Ep 6: Revelations

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.

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And this is the space we're carving out for you by us. To an in every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. A quick note for listeners, there's some strong language in this episode, so it might not be for all audiences. Like so many millennials my age. I don't use Facebook much and my personal life anymore. But for investigative journalism, it can be a gold mine.

But truth is, for most of the country, Facebook is the lifeblood of social communication, community boards, announcements, buying and selling, local entertainment, gripes, gossip, it's all there. That's especially true for small towns, and definitely for Albertan, or so much happens in Facebook groups. People often say things online, out in the open, emboldened by the security of their keyboard. Just by reading and following these Facebook groups, the posts and comments, you can basically get a real time pulse of what's going on.

Sometimes people say things online, and don't realize that anyone with an internet connection can see it. Sometimes people don't realize that something they sit online years ago, and then deleted is still out there.

Throughout this investigation, we were watching the Albertan Facebook groups, but never posting, just lurking.

The local online chatter about the stones was always an expag, with just as much conspiratorial information as factual. There was often mention of lizard people. Candace Taylor's name was always in the mix, and lots of people blamed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for not getting to the bottom of things. Our worry was, if we started posting about our investigation in these Facebook groups, the person responsible for the bombing would see them too. And then be even more on guard. Make our job even harder. It was a risk.

But it worked with the car. So we tried to appeal to the wisdom of the crowd once again, and write up a simple post. Maybe shake the tree a little. It was worth a shot. Here's what it said.

“Hello, we are looking for some local Georgia guide stones, super fans. Did you move to Albertan because of these stones? Visit them all the time. Do you know more about their history than the average person?”

Looking for some real enthusiasts? Like every other guide stones posts, this one got a lot of attention of all kinds. Probably even more attention than usual, because it came from a reporter at the HAC. But then, we got a DM that really caught our attention. It said, "I have the guide stones at my quarry. Not sure if that interest you were not." Then, he gave us his cell number. If there's one thing I've learned from this journey, from Thomas Lake, and Michael Bennett, and Charles Minchew, and yes, even Candace Taylor.

Sorry. I had to do that at least once this season. Before long, I was on a zoom call.

“I'm sorry. It's not a good signal over here. Can y'all hear me then?”

I joined the team on a call with this person who is frankly all over the place. It's a rough connection, and we don't really know what's going on. I don't know how they got here. I mean, like, literally, I didn't know why I said, "Hey, you don't drop the guide stones off at your place." Or anything that just magically showed up. I came back from Lake Tyson, and then there was this night on my front door. They said, "They safe take care, and then just send RC Christians or something on the night." And then there was a lizard on top of it.

Give me a walk out there and show you. Sure? That'd be great.

Right away, we're skeptical. It seems like another dead end. Then again, here's this person saying he has the guide stones.

I told a couple of friends, they were over here, but there's no telling anybody.

“I didn't like personal Facebook or anything because I didn't want all the crazy people coming.”

I saw your place and I said, "Well, I guess I need to get them away." Or something. Oh, my mama's there. The call isn't going well, and we start to lose hope that he has the goods. For starters, the guy's video feed magically cuts out right at the moment he says he's taking us outside to see the guide stones. So we can only hear him. And then, when he gets outside, all of a sudden he says he can't find them.

Like 200,000 pounds of granite got up and walked away. It's like I can't find them. I'm right for ever. I might have covered open this dirt. I'll get them dug out. They're covered in weeds, but I'll dig them out for you. You can help me, life. What's he even talking about? Now he's telling us we could just have the stones if we want them, but we have to come and get them. Either we just found the guide stones or the whole thing's a prank.

“Honestly, this is what we deserve for inserting ourselves into the local chat.”

Being the butt of a prank kind of serves us right. Not taking. But then, a few days later, we get a text from him with photos of the guide stones. AI's gotten pretty good at making photo real images these days, but these look like real photos. A big chunks of the guide stones laying flat in an overgrown field. Still, we need to confirm that these are real.

We check to see if this guy sent the image files with the metadata still included to show when and where they were taken. And it all seems to check out. If this guy's telling the truth, then the slabs of destroyed guide stones are hiding in a plain sight, less than five miles from where they once stood.

This would be my first time ever seeing the guide stones, or some semblance of them in person.

It would be the first time the guide stones had publicly surfaced since the bottom. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution, this is who blew up the guide stones. Episode six, revelations. Are you excited? I'm buzzing. I'm ready. I'll do this.

Let's go see him in some beautiful day in Albertton. This is good today. Let's go see what all the fuss is about. I don't think I've ever gotten myself anywhere faster than here. Where the man who claims to have the guide stones told us to meet him.

