So Supernatural - THE UNKNOWN: Georgia Guidestones

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

In small-town Georgia, there’s a strange monument with bizarre instructions for reordering society. The whole town knows how it got there, but nobody knows why—or just how dark a secret it may be hiding.

About 100 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia, outside the small town of Elberton, is a giant stone monument. It's about 20 feet tall, and its sides are inscribed with bizarre instructions written in eight different languages. It's ominous, to say the least. Nobody knows why the monument is there, who wanted it built, or even what it's for. But the story of how it was constructed might be just as baffling as the monument itself. This is Supernatural, and I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week, we're talking about a mysterious monument known as the Georgia Guidestones, a massive stone structure in the middle of the Georgia countryside. The monument is so grand and strange, it has even earned the nickname American Stonehenge because the mysteries surrounding it are utterly perplexing.

Coming up, we will try and uncover those mysteries, so stay with us. The story of the Georgia Guidestones begins in June of 1979 when a stranger came to Elberton, Georgia. He went straight to the offices of Elberton Granite Finishing. Elberton, by the way, calls itself the granite capital of the world. The town sits on top of a massive granite deposit, and it's known for quarrying a blue-gray type of rock that builders will pay really good money for. And that was the case with our mystery man, who was middle-aged, with gray hair, and dressed in a really expensive suit. When the owner of Elberton Granite Finishing, Joseph Fenley, met the stranger, he assumed the man was a businessman or an architect from Atlanta. This was already odd though, because no one came to visit the offices unless they absolutely had

to check on an existing project. And when they did, they always made an appointment or gave some kind of heads up. Instead, the man introduced himself as Robert C. Christian or R.C. Christian, a name Fenley had never heard before. He claimed to represent a small group of loyal Americans who believed in God and said that they wanted to build a monument as a message to future generations. Right away, Fenley thought this was some kind of hoax. He belonged to the Elberton Shriners, a club for Freemasons, and the members sometimes pulled pranks on each other. So an unnamed visitor with a weird request definitely fit the bill. This seemed even more likely when Christian started describing his monument. He wanted four large slabs, each of them about six and a half feet wide and over 16 feet tall,

sticking up from the ground and arranged in the shape of an X. And he said in the center would be a 16-foot pillar, and then resting on top of that pillar would be a thick square capstone. From an aerial view, this would look like a giant stone X with a small square covering its cross section. And altogether, it would be almost 20 feet high. Now listen, I'm not a monument expert, but apparently this kind of size and design is pretty hard to pull off. And Fenley's company only did wholesale projects, so immediately he was like, listen, no thanks, not interested. But

Christian kept insisting until finally Fenley got out his calculator and gave him a quote for what would equate to a few hundred thousand dollars today. It was pretty overpriced. But still, Christian didn't flinch. He simply asked for the name of a local bank. Again, this was strange. Usually, a customer would gather quotes from at least a couple other suppliers, but Christian seemed totally satisfied. So either he was clueless or money just wasn't an object. Fenley sent Christian over to Granite City Bank, where his friend Wyatt C. Martin was president.

And about a half hour later, Christian showed up at Martin's office. He gave him the exact same explanation that he had just given Fenley about this group of loyal Americans and the monument for future generations. But when Martin asked who this group was, Christian told him that they wanted to remain anonymous. Then he said that R.C. Christian wasn't even his real name. It was a pseudonym. Martin was pretty intrigued by all of this, but as soon as he heard Fenley's quote for the price, he started laughing and told Christian that he might as well throw his money in the gutter.

Christian just stared back at him with a kind of pitying look and said, you wouldn't understand. This sort of weirded Martin out, but it wasn't really his business to pry. Ultimately, the two men agreed to meet back at the bank the next week so they could discuss payment for the monument. When Christian left, Martin wondered if he would really ever even see him again. But sure enough, the following Monday, Christian came back. By now, Martin realized he had to take this guy at his word. He really wanted to build an overpriced monument. And as long as the money was legit, Joe Fenley had agreed to do all the building.

