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- [00:02]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi, it's Vanessa. If you're drawn to true crime stories about disappearances, there's a new Crime House original you should check out. It's called the Final Hours, hosted by Sarah Turney and Courtney Nicole. Sarah's an advocate for missing and murdered victims whose own sister disappeared in 2001. And Courtney is a true crime storyteller who's seen firsthand how crime can change a family forever. Together, they bring lived experience to every case, examining the moments just before a person disappears. The routines, the timelines, the small details that often get overlooked because every disappearance has a moment where everything still feels normal. Until it doesn't. Listen to and follow the final hours on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday. This is crime house. For 42 years, a mysterious monument divided the residents of the small town of Elberton, Georgia. Standing on a hilltop a few miles outside of town, the structure consisted of four upright granite slabs each, each one 16ft tall and 6ft wide. When viewed from above, the slabs formed an X pattern. At the center of the X was a central pillar nicknamed the Gnomon Stone. This pillar helped support a 9 foot long, 25,000 pound capstone that lay across the top of the structure. Carved into the upright stone slabs were 10 messages offering words of advice to future generations to ensure that everyone could understand them. The messages were written in eight English, Spanish, Hindi, Swahili, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. Some of these messages were innocent advice, encouraging people to seek truth, beauty and love in all things. Others contained darker, more controversial recommendations. The people of Elberton had mixed feelings about the slabs, which were known as the Georgia Guidestones. Some saw them as a tribute to the town's stone workers. Others saw the Guidestones as a satanic monument to a new world order. The problem was no one could agree on what the stones actually meant because no one knew the identity of the man who designed them. But that was just one half of the mystery around the Georgia Guidestones. The other half came decades later when when the monument exploded into pieces. From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories. They're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes, A Crime House original Powered by Pave Studios. Every Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. These cases are wild and I want to hear what you think at the end of each episode. Leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow so we can continue building this community together. And for ad free access to both episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts Today I'm talking about a modern day monument that shot the small town of Elberton, Georgia to fame for all the wrong reasons. From the moment they were unveiled in 1980, the Guidestones were a source of controversy for decades. Questions swirled. Were these enormous slabs and their mysterious messages the manifesto of a secret society? Were they part of a cult ritual? And had they been put there by the Antichrist? Eventually, some of these questions were answered. But the mystery was just beginning because 42 years after the guidestones were created, they were at the center of a new controversy, one that ended in their destruction. All that and more coming up. These days I'm really focused on quality over quantity. I'm raising my standards, especially when it comes to my closet. If it's not well made and versatile, I just don't bother. That's why I love quince. Their fabrics feel elevated, the cuts are thoughtful and the pricing is surprisingly reasonable. They make wardrobe staples in 100% European linen, silk and organic cotton poplin. Their cotton cashmere sweaters are light, soft and perfect for layering this season and their spring color colors gorgeous. Everything is designed to make getting dressed effortless. These are pieces built to last. Soft gauze that isn't flimsy, linen that holds its shape and stitching that really stands up over time. That cotton cashmere sweater I grabbed has become my daily Go to light luxe and exactly what I want. Stop waiting to build the wardrobe you actually want right now. Go to quints.com crimehouse pod for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear it and love it. And you will now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q u I n c.com crime house pod for free shipping and 365 day returns quint.com crime house pod
- [06:05]
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- [06:35]
Vanessa Richardson
