Monumental Precision
Built to
survive the apocalypse, the Georgia Guidestones are not merely
instructions for the future—the massive granite slabs also function as a
clock, calendar, and compass.
The monument sits at the highest point in Elbert County and is oriented to track the sun's east-west migration year-round.
On an equinox or solstice, visitors who stand at the west side of the
"mail slot" are positioned to see the sun rise on the horizon.
An eye-level hole drilled into the center support stone allows stargazers on the south side to locate Polaris, the North Star.
A 7/8-inch hole drilled through the capstone focuses a sunbeam on the center column and at noon pinpoints the day of the year.Text: Erik Malinowski; illustration: Steve Sanford
Fendley est aujourd’hui
décédé, mais un journaliste d’une chaîne de télévision d’Atlanta avait
pu recueillir son témoignage peu après l’édification des Guidestones. “Je me suis dit : ‘J’ai
affaire à un cinglé. Comment le mettre dehors ?’” Le chef d’entreprise
tente alors de décourager son visiteur en lui donnant un prix plusieurs
fois supérieur à celui de tous les chantiers réalisés par son
entreprise. Il faut des outils spéciaux, du matériel lourd, et faire
appel à des consultants extérieurs, justifie-t-il. Mais
Robert C. Christian se contente de hocher la tête et s’enquiert de la
durée du chantier. Six mois au moins, hasarde Fendley. De toute façon,
ajoute-t-il, ne serait-ce que pour étudier un projet de cette envergure,
il lui faut des garanties financières. Lorsque Christian lui demande
s’il y a en ville un banquier ayant sa confiance, Fendley voit là
l’occasion de se débarrasser de l’importun : il l’envoie chez Wyatt
Martin, le directeur de la Granite City Bank.
Wyatt Martin (seule personne à Elberton, avec Fendley, à avoir rencontré R.C. Christian) est aujourd’hui âgé de 78 ans. “Fendley m’a appelé et m’a dit : ‘J’ai un timbré ici qui veut un monument insensé.’
Mais, quand j’ai vu le gars arriver, il portait un costume très
élégant, très cher, ce qui m’a incité à le prendre un peu plus au
sérieux. Et puis, il s’exprimait bien, c’était visiblement quelqu’un
d’un certain niveau.” Naturellement, Wyatt Martin est surpris quand l’homme lui annonce que “R.C. Christian”
est un pseudonyme. Son groupe nourrit ce projet en secret depuis vingt
ans, explique-t-il, et il souhaite conserver à jamais l’anonymat. “Quand il m’a raconté leur projet, j’ai failli tomber à la renverse, se souvient Wyatt Martin. Je lui ai dit : ‘Autant jeter l’argent par les fenêtres.’ Il m’a simplement regardé en secouant la tête, comme s’il avait un peu pitié de moi, et a dit : ‘Vous ne comprenez pas.’”
Wyatt Martin conduit Christian sur la place de la localité, où trône
une imposante fontaine du Bicentenaire [de l’indépendance des États-Unis] commandée par la municipalité, dont les treize panneaux de
granit, disposés en cercle, représentent les treize colonies
originelles. “Je lui ai dit que c’était le projet le plus important
jamais entrepris dans le coin et que c’était sans commune mesure avec ce
dont il parlait. Cela n’a pas semblé le déranger.” Christian promet de revenir le lundi suivant ; il affrète un avion et passe le week-end à faire du repérage depuis les airs. “A partir de là, j’ai commencé à le croire à moitié”, se rappelle Wyatt Martin.
 |
Joe Fendley of Elberton Granite Finishing
posing with his masterpiece.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendley Enterprises Inc.
|
Quand
Christian se présente à nouveau à la banque le lundi, le banquier lui
explique qu’il ne peut pas lancer la procédure sans connaître sa
véritable identité et obtenir la garantie qu’il est solvable. Les deux
hommes aboutissent finalement à un accord : Christian lui révélera son
vrai nom à condition que Wyatt s’engage à être son seul intermédiaire, à
signer un accord de confidentialité en vertu duquel il ne dévoilera
jamais l’information à âme qui vive et il détruira l’ensemble des
documents et archives une fois le chantier terminé. “Il m’a précisé
qu’il virerait la somme depuis différentes banques dans le pays, raconte
Wyatt Martin. Il m’a bien fait comprendre qu’il ne prenait pas à la
légère la question du secret.”
Avant de quitter Elberton,
Christian rencontre à nouveau Fendley, à qui il remet une boîte à
chaussures contenant une maquette en bois du monument souhaité,
accompagnée d’un cahier des charges d’une bonne dizaine de pages.