Before they moved forward, though, Martin told Christian he needed some sort of verifiable identity. And Christian said, okay, I will give that to you, but there are a few conditions. He said, I'll tell you who I really am as long as you sign an agreement promising to never, under any circumstances ever, reveal my true name. He also wanted Martin to act as his liaison for the project. Why Christian wanted Martin as his liaison is a little unclear.

From what I can tell, Christian saw Fenley at least a couple more times, so it's not like he was trying to avoid all contact with other people. So it's more likely that Martin's name was somehow attached to the transactions between the bank and Fenley, but without seeing any paperwork, honestly, it's kind of hard to know, which brings up another stipulation Christian made. He wanted Martin to destroy all documents related to the project as soon as it was finished. Martin agreed to all of this.

He even came up with a method for Christian to wire money from other banks in the country so that the grand total would be hard to trace. Then, supposedly, the two men put their agreement in writing. After this, R.C. Christian finally told Martin his real name. But according to Martin, R.C. Christian never said a word about who his mysterious group was. And to this day, Martin claims that he never even asked. Now, people who know Martin have vouched that he's an upstanding guy and a devout Christian. And as far as we know, R.C. Christian's real identity didn't bother Martin or stir up any of

his religious convictions. But that's about as much credibility as we can give to whoever Christian really was. Either that or Martin never bothered to dig too deep. At some point that week, Christian stopped by Fenley's office again to drop off a shoebox. Inside was a wooden replica of the Georgia Guidestones and page after page of detailed instructions on what it should look like. So whoever this guy was, he and his group had clearly spent months, if not years, coming up with the specifics for this project. A few days later, Fenley received a call from Martin at the bank saying that the first $10,000 had come through, so they could finally start to build.

Originally, Christian wanted the Guidestones to be somewhere in the middle of Georgia, around Hancock County. He told Martin this would make the monument better aligned with the sun, which makes sense given that he wanted it to have some astronomical features. But as far as the significance of Georgia itself, Christian didn't really give a reason. Just that the climate was nice and he mentioned something about a great-grandmother who used to live there. And he also wanted a location isolated from any towns or tourist centers. Which, if you think about it, is honestly pretty weird in itself. Like usually when someone builds a huge monument, they put it somewhere

that's easy to find. But Christian also specifically asked for the crest of a hill surrounded by uninhabited land, which means he wasn't necessarily trying to hide the monument from people either. It seems like he just wanted it to have space. By this point, though, Martin and Fenley were kind of talking about how they wanted the monument to stay in Elberton. It was already kicking up a fair bit of press in Atlanta, and the two of them envisioned it becoming a sort of tourist destination for their town. Now, Martin couldn't exactly say this to Christian, so instead he tried the roundabout way, convincing Christian it would be too expensive to transport it very far. Christian was on the fence until Martin mentioned that the

area had also been called the center of the world by native Cherokee tribes. And sure enough, that piqued Christian's interest. After that, he was totally on board with keeping the monument in Elberton. As for finding an exact location, they turned to one of the contractors Fenley had brought onto the project. Wayne Mullinex. He was a local rancher and Freemason. Now, before I go much further, I should mention that a lot of people who came into contact with this project were members of the local Shriners Club of Freemasons. I bring this up because Freemasons are the target of a lot of conspiracy theories. But in this case, it honestly seemed kind of like a coincidence, especially since Freemasons are historically connected to the construction industry. Also, Wyatt Martin wasn't a Freemason. So if this was some kind of Masonic project, it clearly wasn't an inside job.

