia.
According to Mr. Martin, who assisted in securing the agreement for the memorial, "I made an oath to that man, and I can't break it," he said in 2013. No one will ever know, he continued.
The self-proclaimed Granite Capital of the World is Elberton, a community of 4,000 inhabitants located more than 100 miles northeast of Atlanta. The Georgia Guidestones, described by the Georgia Department of Economic Development as "Elberton's most remarkable series of granite monoliths,"
The agency claims on its website that the granite slabs have a 10-part statement in 12 different languages that promote the preservation of future generations and mankind. It also functions as an astronomical calendar since the sun shines through a small opening in the construction to illuminate the date each day at noon.
Despite the sense of mystery surrounding the Guidestones, some locals claim to be uninterested in them. Some conspiracy theorists assert that the edicts were written on the stones, which include a directive to "connect mankind with a living new language" and advice to maintain the global population at 500 million, representing an elite scheme to depopulate the earth.
The far-right broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said in a video from 2020 that "they created this monument calling for forced depopulation of the world."
The monument, which Kandiss Taylor, a Republican running for governor of Georgia, referred to as the "Satanic Guidestones," appeared to welcome partial demolition in a tweet she sent.
Mart Clamp, a local merchant who assisted his father in the initial engraving of the Guidestones, expressed his "heartbreak" at the harm brought on by the explosion.
People who promoted conspiracies about the slabs "were constantly coming up with some kind of weird wackadoodle tale about them," he claimed.
Mr. Clamp said, "It's terrible that we live in a society that believes that demolishing things that you disagree with is okay. "I don't know what to say right now,"
Many neighborhood businesses, including his own, which engraves stone, had volunteered their time and resources to help repair the building, he claimed.
Mr. Clamp said, "We're going to reconstruct them if we're permitted to."
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