Fendley accepte la maquette et le document, mais il est encore
sceptique. Le vendredi suivant, Wyatt Martin lui annonce par téléphone
qu’il vient de recevoir un virement de 10 000 dollars. Dès lors,
l’entrepreneur se met au travail et ne posera plus de questions. “Mon père adorait les défis”, se souvient sa fille, Melissa Fendley Caruso. “Il disait que c’était le projet le plus ambitieux de l’histoire du comté d’Elbert.”
La
construction des Guidestones commence un peu plus tard cet été-là. Joe
Fendley et Wyatt Martin ont aidé Christian à trouver un site adéquat
dans le comté d’Elbert : une butte surplombant les pâturages d’une vaste
exploitation agricole, avec un panorama à 360 degrés. Pour
5 000 dollars, son propriétaire, Wayne Mullinex, cède une parcelle d’un
peu plus de 2 hectares. En sus de l’argent, Christian octroie à Mullinex
et à ses enfants un droit de pâturage à vie pour le bétail, et
l’entreprise de BTP de Mullinex se charge de réaliser les fondations du monument.
Une fois le terrain acheté, l’avenir des Guidestones est assuré. Christian prend congé de Fendley. “Vous ne me reverrez plus jamais”,
dit-il avant de sortir, sans même une poignée de main. Dès lors,
Christian ne communiquera plus qu’avec Wyatt Martin. Il lui écrit
quelques semaines plus tard pour lui demander de transférer la propriété
du terrain et du monument au comté d’Elbert, qui en est encore
aujourd’hui le propriétaire : le mystérieux maître d’ouvrage pense que
la fierté des administrés se chargera avec le temps de protéger les
Guidestones. “Les lettres de M. Christian provenaient à chaque fois
de villes différentes, raconte Martin. Il n’a jamais posté un courrier
deux fois du même endroit.”
 |
| Daybreak: A carefully cut slot in the Guidestones' center column frames the sunrise on solstices and equinoxes. Photo: Dan Winters |
Les spécifications astronomiques
pour les Guidestones sont si complexes que Fendley doit s’assurer les
services d’un astronome de l’université de Géorgie. Les quatre pierres
extérieures doivent être orientées en fonction de la course annuelle du
soleil. Sur la colonne centrale, deux éléments nécessitent un calibrage
minutieux : une ouverture à travers laquelle l’étoile polaire sera
visible en permanence, et une fente devant s’aligner sur la position du
soleil levant les jours de solstice et d’équinoxe. La pierre faîtière,
elle, se caractérise par un orifice de 2 centimètres par lequel un rayon
de soleil doit passer chaque jour à midi et tomber sur la date du jour
indiquée sur la pierre centrale.
La particularité la plus remarquable du monument reste néanmoins ses
dix préceptes gravés sur les deux faces des pierres extérieures en huit
langues : anglais, espagnol, russe, chinois, arabe, hébreu, hindi et
swahili. Une sorte d’énoncé de mission (“Que ces pierres nous guident vers un âge de la raison”) doit
par ailleurs être gravé sur les côtés de la pierre faîtière en
hiéroglyphes égyptiens, en grec ancien, en sanskrit et en caractères
cunéiformes babyloniens. Les traductions, fournies pour certaines par
les Nations unies (notamment pour les langues mortes), sont inscrites au
pochoir sur la pierre, puis gravées à la sableuse.
L’artisan a été distrait par une musique étrange et des voix confuses
Le
monument suscitera la controverse avant même d’être achevé. La première
rumeur est colportée par les membres de l’Association des industriels
du granit d’Elberton, jaloux de l’attention dont bénéficie un des
leurs : c’est Joe Fendley qui est derrière tout cela, assurent-ils, avec
la complicité de son ami le banquier Wyatt Martin. Les ragots se font
si pernicieux que les deux hommes acceptent de se soumettre au détecteur
de mensonges. La rumeur faiblit lorsque le journal local, The Elberton Star,
rapporte qu’ils ont tous deux passé le test avec succès, mais cette
médiatisation suscite de nouveaux griefs. Quand la teneur des
inscriptions commence à se répandre, se souvient Wyatt Martin, même des
gens qu’il considère comme ses amis lui demandent pourquoi il a accepté
d’exécuter l’œuvre du Malin. James Travenstead, un pasteur de la région,
prédit que des “groupes occultes” vont affluer et met en garde : “Un jour, un sacrifice aura lieu ici.”
Quant à ceux qui sont plutôt pour le projet, ils sont refroidis par les
propos de Charlie Clamp, l’artisan chargé de graver les caractères sur
les pierres : il y a passé des heures, raconte-t-il, et a constamment
été distrait de sa tâche par “une musique étrange et des voix confuses”.