His name is Alton Mercer. There's a group of us here today, the AJC video team, and Megan, the producer you met in the last episode.

We're walking through what looks like a scrapyard.

“But instead of cars and sheet metal, it's all granite of every size.”

And there's a big building called a granite shed where rock from the quarry is cut and shaped. What do you see guys? I see a really beautiful granite. Just a bunch of slabs, all a skew, massive ones, too. Some are like 10 plus feet long. Like some jagged edges, smooth tops, big dump truck.

There are more than a hundred of these sheds scattered throughout the quarries in Albert County. What is it about, you know, because I know there's like Vermont granite. Is it something about the Georgia granite that's? Oh, yes, it's much better. We do a better job of manufacturing. We're experts over here and I don't know what they're doing in Vermont.

This is the Grand Capital of the World. Grand Capital of the World, yeah. They just play it over there. I don't know how we got corn with that nickname, but it's very much true that you'll see our products in every building on the east of the Mississippi as far as building work. I have learned a lot about granite working on this series.

I'm granite-pilled, so to speak. But I didn't really realize how much needs to happen to granite to make it look like something other than just a pile of rocks. Because that's what's all around us. Rubble, as far as the eye can see.

“If the guide stones really are here, this is a great place for them to hide.”

It feels like a field of Roman ruins, half done monuments, headstones. Granite projects, nobody wanted. As cool as this place might be, we're on pins and needles. Because all of them still hasn't shown us the stones yet. And the phone call with him was a little suspect.

It was a chaotic call. There was talk of lizard people. Basically what I'm saying is, coming here was a leap of faith. Alton's talking about the guide stones so casually. We still can't tell if he's messing with us or not. But we keep following him.

Deeper into this granite scrapyard.

I really, I guess I never really film a wire bargain mark.

Because I feel like I made a big sum from rhythm and not, you know, like I don't want to rip my house. We've got bad DJ Palmer or something like that, you know. And then you found out about the guy who really funded this stuff. He's like, yeah, definitely don't want that. But then I had to film a way because there are beautiful things to artwork.

It took a lot of time.

“Alton says he was away the week of July 4th, just like everyone else in Elpertin.”

And he heard about the guide stones bombing on Facebook. I mean, I didn't, like, I was, when it blew up, obviously been from Elpertin the United. I mean, we all saw it on our Facebook Facebook Facebook. But I guess I'll blow it up. I guess I'll blow it up.

And then I would guess what couple of weeks later, one of the guys that say, Hey, do you know you haven't got the guide stones over there. Like, where? You know, and then, and then, you know, we won't know anything. That's like, you know, holy cow.

Every little rock we passed looks like it could be a piece of the guide stones. But Alton keeps walking us past pile after pile of granite ruins. I'm starting to feel like we should just turn around and leave. Yeah. I'm not even proud of all our major or something.

There was a guy there, was there going all the time. You had your own idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Different kind of energy force coming. But then, Alton stops. He points. And there they are. There they are.

You might see the writing. Right. Yeah. He starts to smell thoughts. He's right.

[BLANK_AUDIO] So we saw the county. You didn't tell the county. You didn't tell the county. You didn't tell the county.

You didn't tell the county. You didn't tell the county. You didn't tell the county. You didn't tell the county. Yeah.

But I had to double someplace. Oh, man. No. Wow. We found the guide stones.

Or what's left of them.

After all this time, it's crazy to finally be seeing

the stones in person. [BLANK_AUDIO] So can you tell me? Like, can you describe what we're looking at here? Like, where are we at?

Right now we're standing on most of the Hebrew language topic. There's three of us come to the standing on it. Probably like ten feet of it. So maybe it's half of it. The rest of the Hebrew tab is behind altum on the ground.

And they're just ruins.

I mean they're like overgrown.

It's like trees everywhere. They still look really pretty. I mean the gray granite. All of the languages are not visible, but some of them might be facing down.

Better scattered throughout. They tried to see. You can see some of the slots where

“some conspiracies thought that it was like,”

for like a ceremony where like a sacrifice, like that's where like the blood would flow or something. But just laying here, you just walked up to these. Isn't, yeah, you'd have no idea how that they went together. It really does look like the ten commandments,

broken into pieces, scattered on the ground. They look biblical, ancient. Like something out of the Old Testament, or a sci-fi movie. Oh yeah, so this is the bot-- oh yeah,

and you can see the seal of the Albertian granite association in the corner here. You see that? And that's pretty good.

