Ep 3: Prophets and Fanatics

>> It's the evening of June 13th, 2022, in Elperton. There's a meeting happening at the Albert County Commission, the governing body of the county. The officials are rolling through their agenda. >> I don't know, there are a lot of discussion on the approval of the real one,

“so it's important to be able to get a department to family children's services.”

>> It seems like a pretty routine meeting at first,

but tonight, will be different. Since the start of the meeting, a group of people have sat quietly, as the commissioners worked their way through official business. But before gathering the meeting to a close, a man from the group gets up and walks to the podium.

>> He's a large man, tall, with a short sleeve buttoned down. At the podium, he places down a small stack of papers and a Bible. >> First, I want to thank you for hearing me out on this matter. So I just wanted to talk with you about the guidance from us. >> What exactly is the guidance from us?

Does anybody know? >> The man is Pastor Clint Harper. The group with him is his congregation.

“He's here to talk about the Georgia Guidestones.”

>> I've read this written before, so you've read the instructions. This attours the traction with the bunch of what I consider nonsense, but it's not just right on the side. Okay? Say, really, nobody really knows what it is.

>> Pastor Harper starts with some more mundane questions. How much money does it cost taxpayers to cut the grass, cleaning the graffiti, maintaining the security cameras. Apparently, not a significant amount. You get the sense that commissioners are a little wary to get into a back and forth.

They're answering Pastor Harper, but they sound a little guarded. >> There have been, it's been on TV. There have been a lot of theories that why it may mean, but the official story is that a eccentric being here to his one of these monuments that I'm milling up here.

They haven't been there. >> As far as anybody knows, the person that put him there was not from the old and right and right. >> Things take a turn when Pastor Harper asked the commissioners if they know what the guide stones really need.

He tells them the first commandment on the guide stones.

The one about maintaining humanity under 500 million is a call to genocide.

Seeing that it advocates genocide, you say whether it does or not, but it does. When you say that you're going to get humanity down to 500, under 500 million, six point five billion people on the face of the earth has to die to achieve that goal.

This is what I see. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows who put it up. Nobody knows that you call it nonsense or you come. But yet, the county maintains it.

Monitor is it fiercely. And so evidently, it is a big deal. And you're calling it nonsense. >> It's simply a tourist track. We don't have to disagree with it or understand it.

>> But what if it was a Nazi monument? >> It wouldn't be here. >> It wouldn't be for me to don't advocate the money much that are on the county property. What if there's a KKK monument? >> At this point, the commissioners are clearly annoyed.

One of them interrupts Pastor Harper and says, "All right, can we just cut to the chase? What are you asking us here?"

Finally, Pastor Harper gets to his real reason for being at the meeting.

I'm asking to take a vote whether this board would dismantle this money. >> He wants a vote. They're not going to do that. >> I don't think that he would have any problem if it was a Nazi monument of dismantling.

“Would that make a difference whether this board would dismantle it or not?”

>> That goes against the rules of human rights? >> That's hate speech. >> But you said that. >> That's true.

Tell me how it reads then.

>> I already told you to keep it the population of the 500. >> The pastor doesn't want to take no for an answer. He asked them again.

“Will the board take a vote now to dismantle the guidestones?”

>> By Robert's rules of order, Y'all are able to vote on this matter tonight. We're not going to vote. >> They tell him, no. Clinton Harper steps back from the podium. A short while later, the meeting ends.

The pastor and his flock leave. Just four weeks later, the guidestones explode. And the weeks and months leading up to the explosion. Things were brewing in Albertton, in Georgia, in the whole country. In the summer of 2022, if you wanted to look for a suspect, well,

there were plenty of places to start digging.

But to begin, you'd need to know why someone wanted the guidestones blown up in the first place.

What drove someone or someone's? To turn this monument into a pile of rubble. What put all this into motion? I am Tyler McBrion. And from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, this is who blew up the guidestones.

[ Music ] Episode three, profits and fanatics. [ Music ] Hey, how you doing? >> I'm Tyler McBrion.

>> Thanks for having us. >> I appreciate it. >> I'm here at the offices of the Albert County Commission. They run the county. But even more important for me, they owned and maintained the land under the guidestones.