Anyway, Mullinex says that he never met R.C. Christian, but he found out about the Guidestones early on when Fenley hired him to pour the concrete for the foundation. Mullinex told Martin that he had a perfect spot for the monument on his own ranch, Double Seven Farms. It was a hilltop cow pasture about seven miles outside of town with a 360 view of Elbert County. Martin took Christian to see it and immediately Christian was like, this is it. This is the spot. This is where it's supposed to be. So Martin arranged for Mullinex to sell five acres of his land for the project. As soon as the land was bought, Christian had Martin deed it to Elbert County. This sort of

made sense because, again, Christian didn't want his name to be attached to anything, but then he made a remark that was so bizarre it would stick with Martin for years to come. Up next, the Georgia Guidestones start to creep people out. Now back to the story. When Christian deeded the five acres to Elbert County, he remarked to Martin that the county was probably, quote, the most lasting organization in our whole country, end quote. If you think about it, that's honestly a pretty wild statement.

Evidently, Christian believed, or maybe just hoped, that America would someday dissolve. He might have thought that Georgia was somehow safe or exempt from whatever this future event was going to be. He may have even trusted that the Guidestones would keep Elbert County safe. It isn't clear just what he meant, but it was definitely an ominous thing to say. The land was purchased in the summer of 1979, right as construction was getting started. And as soon as Martin had deeded it to the county, Christian left Elberton. It's unclear whether he ever returned again. A few weeks later, Christian wrote to Martin telling him to transfer ownership of the Georgia Guidestones over to Elbert County. So now everything, both the land and the monument, belonged completely to the county.

It was crazy considering how much money Christian and his group had just spent. Why would they spend it all only to immediately give it all away? And the monument was still several months away from being finished. So apparently Christian didn't care, or he just trusted Martin to make sure everything turned out right, which it did. Construction for the Georgia Guidestones lasted about nine months, and to Joseph Fenley's credit, he followed R.C. Christian's instructions exactly. This was no small feat considering that the monument was supposed to function as an astronomical piece. Christian's instructions called for a small hole drilled through the capstone to focus

sunlight on the pillar at exactly noon each day. There would also be a spot on the west side of the pillar giving a perfect view of the sunrise during an equinox or solstice. And another hole in the pillar looked directly up at the north star. Christian also wanted the monument positioned so that the four slabs marked the lunar declination cycle. All of this would require very precise measurements for the monument itself and for its positioning on the hilltop. Fenley even brought in an expert from the University of Georgia to make sure all the little angles and holes were drilled exactly right. As if this wasn't painstaking enough, Christian also asked to have a specific message inscribed on the guidestones. He wanted

it written on either side of the four vertical slabs for a total of eight different times. And each time he wanted it written in a different language. So he had English, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili, Chinese, Russian, and Hindi. But Christian hadn't provided any translations. Considering all the effort Christian's group had put into their plans, you would think that they would have figured out the translations ahead of time. But in the end, Wyatt Martin pulled through. He was able to contact local citizens, university professors, and even the United Nations in New York to get the necessary translations.

By March of 1980, the Guidestones were almost finished. Around this time, Martin received a long letter from Christian's group with a statement of purpose. In it, they rambled on about obvious problems in the world, things like environmental decline and government inefficiency, and they also stressed the issue of overpopulation. Still, the letter didn't give any clues about who they were, except for one small section. It said, quote, we, the sponsors of the Georgia Guidestones, are a small group of Americans who wish to focus attention on problems central to humanity. We have chosen to remain anonymous in order to avoid debate, which might confuse our meaning and which might delay a considered review of our thoughts, end quote. At the end of the letter, Christian mentioned that

his group had disbanded. So whoever they were, they had apparently fulfilled their purpose, and they obviously had no plans of ever revealing themselves. This was especially clear on March 22nd, the day that the Guidestones were revealed. Joseph Fenley and his builders were there. Wyatt Martin was there. But R.C. Christian himself was a no-show. District Representative Doug Barnard

gave a vague speech to a crowd of around 400 Elberton residents, curious out-of-towners and Atlanta camera crews. He said that the Guidestones were a warning for America to preserve its natural resources. But that was about all he could think of to say. And as soon as he pulled the black tarp off the monument, it was clear why. Each of the huge vertical slabs was inscribed on either side