Cook as you can see the 500 million,

which is definitely the most troubling of the ten precepts. Nobody's ever asked me how to get here. Nobody's ever asked me. I'm sure people know it's a new, but you know,

but no, nobody's ever thought much of it. They're massive. They are. They really think. Like, I saw when they were standing,

and I don't even think I got, I think I got the scale, but them toppled like this. These are big. Yeah, they really are.

They really are. I'm not just curious about the lizard people thing. I mean, like, I know you're joking about it, but do a lot of people. Right.

There's really lizard people. They live on the inner earth. You know? And then they run for presence in offices and stuff like that. And then the guy stones were as a portal

for the inner earth as a lizard people.

“And that's really why I think that we have it.”

And it did close up when I was blown up? A portal? I'm not sure. I really don't know. It's one of the big mysteries around here.

But you'd see him pop out there once in a while. How can you tell? Well, like, when you blink your eyes, you know, you go, you got a top and a bottom, and it blinks like that.

This tell tell sign. And I'm looking at your eyes not to make sure that, you know, you're blanking the current, like the lizard person, they'll, the top of it only goes down like this.

That's the way I usually tell. But then they have a different skin complexion on their eyes as kind of the truth of it. And then they usually have thinner cheekbones. And then they don't swear.

Yeah, I'm definitely not a lizard person. Oh, that's too much. Yeah. Yes. So, yeah.

The journey to the center of the real thing, that's where lizard people come out and he will fall. And then, you know, possessing them. Take out the gum.

“So do you think our secretion was lizard person?”

No, I think he was this a wacko doctor. But then he needs something about lizard people. So then he wanted to give them a portal to the other. So do you think someone found out about that? And then blew them up.

It's both the portal. That could be exciting too. You know. Yeah. So do you think there's any special energy now that they're blown up

from the guy's son's? Do you feel anything? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit different over here as I did, you know, over there.

Alten will not break character. But he's clearly joking. It's all in good fun. But he does have people who he thinks could have bomb the stones.

Like a first I thought it was somebody because there's not a mic.

It's all in the court. And then it was a lot of fourth week. So all the courts. We're shut down that week. The whole title says that.

Can't even get a haircut. And we'd heard this theory that somebody might have taken explosives out of the granite quarries and used them to blow up the guide stones. But they're highly regulated.

And authorities checked after the bombing. Every quarry had their explosives accounted for. There was no dynamite missing. It's just hard to imagine. But then I hate this, you know.

It's a scary to think that somebody came in your home, home town and blew something up. They got the signs, the figure out where it is. I mean, they got a video. They got in a car and just, you know, nothing.

I mean, they sort of don't, you know, within a day or two, something that they should be commented, like 80. I've never came to them. Pete, Pete. Nice.

What could they do to look at it? 80 I've never came here. Never came here. At least come here. No.

GBI. There's here. I'm nobody. Wow. And nobody from the GBI.

If somebody from the GBI or 80 of or somebody came by the look at a mid-a-siamel, I can be paying here. You know. And then we would have noticed when nothing.

I've got the perfect show for you.

“Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is a new weekly podcast”

from crime house and paved studios that dives into the darkest corners of human behavior. Every Wednesday, we uncover the true stories behind the world's most shocking crimes, deadly ideologies and secret plots. From mass suicides and political assassinations to secret government

experiments and UFO cults, you'll hear about infamous cases like Jon's Town and JFK, as well as hidden horrors like the octopus murders and starvation heights. But remember, these aren't just stories. These are real people, real events and very real consequences.

So if you love mystery, madness, and diving deep into the world's most unbelievable true stories, you won't want to miss this. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now, wherever you get your podcasts. And for ad-free listening and early access to episodes,

subscribe to crime house plus on Apple podcasts. Hey listeners, I'm Isabelle. One of the audio producers over at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and we really hope you've been enjoying the show.

“And if you like this series, you should know that this is just one”

of a bunch of great podcasts that AJC has to offer. Like it's UATL, your weekly guide to black culture and Atlanta, and politically Georgia, hosted daily by Georgia's best political team. And our AJC podcasts are just scratching the surface. For more great reporting and stories, go to AJC.com,

become a subscriber and find out for yourself. All right then, enjoy the rest of the episode. [MUSIC] So we'd found the guidestones. That's crazy.

But the title of this show is who blew up the guidestones. And we still hadn't answered that question, even with all these pieces. So let's recap what we do know. We know the person we're looking for was in Elverton, on July 6, 2022. We're all but certain of the make and model of the Getaway car.

A silver BMW with a mover.

“We know the guidestones bomber are used tannery.”