>> I'm leave all on the county chairman. >> And I'm Alan Holman, the county administrator.

“>> What did you all think when you first saw the explosion and the crater?”

I mean, that it left. >> Such a solid monument, if there ever was one. >> Well, you know, you have why, but just a couple of months before that we have. >> The explosion of the guidestones had left a massive hole in the ground. Whatever had blown up the stones was some powerful stuff.

And after destroy a monument, there was more than 200,000 pounds. >> The town of Alberton was on high alert, especially the county commission. >> And we didn't know what was going to be next. So there was some concern here at the government complex doing this with us. The courthouse that they actually brought dogs in this new far building to make sure they were

no bombs here to make sure there was something else that's fixed in the half and after that. So I mean, there was a lot of concern that you know, not knowing exactly what was going on and what's going to be next.

>> Leon Allen said before the explosion, people were always pounding the county about the guidestones.

That was nothing unusual. When the guidestones were up, how much of your week was taken up by calls or emails? >> We would get calls up here at the office two to three times a week. People from all over all over the US, California, everywhere calling demand and that we take it down. Never thought anything about it until all the conspiracy theories started up.

And we just kind of, I don't want to say laugh about it, but it was like, you know, it's nothing to it. It's just stones. It's here that somebody put up. Yeah, we get phone calls all the time. We're part of it.

What are we trying to hide? Why do we agree with it? >> But that county commission meeting.

“In June of 2022, the pastor and his congregation, Leon Allen both remember that meeting vividly.”

And they said the eerieness of it didn't stop after the meeting. >> Yeah, he was pretty adamant. >> Yeah, you don't need to take him down. >> Yeah, we were evil. And we were part of that thing.

>> Yeah, we were trying to hide. >> He didn't need to be torn down. >> The following month he called won't be back on the agenda again. And I said, no, we've heard from you that it was no reason we're not going to talk to you again. And there was two weeks later, I got blown up.

>> The proximity to when this person came and then they were blown up. >> Yeah, that was extremely suspicious, I thought the GBI would interview him. And we had our man or somebody within this congregation, you know, had done it. >> When we reached out to Clint Harper, we didn't get a response. But the pastor wasn't the only person the county was suspicious of.

There were others. About a week before the guide stones blew up, there was an odd visitor at the county commission building.

Someone they'd never seen before.

>> Yeah, and I'll tell y'all, and I told the GBI this course, I actually told them. But it was about a week before they were blown up. Individual actually came here, came into the code enforcement office.

“And was asking us, you know, hey, is there a piece of property in Albert County that has no law enforcement jurisdiction at all?”

Going to find out, he's talking about the guide stones. And, you know, I tried to get information about him. His name, everything else he wouldn't give me any information. So we kept all alone. And, you know, he asked them us at how long do you attend?

He said I'm not here long, maybe about a week and I'm gone. We don't know the name of this visitor, but we do know that Leon Allen told the GBI about that guy, too. >> We had a more camera. He was, I did, and identified in the GBI supposedly was investigating him. But as soon as it happened, that was the first bit of information we get to the GBI. >> Leon Allen said, they felt like they'd given the GBI some great leads.

But as far as they know, those leads never amounted to anything.

No arrests were made. No suspects named.

>> When's the last that you've heard from the GBI in terms of the investigation? We're trying to figure out if it's open. >> Our EMS director, Chuck Alman, was kind of the point person. And so I would call him every once in a while. Do you have an update?

You have an update and he would call.

“And the last he told me was they had no more leads.”

They were, he was just kind of, I don't know if he was a closed case, but they were out of lead. They had exhausted everything they had. >> How does that sit with people? And I imagine it's a bit unresolved. >> We've been accused of, but, you know, sliding it on the road.

We know who did it, and we're not. >> For the rest of the summer, the phone at the county commission building rang off the hook. People from all over were calling in to ask questions, make comments, give tips.

I mean, for two or three weeks, it was just not special.

That was about all that we worked on. And then after that it kind of slowed down. >> But what I want to do is not to get a lot of students. The semester-by-tag laptop is often held in the internet. So it's a master's real name.

>> I'm saying, you can say that you're a jerk. >> You're a lawyer, right? But you don't understand. >> No, it's just a false contract. Make the whole thing like this.