with a strange message. One of them gave the English translation. And bear with me, though, because it's a little bit long. The inscription reads, quote, Maintain humanity under 500 million in perpetual balance with nature. Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity. Unite humanity with a living new language. Rule passion, faith, tradition, and all things with tempered reason. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. Balance personal rights with social duties. Prize truth, beauty, love, seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth. Leave room for nature. Leave room for nature. End quote. These 10 messages were written one after another after another, almost like the 10 commandments. And if that wasn't weird enough, the capstone on the top was engraved on all four edges, each with a different ancient language. Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Babylonian cuneiform, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Quote, let these be guidestones to an age of reason. End quote. Now, this was a

small town in Georgia. We're talking the heart of the Bible Belt. So you can imagine how the guidestones were instantly confusing and also very controversial. An age of reason didn't seem very Christian to them. And uniting humanity with a living new language sounded like a page out of the Old Testament and the Cautionary Tower of Babel. But that wasn't even the most contentious part. For just about anybody, the first message about keeping the human population under 500 million was extremely ominous. Because in 1980, the world's population was about 4.5 billion. By definition, the Guidestones called for a 90% reduction in people. So immediately, people wondered if the monument was alluding to some sort of catastrophic event

or even a mass genocide. Already, this is really creepy. And sure enough, as soon as the Guidestones were unveiled, weird things started to happen. A coven of witches from Atlanta began making weekend pilgrimages to the site, and Wyatt Martin started receiving letters from people claiming to be witches. Wayne Mullinex, the rancher who lives closest to the Guidestones, says that he'd seen people climbing up the monument at night to light candles on the capstone. And at least one psychic had her wedding on site because she claimed that the stones had a special energy.

But even the citizens of Elberton felt like something was off. Some people pointed to the significance of the number 7 surrounding the monument. It was located just off of Georgia's Highway 77, next to Wayne Mullenix's Double 7 Farm. It was also 7 miles away from Elberton and 7 miles from the nearby town of Hartwell. Nobody really knew the meaning of this other than that the number seven is a biblical number. Religious people and pastors from Elberton even nicknamed the monuments the Ten Commandments of the Antichrist. They believed the reference to a world court was an allusion to a singular world government prophesied in the biblical book of

Revelation. Pretty soon, there was gossip circulating through the town that Wyatt Martin and Joe Fenley were Satanists. It's not really clear where this rumor started, but it could have been from the other granite competitors in town. In the wake of the unveiling, Fenley and Martin became, honestly, like small town celebrities. And it was pretty obvious that Fenley's granite competitors were jealous of the attention that his company was getting. The gossip got so bad that eventually Fenley and Martin took a lie detector test just to prove that they weren't Satanists. Obviously, these were wild reactions. But if you think about the circumstances,

it's pretty fair. I mean, a stranger comes into town, builds a weird monument, and refuses to give away his identity. All of it seems like the monument could be hiding something deeply sinister. And because of how vague these Guidestones are, they're open to almost any interpretation you can think of. Like one conspiracy theory that relates the Georgia Guidestones to something even more secretive than the occult. It has to do with an ancient secret society known as the Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucians date back to 15th century Germany and an elusive man named Christian Rosenkreuz. Rosenkreuz claimed to know secrets for a universal reformation of mankind. He and his followers said this information would be revealed once the world was ready for it.

Now, to be fair, a lot of conspiracy theories exist surrounding this group itself. For all we know, Rosenkreutz and the Rosicrucians were just a myth invented years later. Nonetheless, various groups have cropped up in the past couple of centuries who refer to themselves as the Rosicrucians. Most of them frame their group as a sort of path to greater self-enlightenment, which could be a fit with the Georgia Guidestones and the Age of Reason referenced on the capstone. It could all be the work of a small Rosicrucian society. But the real linchpin of this theory, and the reason it's still strong today, is the alias R.C. Christian. It sounds like a play on Rose Cross Christian, which is another name for Rosicrucian.