On a Friday afternoon in June 1979, an unusual visitor showed up at the offices of Elberton Granite Finishing in Elberton, Georgia. The company's president, Joe Fendley, was busy trying to wrap up the weekly payroll when a middle aged man in an expensive suit asked to speak with him. The man introduced himself as Robert C. Christian. He claimed to represent, quote, a small group of loyal Americans who had spent the last 20 years designing a large stone monument. Thanks to its massive granite quarries, Elberton was known as the granite capital of the world. Christian hoped that Fendli and his employees could get the job done. When Christian first started talking, Fentli was more focused on the payroll documents in front of him. But he started paying attention when Christian described the monument he wanted to build. It would be made up of six granite slabs, four of them 16ft tall, all of them over a foot and a half thick. Elberton Granite Finishing mainly produced headstones for cemeteries. The slabs crystallized Christian wanted were bigger than anything ever produced by Elberton's quarries. But that wasn't all. Christian also wanted the slabs engraved with cryptic messages in eight languages, then installed to align perfectly with solar and celestial cycles. Clearly, the man had given this a lot of thought. He'd even brought along a wooden model of the proposed monument in a shoebox, along with 10 pages of detailed specifications. When Findlay asked what the purpose was, Christian said the monument was supposed to provide guidance for future generations. Because, according to him, there was some sort of apocalypse coming and the people who survived would need help rebuilding society. That's why the stone slabs had to be huge. They had to be able to withstand anything, even a nuclear war. In the aftermath, survivors could come to the guidestones for wisdom and and because the stones would be aligned with the sun's position in the sky, the remaining humans could also use them as a clock, calendar and compass. When Findlay heard this, he thought a crazy person had wandered into his office. So he came up with a plan to get rid of Christian and get back to his paperwork. Findlay explained that the project would require specialized machinery, tools and consultants, then quoted him the highest price he could think of. We don't know what that number was. But Fendley hoped it would scare Christian off. Instead, Christian just nodded and asked if there was a trustworthy banker in town he could talk to. Findley told Christian to talk to 49 year old Wyatt Martin, president of the Granite City Bank. Before Christian got there, Findley called Martin. He wanted to warn him that the man coming to see him had a few screws loosely. But when Christian turned up at the bank, Martin could see that he meant business. He was well dressed and spoke like somebody with a college education. Martin could also tell that Christian had come from far away. He had a noticeable Midwestern accent. When they sat down to discuss money, Christian revealed that Robert C. Christian wasn't his real name. He was using a pseudonym because he and the group he represented wanted to stay anonymous. Martin told him that wasn't going to work. The bank couldn't get involved in a project this big without being able to verify Christian's identity. After some back and forth, the two men figured out a way forward. Christian agreed to reveal his true identity if Martin signed a confidentiality agreement. It stipulated that he could never reveal this information to anyone else and had to destroy all the project records after it was done to. Once the document was signed, Martin opened an account for Christian at the bank and the mystery man left town. A few days later, money started flowing into Christian's account, transferred from other banks all over the country. There aren't any publicly available records stating how much the Georgia guidestones cost, but we do know that Joe Findley at Elberton Granite finishing required a $10,000 deposit to get started. That's over $22,000 today. Sure enough, one week after Robert Christian first walked into his office, Findley got a check for $10,000. He couldn't believe that this eccentric stranger actually had the money, but he did. And now it was up to Findley to follow through on the largest granite construction project in Elberton's. Findlay and his employees at Elberton Granite got to work later that summer. Right away, finding slabs that met Christian's specifications was a challenge. Workers at the local quarry had to dig 114ft deep with jackhammers before they found hunks of granite large enough for the project. When they hauled the first 28 ton slab out of the quarry, Findlay worried that their crane would buckle under the incredible weight. Meanwhile, Christian returned to Elberton to find a suitable location for the monument. Martin, the bank president, drove him around the rural areas of the county. After some searching, Christian finally settled on a five acre flat topped hill above the pastures of the Double Seven farms. That was the highest point in Elbert county at roughly 850ft above sea level. Martin brokered a real estate deal with Wayne Mullenx, the farmer who owned the plot of land. Christian paid $5,000 for it. The equivalent of just over $23,000 today and granted Mullinax and his family lifetime cattle grazing rights on the site. Once the ink was dry on the property deal, Robert C. Christian's work in Elberton was done. He paid one last visit to Elberton Granite Finishing to thank Fendli for his help and and said goodbye. Then Christian told him, quote, you'll never see me again, and walked out of the office without even a handshake. From then on, Wyatt Martin served as Christian's representative in town. He oversaw every aspect of the construction in the months to come, mailing updates to Christian on a regular basis. From time to time, Christian wrote back with new directions and guidance. Just a few weeks after he left, Christian asked Martin to transfer ownership of the future monument and the land it was being built on to Elbert County. He wanted to ensure that the monument belonged to the people of Elberton. That way they'd always have a stake in protecting and preserving it. Christian was just as mysterious through