An explosive device has destroyed a granite monument in Georgia that was built under mysterious circumstances more than four decades ago. Photo / AP
An explosive device has destroyed a granite monument in Georgia that was built under mysterious circumstances more than four decades ago. Photo / AP
An explosive device that "unknown individuals" detonated has destroyed a granite monument in Georgia that was built under mysterious circumstances more than four decades ago and promoted by state officials as "America's Stonehenge", authorities say.
The monument, known as the Georgia Guidestones, which was built about 14 kilometres north ofElberton, Georgia, had four granite slabs connected to a centre pillar, with a capstone on top.
But around 4am on Wednesday, an explosive device was set off, destroying "a large portion of the structure", the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. It is investigating the explosion together with the Elbert County Sheriff's Office.
State investigators did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday about whether the remaining pillars would need to be demolished. The Elbert County Sheriff's Office also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
For more than four decades, the Guidestones have towered over a field, fascinating and confounding many visitors. It is unclear why the 19-foot (5.8-metre) granite slabs were there, or what they meant, and only one man claimed to know the identity of the benefactor who paid for them.
The man, Wyatt Martin, claimed that another man who went by the name R.C. Christian had paid for the granite slabs in 1979, after visiting the east Georgia city.
"I made an oath to that man, and I can't break that," Martin, who helped broker the arrangement for the monument, told The New York Times in 2013. He added, "No one will ever know."
The Georgia Guidestones in September 2013. Photo / Virginie Drujon-Kippelen, The New York Times
Elberton, a city of about 4000 people more than 160km northeast of Atlanta, is the self-professed Granite Capital of the World. According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Georgia Guidestones are "Elberton's most unusual set of granite monoliths".
The granite slabs, the department says on its website, display "a 10-part message espousing the conservation of mankind and future generations in 12 languages". It also serves as an astronomical calendar: every day at noon the sun shines through a narrow hole in the structure, illuminating the day's date.
Despite the Guidestones' mysterious aura, some local residents have said that they have little interest in them. Some conspiracy theorists have claimed that the stones' edicts — which include a call to "unite humanity with a living new language" and a recommendation to keep the planet's population below 500 million — stand for an elite plot to depopulate the globe.
"They built this monument calling for forced depopulation of the planet," Alex Jones, a far-right broadcaster and conspiracy theorist, said in a video in 2020.
In a post to Twitter, Kandiss Taylor, a Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, appeared to welcome the partial destruction of the monument, which she described as the "Satanic Guidestones".
Mart Clamp, a local businessman who helped his father engrave the Guidestones when they were first erected, said that he was "heartbroken" about the damage caused by the explosion.
"People were always coming up with some kind of crazy whackadoodle story about them," he said of those who pushed conspiracy theories about the slabs.
"It's unfortunate that we live in a society that thinks that tearing down things that you disagree with is acceptable," Clamp added. "I'm at a loss for words right now."
He said that many local businesses in the area, including his own, which engraves stone, had offered their time and resources to restore the structure.