What's more, the Rosicrucians have long been suspected of founding Freemasonry in Scotland, and obviously there were multiple Freemasons involved in building the Georgia Guidestones. Not only were Joe Fenley the builder and Wayne Mullinex the rancher Freemasons, but the town of Elberton itself was actually named after an 18th century merchant and prominent Freemason, Samuel Elbert. Even if these men weren't involved in hatching the Georgia Guidestones, R.C. Christian could have picked them because he knew they were Freemasons. There's another piece to this puzzle. It's a granite plaque or like a grave marker embedded in the ground several yards away from the Guidestones. It lists the astronomical features and the

different languages on the guidestones, and it also attributes the monument to, quote, R.C. Christian, a pseudonym, end quote. Now, pseudonym is actually spelt with an N, not an M at the end. Whether Christian meant to write this in his instructions or if he just made a spelling error, no one really knows. But given how precise everything else is, it would seem odd if this was just some kind of accident. It's also pretty strange that this marker only mentions Christian and not his group. I mean, up to that point, he had presented himself as more of a spokesperson for the Guidestones, but this made it seem like he was their sole creator. So maybe Christian was working alone after all.

The most confusing part, though, is further down on the marker. It states that there is a time capsule buried six feet below. There's even a space for the date it was buried and a space for the date that it should be dug up, but neither blank was ever filled in. This was super puzzling to everyone, including Joe Fenley and the men who installed the marker, because as far as anyone knew, the ground was untouched before the marker was placed. So it's not likely that R.C. Christian ever buried anything, and none of Fenley's builders noticed any of their colleagues placing anything underneath the marker.

So this means one of two things. Either Christian decided not to bury the time capsule at all, or he meant to come back and bury it, but just never did. As far as what this capsule might have contained, honestly, that's anyone's guess. But some people took it to be a connection between the Guidestones and the Cold War. Remember, this was 1980. Nuclear tensions between the USA and the USSR were high. Christian's group may have commissioned the Guidestones because they expected a nuclear holocaust,

one that could leave, say, 500 million people behind. The time capsule could have contained books or maybe other valuable pieces of information for a post-apocalyptic generation. Same thing with the Guidestones' messages and astronomical features. They could have been intended for a new society, one that was starting from scratch. In fact, Christian did mention nuclear warfare in his statement of purpose letter, but he referenced it more in the context of inefficient world governments, like he didn't give any whens or hows or any sort of definitive prediction. And regardless, the nuclear paranoia theory still leaves so many questions dangling. Like, who was Christian's group? And why did they

need to keep their identity secret? For years, people searched for an answer. The Guidestones made state headlines, and tourists from all over the world streamed into Elberton to visit this strange monument. The rumors about Fenley and Martin's involvement persisted, but they always stuck to the same story. R.C. Christian was a real person. Multiple people they worked with had seen him too, and nobody knew who his group was. Martin in particular was badgered by reporters. Everyone wanted him to reveal R.C. Christian's identity, but he always said the same thing. Quote, when I die, the secret will die with me. End quote. But then, in 1986, six years after the Georgia Guidestones were unveiled, Wyatt Martin received a mysterious book. It was written by

none other than Robert Christian himself. Coming up, R.C. Christian leaves a new trail of clues. Now back to the story. R.C. Christian's book was titled Common Sense Renewed, and the author was listed simply as Robert Christian. Christian mailed copies of the book to Martin, as well as several thousand politicians, famous thinkers, and world influencers. The title itself was an obvious reference to common sense, a pamphlet by the philosopher Thomas Paine. Paine had also written a book called Age of Reason. That's the same phrase that appears in ancient languages on the monument's capstone. In Common Sense Renewed, Christian says that he admires Paine's ideas about an egalitarian society, but he goes off on his own tangent after that, essentially explaining the Guidestones' messages. The world court refers to an international law.

The new language isn't supposed to eliminate other languages. It's just a tool for the whole world to use. And regarding the population numbers, Christian said he hoped that reproduction would become a punishable social crime. He thought that by bringing the population under 500 million, environmental balance would be restored. He also left little to the imagination about his involvement in the monument, saying, quote, I am the originator of the Georgia Guidestones and the sole author of its inscriptions, end quote.