And if you work, you'll be able to pay. >> That's right. >> Save, like this. >> You're going to pay. >> Now, you're going to try it.

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>> And it's because of that. >> And it's because of that. >> And it's because of that. >> Somebody used explosives enough to shape the ground for six miles.

>> How could I consider that vandalism?

>> Reporters at the local newspaper, the Albertian star. >> Yeah, they had that surveillance footage of a car leaving the premises. And, you know, they put that out there and that circulated for a while.

“And I think we followed up on it a few times.”

I would check in with the GBI kind of occasionally just to see if there's an information in the neighborhoods. >> Talk to the founder of the local African American Museum. >> So many people have access to dynamite because it is the grain of town. And they use dynamite in the cores.

>> Talk to Chris Kubis, the executive vice president of the Albertian granite association. >> Yeah, that part of a week of the Fourth of July is this entire town closes down. Because everybody in the granite industry is on vacation itself. And then anyone else around town who wanted to talk. >> Bring something of that weight in that size down.

That's not there. You're not going out there with a, with a him lady. >> I don't know if they'll ever catch anybody.

I've never once got an update on the investigation.

I've never once asked for an update. >> You have done more to investigate this in my opinion than the GBI. Simply because you're here talking to me. [ Music ] >> There were so many theories around town.

And when I looked online at Albertian Facebook groups and beyond, there were even more. So let's break down the main theories I heard. A really common theory online was that a freak meteorological event, or an act of God, caused a massive bolt of lightning to strike the guide stones.

Which do sit at one of the highest points in Albertian. And there was a storm that passed that night. Could this all have been an act of divine intervention. [ Music ] Another.

This was an inside job. The county commissioners and the local sheriff hated the guide stones. They were a nuisance. They brought out all kinds of weird people. And they were constant calls, complaining about people partying,

or getting up to no good. Wouldn't it be easier for the county? Which already has enough on its plate. If the guide stones were off their property. [ Music ]

There's the holiday prankster theory. It was the week of 4th of July. Plenty of fireworks, alcohol, and people with time on their hands. Could someone have thought it would be a hilarious prank, or a dare,

“to blow up the kitschy monument on the outskirts of town?”

Surely crazier things have happened. [ Music ] No one seemed to agree on exactly how the guide stones blew up. But what I haven't mentioned yet is that when talking about the explosion, there was one name that everyone brought up.

This person wasn't from Albert County at all. But in 2022, about a month before the explosion, she did something. Something that made her name synonymous with the Georgia guide stones. To explain, I've got to introduce you to Chris Joyner.

So I think one of the reasons why we live in the darkest time line is that conspiracy theories used by the police theories used to be fun. There were no action items with conspiracy theories about the log-ness monster or Sasquatch or something like that.

And that's changed. You know, they have political goals. And it's also why I became interested in them as an investigative report, because they have actual real world consequences. You know, they're not fun.

They're dangerous.

“And so that is, I think, where we are right now with conspiracy theories.”

Chris Joyner is the senior editor of politics for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. He's worked at the AJC for over 15 years now. His passion as a reporter lies in covering disinformation and extremism, online, and on the ground.

For most of my tenure here at the AJC, I was an investigative reporter on the investigations team.

Chris has the guides don't have always been a curiosity to him.

Throughout his career, stories about the stones which show up in different sections of the AJC, they'd grace the front of the features page, being the travel section until finally, they made the front page of the news section.

Did you ever go? Never. Not once. And I kind of regret that now. But I had sort of the same thing.

It was like I'm going to drive two and a half hours to go stand in the field and look rocks. It's not, you know, didn't always work out into my schedule. I knew what they were. And I knew sort of their place in the conspiratorial world.

And that was probably enough for me at the time. What was that place?

“Well, where did you think about the guide zones in that ecosystem?”

Well, they've always had a role in the conspiratorial world

of the new world order, you know, echoing in a way the broader fears that have always sort of been around among, you know, global conspirators and that there's this shadowy one-world government that wants to control everything.

But Chris says, the guidestones weren't just a part of the same old one-world government conspiracies that he'd often see online. If you were into any conspiracy theory at any point in the last 50 years, the guidestones could fit into your world view. Remember what Chris said about how conspiracy theories used to be fun

but then got serious? He says that change started to happen in the early 2000s when the internet really took off. The longer Chris followed extremist groups online, as time went on.