We were scouring old Craigslist posts from 2022. Anyone in the area selling an old silver BMW. We were still combing through those local Facebook groups, finding profiles of people who checked in at the guidestones, or celebrated their destruction.

The clock was ticking. We'd been at it for months. And then, one Facebook post really caught our attention. [MUSIC] A few days after we found the guidestones on Alton's property,

we posted another question on Facebook. This time we were specific. We asked if anyone in Elverton knew someone who drove a silver BMW 300 series in 2022. And that's when the post appeared. Throughout the investigation,

we'd been keeping tabs on people, monitoring their public social media, people who had posted about the guidestones, or engaged with Candice Taylor's content frequently. The post popped up a day after we asked about the car,

on someone's personal page. It was long, rambling. It read like a manifesto.

This person wrote about how powerful they are,

and about their enemies, how they're being persecuted. It described in dark language their battles, referenced major world events like 9/11. But most importantly,

it said that the world understood their true power on July 6th, 2022. At the bottom of the page, there was a QR code. That took you to another post.

A picture of what looked like a piece of granite in a town square. There was a lengthy caption that read, like a confession. This person seemed to be claiming

that they had blown up the guidestones. After all this searching, did someone just confess on Facebook? We started looking into this person,

and here's what we found out.

This person doesn't live in Georgia, but they are a Candice Taylor supporter. They left a lot of comments on her page,

This person seems obsessed with all sorts of conspiracies.

“Everything from ancient aliens to deep-state plans.”

This person held a bunch of jobs, one of which was long haul transportation. They continued to post about Albertan and the guidestones before and after the bombing, often on the anniversary of the explosion.

Here is where we really started to feel the lack of information from the GBI. Maybe they looked into this person and cleared their name, but we couldn't know. Though they had been to Georgia,

there was no official record of them ever being in Albertan.

We don't know if they were ever interviewed by law enforcement.

None of our sources in Albertan had ever heard of them. Eventually, we did what you have to do when investigating an apparent confession.

“We reached out and asked if we could talk.”

They responded via a cryptically worded message, and then blocked us. We talked to someone close to them, and that was inconclusive. The truth was,

without knowing whether the GBI had additional evidence, we'd hit a dead end, and that's what's so frustrating. We were drowning in a sea of leads like this one. Maybe not everyone was confessing to blowing up the Gai stones.

But so many acted like they were involved. Literally, t-shirts were being sold online that said, "I blew up the Gai stones." Oh, 1951, cubic feet of bread,

it might definitely never be.

So we're not going to name this person, who obsessed over the Gai stones, and all but fully confessed to the bombing online. To do that, we would need more than a confession. We need real evidence.

We would need to show this person was in Elverton on July 6, 2022. We would need to show they had access to large amounts of tanner 8, or at least knowledge of how to make a bomb with those materials. We would need to show a connection to an old silver BMW,

with a moon reforction. There are lots of lots of holes in the stone, and there are larger pieces of wood as well. So there's a lot of holes in the stone, and there are larger pieces of wood as well. The crime was committed here, and somebody got away with that. These are people who enjoy keeping secrets.

“Do you know we're still under criminal investigation, aren't we?”

All the people in the Gai stones, you've had to find somebody else. Yes, hi, is this? But the thing is, we actually did find someone. Surprise, we'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones.

We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones.

We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones.

We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones.

We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones.

We'll be back with the last episode of Who Blue of the Gai stones. With production support from Shane Backler, Samir Jafari, Allison Shine, Corly Barrow and Mariana Castro, original theme music by Pauli Glam, additional composition from Ian N. Wright and Blue.Sessions. Phil Robibero created the show's artwork.

Special thanks to the AJC's Thomas Lake, Chris Joyner, and Charles Minceau.

And keep an eye out for more from the AJC coming soon.

Thank you for listening.

“If you're obsessed with true crime, cults, or conspiracy theories,”

I've got the perfect show for you.

Conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes is a new weekly podcast from crime house and paved studios that dives into the darkest

corners of human behavior.

Every Wednesday, we uncover the true stories behind the world's most

“shocking crimes, deadly ideologies, and secret plots,”

from mass suicides and political assassinations to secret government experiments and UFO cults. You'll hear about infamous cases like Jon's Town and JFK, as well as hidden horrors like the octopus murders and starvation heights.

“But remember, these aren't just stories.”

These are real people, real events, and very real consequences. So if you love mystery, madness, and diving deep into the world's most unbelievable true stories, you won't want to miss this. Follow conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes now, wherever you get your podcasts.

And for ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to crime house plus on Apple podcasts.