Stephen Fowler/Georgia Public Broadcasting Rose Scoggins, editor of the local newspaper, with a special edition the paper put out after the monument was bombed earlier this month. "I think we will unfortunately see that decline." "I do think that we will slowly start to see just how big of an impact they had, because it will affect our tourism," said Rose Scoggins, editor of the Elberton Star. That means fewer people eating at local restaurants, shopping at local stores and sleeping at the town's hotel. That's certainly true in Elberton, billed as the "Granite Capital of the World." The Guidestones were a major tourist draw to an otherwise isolated area. And when these events do happen, "they have really disproportionate effects and the damage can last well beyond and certainly extend much past any property destroyed," Holt said. The line between posting things on the internet and doing them in real life is blurring more and more, and the current political climate often rewards extreme rhetoric. "Whether it's elected officials appealing to online conspiracists or online conspiracists trying to become elected officials, we're really starting to see the effects of that in clear and obvious ways," he said. But Jared Holt, an extremism researcher with the Institute for Strategic Dialog, said the Guidestones are a perfect example of how pervasive conspiracy thinking has become. all the dynamite in the world can't change a man's heart." Conspiracy theories spilling over into real lifeĬonspiracy theories aren't a new phenomenon, and neither is people acting out on them in real life. "Our view of righteousness is not an Almighty God that needs zealots to do his dirty work and destruction," Graves said.
That failed candidate, as well as others who believe conspiracies about the Guidestones, have falsely claimed that God struck the monument down with righteous lightning - despite surveillance video showing a person planting a device and running away.Įlberton Mayor Daniel Graves says his county is a solidly conservative and religiously observant, so outside voices claiming Satan's hold on the stones don't add up. "It sets the mood for the crazies to come out and do their thing," Clamp said.
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"My father sandblasted all of the lettering into the Guidestones, and for the last 25 years I have maintained the Guidestones any time somebody came up that graffitied or did any kind of damage to them," he said.Ĭlamp points the finger for the bombing at the recent trend of monument removals – sanctioned and unsanctioned – plus a fringe candidate for governor calling for the demolition of the Guidestones as her top priority. The Guidestones are a bit of a family affair for him. "There's been numerous occasions that people have come over and spray painted it, they've put the NWO - the 'New World Order' - they've sprayed that on it a bunch of times," Mart Clam, the owner of Clamp Sandblasting. Some people keyed in on other guides like "Keep the population below 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature" and to "Guide reproduction wisely." That's led to protests, plenty of conspiracy theories about ties to Satan and sometimes, light vandalism.
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