Georgia Guidestones

Thousands of people around the world travel to distant places just to see mysterious wonders, and there are certainly plenty of wonders to see. The giant stone heads of Easter Island, the Pyramids in Egypt, and fascinating Stonehenge silently call people to make personal pilgrimages just to stare and quietly question the origins, creators and purposes of these mysteries.

Most Americans don't realize that there is a mysterious wonder right in the heart of the South, located in the small county of Elbert, Georgia. This huge granite structure has been nicknamed "America's Stonehenge," more commonly referred to as the Georgia Guidestones. Their origin has been tied to the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons and the New World Order. Rosicrucianism is a secret society founded in Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. The society claims that there are doctrines built on esoteric truths that are rooted in the ancient past, and although concealed from the average man, once they are discovered they provide insight into the physical universe as well as man's spiritual reality.

The Georgia Guidestones are about 20 feet tall, including the underground support stones, made from six granite slabs weighing more than 240,000 pounds. One slab stands in the center with four arranged around it. A level stone sits on top of the five slabs, all of them astronomically aligned.

Built in March, 1980 by the Elberton Granite Finishing Company, the Guidestones were commissioned by R.C. Christian. In reality, R.C. Christian doesn't actually exist. One popular theory about this obvious pseudonym is that it is a tribute to the 17th-century founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Rosenkreuz.

The Guidestones deliver an ancient message conveyed in modern terms. The message on is a set of ten principles engraved in eight different languages. There is one language on each face of the four large, upright stones. The languages, starting from due north, are English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew Arabic, Chinese and Russian. The ten principles or guidelines are:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

Most of these sound like very reasonable and inspirational goals. It is the first point that has attracted all the attention. When one fixes one's mind on how the Earth's population of nearly seven billion humans is to be "reconfigured" into a sustainable 500 million, a number of possibilities occur and many of them are quite ominous. For this reason, the Georgia Guidestones are seen by many, certainly within the alternative media, as an ominous statement of murderous intent rather than an innocent presentation of aspirational goals.

A few feet west of this artifact is another granite tablet that is level with the ground. This tablet identifies the Guidestones and the languages, and lists the size, weight and astronomical features of each stone as well as the date it was installed and the sponsors of the project. There's a message about a time capsule buried six feet under the tablet but the place on the level stone that's reserved for filling in the dates when the capsule was buried and when it should be opened are missing so the time capsule may not yet be in the ground.

The search for R.C. Christian continues, but author Dan Smith, in his article "Decoding the Georgia Guidestones," identifies three candidates as the true identity of R.C. Christian: Ted Turner, Joe H. Fendley Sr. and Dr. Francis Merchant.

Smith is convinced that Ted Turner is the most likely candidate, stating: "Our investigation into the identity of Robert C. Christian has uncovered highly persuasive yet circumstantial evidence linking Robert Edward 'Ted' Turner to the very center of the Georgia Guidestones originators. This evidence is so strong that we believe Ted Turner probably was R.C. Christian. At the very least, Turner probably knows who R.C. Christian is."