the mail as he was in person during construction. Martin noticed that Christian's letters were always sent from dark, different cities all over the US he never mailed a letter from the same place twice. But Martin didn't have much time to wonder about Christian and his anonymous benefactors. The construction of the Georgia Guidestones kept everyone in town busy. Joe Fendley described the Georgia Guidestones as the most challenging stone working project that anyone in town had ever been involved in. Once he managed to extract the six stone slabs from the quarry, which weighed a combined 240,000 pounds, they had to be cut and polished. Then Findlay hired local sandblaster Charlie Clamp to engrave Robert Christian's messages into the slabs. Clamp had to work with experts from the United nations to ensure that everything was properly translated. In the end, Clamp and his employees spent hundreds of hours to chiseling more than 4,000 characters onto the stones. While Clamp and his staff worked with the slabs, Findlay hired an astronomy professor from the University of Georgia to make sure the layout fit Christian's vision. The astronomer surveyed the site and identified positions for the four outer stones that would perfectly match the sun's annual migration through the sky. He also advised Findlay on the positioning of two features Christian wanted in the column at the center of the monument. The one was a hole where the North Star could be seen at all times. The other was a slot that would line up with the position of the sun during the solstice and equinox. Then there was the tiny aperture at the top of the monument. It was less than an inch wide and had to be positioned so a beam of sunlight would pass over the center stone at noon every day. By the beginning of 1980, the men massive project was entering its final stages. Findlay hired a construction company to build a foundation on the hilltop, then trucked the completed slabs out to the site. It took a 100 foot tall crane to hoist each stone into place. Once the Georgia Guidestones were standing, the builders draped them with sheets of black plastic. The official unveiling was scheduled for the spring equinox, which fell on March 22. That but even before the world laid eyes on the Georgia Guidestones, rumors were swirling. The stones that Robert Christian hoped would unite humanity had already begun generating controversy, and it would only get more intense over the next 42 years.
- [16:29]
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- [18:04]
Vanessa Richardson
In the summer of 1979, a mysterious man calling himself Robert C. Christian showed up in Elberton, Georgia, commissioned a massive granite monument. He wanted to engrave it with messages that could survive the apocalypse and guide the survivors in rebuilding society. Working from Christian's instructions, a local granite Company spent nine months designing, carving and building the monument. Finally, on March 22, 1980, it was time to reveal the Georgia Guidestones to the world. The unveiling ceremony was a major event. More than 400 people attended, including Elberton's congressman, Doug Barnard and TV news reporters from Atlanta. Once everyone arrived, the master of ceremonies read a brief statement from Robert Christian. It said, quote, in order to avoid debate, we the sponsors of the Georgia Guidestones, have a simple message for human beings now and for the future. We believe our precepts are sound and they must stand on their own merits. With that, the event organizers tore down the tarps and revealed the wisdom of the Georgia Guidestones. These are the 10 pieces of guidance carved into both faces of the guidestones. Granite slabs written in eight languages. 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. The languages English, Spanish, Hindi, Swahili, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian were chosen because they represented most of humanity, and Hebrew was included because of its association with the Judeo Christian tradition. A few feet away, another granite tablet explained the guidestone's astronomical features and marked a space for a time capsule to be buried. It also identified the author of the stones as RC Christian. Per Christian's instructions, the plaque with his name indicated that R.C. christian was a pseudonym. One final message was engraved on the sides of the capstone on top of the monument. It was written in four ancient Classic Greek, Sanskrit, Babylonian, cuneiform, and Egyptian hieroglyphics and translated into English, it read, let these be Guidestones to an age of reason. Unfortunately for Robert Christian and the anonymous group of Americans he represented, the Georgia Guidestones didn't make anybody act more reasonably. There were some positive reactions after the monument was unveiled. The Georgia Guidestones were made international news, and suddenly the tiny town of Elberton population 5,000, was receiving visitors from as far away as China, India, and Japan. Joe Findley was hailed as a local hero for turning the sleepy town into a tourist attraction. And celebrities took notice, too. Musician and peace activist Yoko Ono praised the guidestones as a stirring call to rational thinking. But not everybody was as excited, especially because the very first inscription, maintain humanity under 500 million, was extremely controversial. In 1980, the world's population was 4.5 billion. To many readers, this looked like the guidestones were calling for roughly 90% of the human race to be