Finally, it seemed like R.C. Christian was owning up to his role. He wasn't just a spokesperson for the Guidestones. He was their founder. But the book didn't answer everyone's biggest question. Who was R.C. Christian? And what about his group of sponsors? Did they ever exist or was it just him all along? The book did have one significant clue though. It was a small marking on the title page that said Graphic Publishing Inc. Graphic Publishing is a small publishing house in Lake Mills, Iowa. So it would make sense that Christian or a member of his group either lived in Iowa or at least had a connection to this publisher. But for decades, apparently nobody investigated this lead, or if they did, they never made a solid connection.

That is, until 2015, when a documentary film crew contacted the company. They confirmed that the exact publisher of Common Sense Renewed was a Lake Mills resident, and his name was Robert Merriman. Right away, this seemed like a decent match for Robert Christian. I mean, after all, their first names correlated, and Robert Merriman was clearly in direct contact with the book. He could have easily written and published it. Again, the only person who would actually know is Wyatt Martin. In the decades since the monument was built, friends, family, reporters, I mean everyone tried to get a hint out of him. But Martin has kept his promise never to reveal Christian's identity. Which if you think about it is pretty crazy.

I mean it's been 40 years since the Georgia Guidestones were built. It seems like Martin would have cracked by now. And the fact that he didn't makes it seem like he was either involved in the Guidestones or maybe he was threatened somehow. But Martin claims it was simply a gentleman's agreement and that he and R.C. Christian actually became friends. In fact, for years after the Guidestones were built, Christian would randomly call Martin from a pay phone at the Atlanta airport

and the two would meet for dinner. They also exchanged letters. Christian's letters were always postmarked from different places in the United States, and the last one arrived in 2001. Sometime later, Martin got a note from Christian's son saying that his father had recently passed away. Then in 2009, Martin revealed to a journalist that there's one promise he hasn't kept. The one about destroying all of the documents related to the Guidestones project. He said they were stored inside an old IBM computer case inside his garage, along with any letters from Christian. But this is super weird to me. I mean, after how strict Martin's been about his promise not to reveal R.C. Christian's

identity, why wouldn't he stick to their agreement about destroying the paper trail? It just doesn't make any sense. Like, why keep one promise but then just break another? Even today, people are still trying to piece together who R.C. Christian and his group was. The same 2015 documentary that identified Robert Merriman also theorized that R.C. Christian could have been a friend of Merriman's, a guy named Dr. Herbert H. Kirsten. Kirsten, by the way, is an old German translation for Christian. Apparently, this Kirsten was known for having very strong views on population control, and he was also a known racist. Not to mention, he was friends with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. William Shockley, a known advocate of race eugenics.

The documentary theorized that Kirsten, Merriman, and Shockley could have been in cahoots to basically build a racist monument. They may have even collaborated to write Common Sense Renewed. This would also mean that the inscriptions on the Georgia Guidestones are instructions for a sort of white supremacist utopia. But in the end, there's just no conclusive proof. And pinning it on three racist white dudes just brings up more questions than answers. Like if the Guidestones were really all about white supremacy, then why include languages from all over the world, like Chinese and Swahili and Arabic? And why even build the Guidestones in the first place?

Because no matter what theory sounds convincing, their existence alone is just too weird to rationally explain. Besides, there are just so many other clues in this story that don't add up. Like that pseudonym spelled with an N, or the missing dates on the grave marker, or even the suspicious remark Christian made about Elbert County being the most lasting place in America. And then there's that time capsule. Like what was the point of that? And is it really there after all? And if it is there, who knows what sort of answers might be inside? For all we know, the Guidestones could have to do with any mixture of racists, Rosicrucians, and nuclear paranoia. Or it could all be a big

Freemason hoax, or a publicity stunt by Fenley and Martin, or something else no one's even thought of. At the end of the day, the only thing that is concrete is the Georgia Guidestones themselves. Just how dark a secret are they hiding? We might never know. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all AudioChuck originals.