Something about the way people talked about the guidestones got more intense. It was more in your face and confrontational. This had been building for years,

“but things really escalated beginning in 2016.”

That year, Donald Trump assumed office for the first time and a certain conspiracy theory crossed over from the fringe corners of the internet into the mainstream. It was called QAnon. Where did we go? Where did we go? Where did we go?

Where did we go? Where did we go? I was in groups and pages with millions of followers. She went out of conspiracy theories. The whole of these dangerous. Chris says it was not like the other conspiracy theories

and online extremism he'd seen in the past. He says he noticed something was different about QAnon right away.

QAnon had an amazing ability to eat every other conspiracy theories.

Most of the other conspiracy theories Chris had covered over his career. We're dogmatic in their beliefs. But to believe in QAnon, people didn't have to give up any other beliefs or theories.

They could keep them. It would just sort of get woven into the narrative. It would just take them all in, no matter what it was, whether it was, you know,

pizza gate or whether it was ideas about everything from crystals and aliens and lizard people to, you know,

“secret tunnels underneath Washington D.C.”

where global elites, traffic children for various purposes. So the guidelines were just sort of wrapped up into that. From where he sat as a reporter in Atlanta, Chris was tracking QAnon's rise.

He started to notice that a large number of QAnon followers lived in Georgia. George had a very large QAnon community, particularly in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, or the suburbs of Savannah.

Large population centers where there was, you know, a healthy middle class upper middle class suburb. Because that's where, that's where a lot of these people came from. QAnon had an active following in Georgia.

And here was this weird monument with mysterious origins right in their backyard. To them, the guide stones were proof that there really was a global cabal.

They were sort of like the clue that was left out in the open. That sort of explained what the global cabal was all about. Why they thought that this, you know, secretive cabal of elites would carve their intentions on stones and put them in the middle of rural Georgia was beside the point.

In fact, being in the middle of rural Georgia might have been what dealt the guide stones their final conspiratorial blow. Because in 2022, there was a governor's race in the state. An unlikely Republican candidate appeared on the sea

and decided to make destroying the guide stones when a for core campaign promises. There are lots of people around Elburton and frankly the country

as the one person most responsible for the guide stone's destruction. Sometimes when I was interviewing people, they would just say that politician from South Georgia did it or even just that woman.

And you knew exactly who they meant. We're done with the establishment, Twin Betty System. I'm Candice Taylor. I'm a mother, a wife, and a public school educator.

And I'm so sick and tired of people who'd be in their knee and are bowed off.

“And that's why I'm running to give you a voice.”

Our government is up for and by the people. I'm going to tear down the establishment crux in Atlanta. But May 24, Candice Taylor, I'm the one you've been waiting for. Even before the explosion,

we were aware I'd been aware for some time of Candice Taylor who was a QAnon conspiracy advocate whether she called a QAnon or not. You know, she had all the talking points. And you know, in what she ran for governor on the Jesus guns

and babies platform, the babies part is specifically very QAnon coded. Jesus too. I will not be in my knee.

We're going to get rid of critical race theory.

We'll get rid of social emotional learning.

“We won't get rid of comprehensive sex education.”

That teaches an indoctrination of oppression, communism, and sexual perversion to our most innocent. Candice Taylor was always a long shot for governor. But she knew how to get people's attention. From her campaign HQ in South Georgia,

she crisscrossed the state in a bus with the words, Jesus, guns, and babies, and blazing across the side. And she produced a campaign video that was centered on the guidelines.

And it was, you know, really well done. We've watched as people have destroyed our history and monuments. And in their place, they have erected statues to their own gods. The video is kind of cinematic.

It's focused on one of the executive orders she promises to carry out on day one of taking office. It's just under two minutes, but she packs a lot in there. It's easy to forget this is just a video about the guide stones.

Over four billion people have been injected.

Was sent them to just nine months to create. There are vaccinations statistics and data on the number of abortions carried out worldwide that year. Clips of cheering crowds pulling down what looked like Confederate monuments. An image of the tower of Babel references to revelations

and the United Nations headquarters, which, according to Candace Taylor, is suspiciously 666 miles from the guide stones. I looked it up. It's 664.