eliminated. The second inscription, guide reproduction wisely improving fitness and diversity, wasn't much better. This was widely interpreted as an endorsement of eugenics, the idea of selective human breeding to create a superior race, which was a key part of Nazi ideology, and the instructions to unite humanity with a living new language and have all nations resolve their disputes in a way World Court upset many local Christians. In the Bible, the book of Revelation warns that the Antichrist will eventually gain authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. This led some religious leaders in the deep south to believe that the mystery man who'd designed and financed the Georgia guidestones was the Antichrist himself. Rumors even circulated that Charlie Clamp, the sandblaster who had engraved the stones, had been tormented by strange music and disembodied voices while he worked, Though according to Clamp's son, the only voices his father heard were his employees cursing and swearing because of how hard the job was. While this made the guidestones unpopular with Elberton's more devout residents, it attracted a lot of attention from groups of eccentric out of towners. Within months of the guidestones unveiling, a coven of witches from Atlanta started coming to Elberton every weekend to visit the stones. The witches danced, chanted, and performed various pagan rituals. It was rumored that they even sacrificed chickens at the monument. Another visitor from Atlanta, psychic Noni Bachelder, predicted that aliens would land at the guidestones sometime in the next 230 years. As far as we know, that didn't happen. Instead, a year or two after the guidestones were built, life in Elberton went back to normal. For the most part, at least over the next few decades, the Georgia guidestones drew a small but steady stream of tourists. Locals estimated that about 20,000 people came to Elberton every year to view the guidestones, contributing about half a million dollars annually to the local economy. But that money wasn't enough to silence all of the guidestones critics and conspiracy theorists. Some suspected that R.C. christian was a rosicrucian this was a secret society of mystics founded by 14th century aristocrat Christian Rosenkreuz. Others suspected the guidestones had been financed by eccentric Atlanta billionaire and CNN founder Ted Turner. But around Elberton, most residents didn't give Robert Christian much thought. They were just proud of the stone workers who'd built it. And the only person who knew Robert Christian's true identity, Granite City bank president Wyatt Martin, wasn't too concerned about all the theories. He and Christian stayed in touch after the guidestones were finished and wound up becoming pen pals. Sometimes Christian would give Martin a call when he was passing through Atlanta, and Martin would drive out to meet him for dinner in the nearby town of Athens. Early in their friendship, Martin tried to probe Christian for any information about the group he claimed to represent. But he never let any details slip. And eventually, Martin quit asking. He got his last letter from Christian in 2001, around the time of the 911 attacks. After that, Martin never heard from him again and assumed that Christian, who would have been in his 80s, had died by then. It seemed like Wyatt Martin was the only person who would ever know the truth about Christian. But 14 years later, Martin finally gave the world a clue. In 2015, a team of filmmakers traveled to Elberton to shoot a documentary about the Georgia guidestones. Martin, who was 85 years old at the time, agreed to sit down for an on camera interview with the film's director. During their chat, Martin made a surprising admission. Even though he'd signed a confidentiality agreement pledging to destroy all of his documents and correspondence with Robert Christian, he hadn't done it. Martin explained that he'd briefly considered writing a book about his experiences, so he held on to all the paperwork. He kept it in an old computer case in a shed behind his house. After some prodding from the filmmakers, Martin agreed to get the box. He brought the dusty old case into the house so they could film it, and then, after a little more encouragement from the documentarians, he agreed to open it. On camera. They filmed Martin as he sifted through some of the letters Christian had sent him, reading snippets of their correspondence. In a letter dated July 14, 1998, Christian talked about being 78 years old and having recently had open heart surgery. In other letters, he spoke about his concerns about overpopulation and other existential threats to mankind. As Martin shuffled through the old papers, the camera caught a glimpse of one of the envelopes Christian had sent. The return address showed the name Dr. Herbert H. Kirsten in Fort Dodge. Iowa. We don't know for sure that Herbert Kirsten is Robert Christian. Kirsten's family has denied that he had any ties to the Guidestones, but there's some pretty compelling evidence to suggest that he was the man behind the monument. Dr. Herbert Kirsten was born on May 7, 1920, which would have made him 78 years old in 1980, 1998, when Christian wrote about being 78. And he died in 2005, a few years after Martin received his last letter from him. According to local records, Kirsten lived at the address seen on one of the envelopes in Martin's box. Considering that people who met Robert Christian in Elberton thought he had a Midwestern accent, well, this lined up