L’inauguration,
le 22 mars 1980, est une fête pour toute la ville. Le député de la
circonscription, Doug Barnard, s’exprime devant 400 personnes qui ont
afflué sur la colline, notamment des équipes de télévision venues
d’Atlanta. Elberton ne tarde pas à devenir une destination touristique,
et l’on vient du monde entier pour voir les Guidestones. “Nous avons eu des visiteurs du Japon, de Chine, d’Inde, d’un peu partout, qui voulaient monter voir le monument”, raconte Wyatt Martin. Au printemps 2005, la revue National Geographic Traveler mentionne les Georgia Guidestones dans son guide des Appalaches.
“Gouvernez toutes choses par la raison et la modération”
Mais les inscriptions sur les pierres perturbent plus d’un visiteur. Le précepte numéro 1 jette d’emblée un froid : “Maintenez l’humanité sous la barre des 500 millions d’individus en équilibre constant avec la nature.”
La planète compte à l’époque 4,5 milliards d’êtres humains, ce qui
signifie qu’il faut en faire disparaître 8 sur 9 (aujourd’hui, ce serait
de l’ordre de 12 sur 13). Et cette instruction est rappelée et
développée dans le précepte numéro 2 : “Orientez sagement la reproduction – de façon à améliorer la santé et la diversité.”
Pas besoin d’être particulièrement imaginatif pour faire le parallèle
avec les pratiques eugénistes des nazis, entre autres. L’instruction
numéro 3 enjoint à l’humanité de s’unir derrière une nouvelle langue
vivante : voilà qui fait frissonner les pasteurs de la région, qui
savent bien que, d’après l’Apocalypse, une langue commune et un
gouvernement mondial font partie des réalisations de l’Antéchrist.
Le précepte numéro 4 (“Gouvernez la passion – la foi – la tradition – et toutes choses par la modération et la raison”)
est tout aussi déplaisant pour les chrétiens attachés à la primauté
absolue de la foi. En comparaison, les six autres sont simplement d’un
moralisme ennuyeux : “Protégez les peuples et les nations par des
lois équitables et des tribunaux justes. Que toutes les nations se
gouvernent elles-mêmes et résolvent les conflits externes devant un
tribunal mondial. Evitez les lois mesquines et les fonctionnaires
inutiles. Maintenez l’équilibre entre droits individuels et devoirs
sociaux. Appréciez la vérité – la beauté – l’amour – en cherchant
l’harmonie avec l’infini. Ne soyez pas un cancer pour la Terre –
laissez de la place à la nature – laissez de la place à la nature.”
Alors
que les habitants s’interrogent sur la validité de ces commandements,
les sombres prédictions du pasteur Travenstead semblent se vérifier. Un
groupe de sorcières d’Atlanta organise des sabbats le week-end au pied
des Guidestones pour y pratiquer divers rituels païens (“des danses, des chants, ce genre de choses”,
précise Wyatt Martin) et même, en une occasion, une cérémonie de
mariage entre sorciers. Aucun être humain n’est sacrifié sur l’autel de
granit, mais le bruit court que des poulets y sont décapités.
Un membre haut placé d’une “société secrète luciférienne”
Les visiteurs continuent d’affluer, mais, après plusieurs enquêtes infructueuses sur la véritable identité de R.C.
Christian, les médias finissent par se désintéresser du lieu. Un regain
de curiosité a lieu en 1993, au moment où Yoko Ono enregistre pour un
album en hommage au compositeur d’avant-garde John Cage un morceau
intitulé Georgia Stone, dans lequel elle scande presque mot pour mot le
dixième et dernier précepte : “Ne soyez pas un cancer pour la Terre – laissez de la place à la nature – laissez de la place à la nature.”
Pendant tout ce temps, Robert C. Christian est resté en contact avec
Wyatt Martin, tant et si bien qu’entre les deux hommes est née une
véritable amitié épistolaire.
Le mystère Robert C. Christian et
l’absence d’information sur la véritable signification des Guidestones
ont naturellement enflammé les théoriciens du complot et les
“enquêteurs” en tout genre. Pas étonnant que, trente ans plus tard, les
curieux se pressent encore devant le monument pour tenter de combler le
vide par des hypothèses diverses et variées.
Parmi eux se trouve Mark Dice, auteur d’un ouvrage intitulé The Resistance Manifesto [Le manifeste de la résistance]. Depuis 2005, cet homme exige que les Guidestones soient “brisées en des millions de morceaux”. Selon lui, le monument a “une origine satanique profonde”, affirmation qui lui a valu l’attention des médias. R.C. Christian, assure-t-il, était un membre haut placé d’une “société secrète luciférienne”, fer de lance du nouvel ordre mondial. “L’élite
planche sur la mise au point dans les décennies à venir de technologies
de prolongement de la vie qui mettront fin au vieillissement, affirme Mark Dice, et
elle craint qu’avec une planète aussi densément peuplée qu’aujourd’hui
les masses n’utilisent les ressources qu’elle veut se réserver pour
elle-même. Les Guidestones sont les dix commandements du nouvel ordre
mondial. Elles sont aussi un moyen pour l’élite de rire aux dépens des
masses non informées : leur projet est clair comme de l’eau de roche, et
ces zombies ne s’en rendent même pas compte.”