That can be Babel Tom's human sacrifice was a form of demonic worship. And then Candace Taylor walks up to the foot of the stones. The new world order is here, and they told us it was coming.

The battle far greater than what we see in the natural. It is a war between good and equal. Chris says the whole video is cue coded. Specifically, George's homegrown brand of QAnon, which tends to have a more Christian flavor.

When Chris saw all this Satan stuff, the understood what Candace Taylor was up to. If you watch it, there's music and there's like aerial photos

“and she's standing there as though she is the only thing standing between us”

and these guide stones. And she vowed if she was like the governor

that one of her first acts,

executive order 10 would be to destroy the guide stones because they were satanic. Now, that carries the specific meaning in the QAnon language that really sees not only the Kabbal is being evil,

but specifically satanic and the Christian context. And she knows the vocabulary. She knows the people she's talking to in that video. Chris says in her video, Candace Taylor was talking directly to George QAnon followers.

that whoever was behind blowing up the guide stones

probably saw that video. After the guide stones were destroyed, Candace Taylor's online followers were openly celebrating.

“I think the reaction was overwhelmingly positive”

in that community. That this was something. Needed to happen. God made it happen. Or that whoever did make it happen good.

I used to think of the guide stones destruction as vandalism. It's a monument that was destroyed. Nobody died.

The more I investigated though,

I started to think maybe another darker label was more appropriate. Like political violence, extremism, even domestic terrorism. But now, talking to Chris,

I started to see the guide stones destruction more as a social media influenced political action. A real world consequence from a post online.

“Could someone like Candace Taylor have blown the stones up?”

Or was it someone who watched her video? Saw it as a call to action. And then answered that call. Try. If you can.

To remember what it was like back in 2022. There was another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And the global death toll surpassed 6 million.

Food prices increased to their highest level since the UN began tracking them. Elon Musk acquired Twitter. And the US midterm elections in a hotly divided political climate were fully underway.

A lot of things were boiling over at once. But what felt new was how it was spilling out of screens and into the real world. There were calls to action, signals, invitations. Had the Georgia guide stones been folded

into a much bigger story. One that could absorb almost anything and make it feel urgent, cosmic. Even righteous. Because whatever actually happened in the early hours of July 6th,

the blast didn't come out of nowhere. There was a kind of momentum leading up to the explosion. Looking back at the timeline, it almost seems inevitable. On May 1st, 2022, Candace Taylor drops her campaign video about the guide stones.

About a month later, Pastor Clinton Harper attends the Albert County Commission meeting. A week after that, on social media, someone posted a photo of Trump holding a stick of dynamite in front of the guide stones.

On July 6th, 2022. At four in the morning, there are some thunder clouds in the area. Lightning in the distance. And then.

A huge explosion shakes the earth. Within a couple of hours, people see that the Georgia guide stones are destroyed. But how? And with what?

“And what does Candace Taylor have to say about all of this?”

That's this season on who blew up the guide stones? Who blew up the guide stones is produced by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and goat rodeo? Got a tip? Just want to leave us a message?

Call our hotline at 912 302 boom. That's 912 302 2666. The show was written and reported by me, Tyler McG Brian, with Megan Adalski, Ian N. Wright, and Charles Menshu.

Samantha Stamler, his head of audio. Megan Adalski is our series lead, and Ian N. Wright is our senior producer. The show was produced by Kira Bodengoligorski,

with production support from Shane Backler,

Samir Jafari, Allison Shine, Corly Barrow, and Mariana Castro, original theme music by Polyglam,

“additional composition from Ian N. Wright, and Blue Dot Sessions.”

Phil Robiburo created the show's artwork. Special thanks to the AJC's Thomas Lake,

Chris Joyner, and Charles Menshu.

Be sure to listen and download the rest of the series. And keep an eye out for more from the AJC coming soon. Thank you for listening. That Georgia 2026 Senate Race is hugely important. What's that stake in 2026 for the Senate Race in Georgia?

A lot. Everybody in Washington is watching this race because that margin of majority is so slim. Every swing state seat counts,

“and that's why Georgia Senate Race is so important in 2026.”

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