too. Plus, Kirsten was outspoken about many of the issues addressed by the Georgia Guidelines stones. Over the years, he wrote multiple letters to Iowa newspapers warning of the dangers of overpopulation. Kirsten was a strong believer that there would soon be more humans than the earth could support. He also thought we would need to take drastic measures to avoid a crisis. This aligned with the Georgia Guidestone's commandment to keep the world population below 500 million. Kirsten also openly believed in eugenics, similar to the selective breeding programs recommended by the Guidestones. Second inscription. Plus Kirsten was a personal friend of William Shockley. Shockley was a Nobel Prize winning physicist and notorious racist who considered black people genetically inferior to white people. And in 1992, when Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke Duke ran for president, Kirsten wrote a letter to the local paper endorsing him. In it, Kirsten said, quote, david Duke voices many beliefs held by reasonable Americans. End quote. This was a major break in the mystery of the Georgia Guidestones, but it barely made a ripple in the news. The documentary Dark Clouds Over Elberton didn't receive a wide release. Few people watched it when it came out in 2015, so Robert Christian's true identity didn't get much attention. Most people had no idea that the Georgia Guidestones appeared to be the work of an outspoken white supremacist. But by then, the Georgia Guidestones days were numbered because in just a few years, the monument meant to survive the end of the world would face its own apocalypse.
- [30:35]
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- [31:06]
Hey Sal. Hank.
- [31:08]
Vanessa Richardson
What's going on?
- [31:09]
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Day.
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He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night the marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Dateline. Search Trace of Suspicion to start listening now.
- [32:08]
Vanessa Richardson
The Georgia Guidestones were a source of curiosity as soon as they were unveiled in March of nineteen nineteen eighty. But after decades of wondering who the architect was, a documentary film crew uncovered the Truth in 2015. The monument was almost certainly designed and financed by an Iowa doctor named Herbert Kirsten. This revelation should have been explosive. After doing some more digging, the filmmakers learned that Kirsten was a eugenicist who believed in white supremacy. But these findings didn't make much of a splash. And by the mid-2010s, the Georgia Guidestones were wrapped up in growing controversy for different reasons. The Guidestones had never been popular with certain Christian groups in and around Elberton. Some thought the calls for a universal language and a system of world courts were the work of the Antichrist. Others believed the occasional pagan and Wiccan ceremonies held at the Guidestones were a sign that the monument was a source of satanic energy. But for most of the Guidestones history, this controversy was limited to local churches or the occasional article in a Christian magazine. All that started to change with the rise of the Internet. In 2005, a right wing Christian activist named Mark Dice began posting about the Georgia Guidestones on his website. Dice had previously focused his attention on the 911 attacks, which he claimed had been planned by the Illuminati with the help of the US Government. Now he told his thousands of readers that the Guidestones were part of a satanic plot to usher in a new world order. Dice began advocating for the Guidestones to be quote Smashed into a million pieces over the years. Other conspiracy theorists took up the cause, too. These included infowars founder Alex Jones, who filmed a video at the guidestones, which he called the birthplace of the modern depopulation movement. And it wasn't long before his many followers started to take action. In 2008, the Guidestones had their first serious act of vandalism, when death to the new world order was spray painted on them. County officials cleaned up the graffiti, but vandals returned to the monument again and again and again. In 2013, police found that some people had started digging around the base of the slabs, trying to get into the monument's foundation. In 2016, vandals attacked the stones once more, spray painting vulgar messages and the words, you won't win on the slabs. In 2021, the stones were doused in fake blood. The Georgia guidestones had become a lightning rod for cultural controversy, and in 2022, they became the source of political controversy, too. 2022 was an election year in Georgia where the state's republican governor, Brian Kemp, intended to run for re election. But before he could do that, he had to win the Republican primary in the spring. Governor Kemp's main opponent in the primary was David Perdue, a former senator. But the most attention tension grabbing person in the race was a right wing fringe candidate named Candace Taylor. She was a former teacher whose campaign slogan was Jesus, guns and babies. On the campaign trail, Taylor talked about a lot of outlandish conspiracy theories, but the comments that made the biggest splash were about the Georgia Guidestones. In early May, just weeks before the primary, Taylor posted a video to her tens of thousands of Facebook Facebook followers. It showed her visiting the Georgia guidestones, which she claimed were connected to satanism, human sacrifices, abortion, and the COVID vaccine. Taylor promised that if elected, she'd issue an executive order to have the guidestones demolished. Taylor went on to lose the primary on May 24, receiving less than 4% of the vote. But while her political campaign failed, her campaign against the guidestones had a lasting impact. And less than a month after the election, an explosion rocked the hills outside Elberton. Just after 4am on July 6, 2022, a surveillance camera at the Georgia Guidestones recorded blurry images of a figure dressed in all black running up to the base of the monument, then running away. Moments later, a bomb exploded, shattering one of the slabs and scattering granite debris all over the surrounding field. Another camera caught a silver car speeding away from the site moments after the explosion. But the driver and license plates weren't visible. When police arrived, they realized the surviving slabs were badly damaged and in danger of collapsing by the end of the day. Local officials made the decision to dismantle the remains for safety purposes. Workers took down the other three slabs, Central column and Capstone, then transported them to an undisclosed location for storage. They've remained there ever since. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation immediately went to work on the case. Since the Georgia guidestones belonged to Elbert county, the bomber would face charges for destroying a plan public building. This was a felony and carried a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. But in the more than three years since the destruction of the guidestones, there have been no arrests and police have not named any suspects. Officials in Elberton believe the investigation has lost momentum, and in the end, the identity of the person who destroyed the guidestones may become an even bigger mystery than the identity of the person who who built them. While the Georgia guidestones are gone, residents of Elberton are still divided about what they stood for. Wayne Mullinix, who owned the land the guidestones were built on, was upset that somebody would destroy a monument that wasn't doing anybody any harm. Mart Clamp, the son of the man who engraved the messages on the guidestones, told reporters he was disappointed. In his own words, he was upset that some absolute fruitcakes had destroyed something that Elberton's stone workers put so much effort into. Clamp has looked into raising money to rebuild the guidestones, but others in Elberton aren't so interested. County commissioner Lee Vaughn didn't have any strong opinions about the guidestones while they were standing. But when he learned more about the white supremacist views of the man who allegedly had the built, he said he was glad they were gone. And business owners in the area expressed relief that their sleepy little town wouldn't get so much attention from conspiracy theorists anymore. Candice Taylor, who many locals blamed for encouraging the destruction of the guidestones, claimed the monument hadn't been destroyed by a bomb at all. In statements online, she said the guidestones had actually been shattered by a lightning bolt sent by God. The Georgia guidestones may be gone, but their endless controversy lives on. Robert Christian wanted the Georgia guidestones to unite humanity around what he considered to be a clear common sense philosophy. But for the 42 years that the granite slabs stood on the hilltop outside Elberton, they were represented something different to almost everyone who came to see them. Some people worshiped the stones. Others hated them. Many visitors treated them as a curious roadside attraction. And despite the many words engraved on the Guidestones, everybody seemed to project their own message and meaning onto them. Knowing about Robert Christian, AKA Herbert Kirsten and his reverend racist worldview, it's a good thing his philosophy is no longer on display. But whoever blew up the Guidestones probably wasn't motivated by anti racism. They were acting on a set of beliefs that were just as ill informed as Herbert Kirsten's. The Georgia Guidestones were meant to help humanity rebuild after the end of the world. Instead, they became a focal point point for the sort of extremism that threatens to destroy us all. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll decode the episode together and hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House Original Powered by Pave Studios Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes Crimes. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free plus exciting bonus content. We'll be back on Wednesday. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Truman Capps, Leah Roche and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.
- [42:21]
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- [42:56]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi, it's Vanessa. If you're drawn to true crime stories about disappearances, check out the new Crime House original the Final Hours hosted by Sarah Turney and Courtney Nicole. Listen to and follow the final hours on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
- [43:20]
Advertisement Voice
Spring just slid into your dms.
- [43:22]
Vanessa Richardson
Grab that boho.
- [43:23]
Advertisement Voice
Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your
- [43:29]
Vanessa Richardson
patio a glow up.
- [43:30]
Advertisement Voice
Spring's calling.
- [43:32]
Vanessa Richardson
Ross. Work your magic.