L’interprétation
de Mark Dice n’a fait qu’accroître l’intérêt pour les Georgia
Guidestones. Et attirer de nouveaux visiteurs, dissuadant d’autant plus
les responsables du comté d’Elbert de se débarrasser du seul grand atout
touristique de leur région. Phyllis Brooks, qui dirige la chambre de
commerce du comté, s’est dit horrifiée quand, en novembre dernier, les
Guidestones ont été vandalisées pour la première fois de leur histoire.
Si Mark Dice nie être impliqué dans l’affaire, il semble bien en être
l’inspirateur : les messages bombés au spray sur la pierre disaient “Jésus vous vaincra, sales satanistes” ou “Non au gouvernement mondial”.
D’autres tags clamaient que les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 étaient
l’œuvre du gouvernement américain et que Barack Obama était musulman.
Wyatt Martin grimace chaque fois qu’il entend Dice parler de “société secrète luciférienne” à propos des Guidestones. Bien qu’en désaccord, il reconnaît n’avoir aucune certitude. “Tout ce que je peux vous dire, c’est que M. Christian m’a toujours paru être un gars très correct et très honnête.”
Naturellement,
Mark Dice est loin d’être le seul à avoir sa théorie sur les
Guidestones. Jay Weidner, ancien animateur radio à Seattle devenu expert
en théories du complot, a consacré un temps et une énergie
considérables à échafauder l’une des hypothèses les plus prisées. Pour
lui, Christian et ses associés étaient des rosicruciens, des membres de
l’ordre mystique de la Rose-Croix, une société secrète apparue dans
l’Allemagne du bas Moyen Age qui affirmait connaître sur la nature,
l’univers et la spiritualité des vérités ésotériques échappant au commun
des mortels. Le nom de R.C. Christian, avance
Jay Weidner, est un hommage à Christian Rosenkreutz, le personnage
mythique censé être le fondateur légendaire de la Rose-Croix au
xive siècle. Le culte du secret, poursuit-il, a toujours caractérisé les
rosicruciens, qui se sont fait connaître au début du xviie siècle par
deux manifestes anonymes qui firent sensation dans toute l’Europe, même
si personne n’a jamais pu identifier un seul membre de cette société
secrète. De fait, si les préceptes gravés sur les Guidestones sont en
contradiction flagrante avec l’eschatologie chrétienne, ils collent
assez bien aux principes de la Rose-Croix, qui mettent l’accent sur la
raison et prônent l’harmonie avec la nature.
“Je ne peux rien dire, j’ai fait une promesse”
Jay
Weidner a également une théorie sur la raison d’être des Guidestones.
Spécialiste des traditions hermétistes et alchimiques qui donnèrent
naissance à la Rose-Croix, il est convaincu que, depuis des générations,
l’Ordre transmet la connaissance d’un cycle solaire culminant tous les
treize mille ans. Lors de cet apogée cyclique, de gigantesques éjections
de masse coronale devraient dévaster la Terre. En attendant, estime
Weidner, l’organisation secrète à l’origine des Guidestones orchestre un
“chaos planétaire” qui a débuté avec le récent effondrement du
système financier américain et se traduira à terme par de graves
perturbations de l’approvisionnement en pétrole et en produits
alimentaires, des émeutes à grande échelle et des guerres ethniques dans
le monde entier, qui aboutiront au 21 décembre 2012 – le Grand
Evénement. “Ils veulent faire décroître la population, assure Jay
Weidner, et c’est ainsi qu’ils pensent y parvenir. Les Guidestones sont là pour instruire les survivants.”
 |
A worker uses a special burner to finish a slab of Pyramid Blue granite.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendley Enterprises Inc. |
Informé des idées de Weidner, Wyatt Martin secoue la tête : c’est “le genre de chose qui me donne envie de dire tout ce que je sais”.
Le banquier a depuis longtemps pris sa retraite et ne vit plus à
Elberton, mais il reste le gardien officiel (et unique) du secret des
Guidestones. “Mais je ne peux rien dire”, s’empresse d’ajouter le vieux
monsieur. “J’ai fait une promesse.” Wyatt Martin s’est aussi
engagé à détruire toutes les traces de ses tractations avec Robert
C. Christian – mais cette promesse-là, il ne l’a pas tenue, pas encore.
Au fond de son garage, une grande caisse en plastique (la valise
capitonnée d’un ordinateur IBM qu’il a acheté
en 1983) contient tous les documents liés aux Guidestones qui sont
passés entre ses mains, y compris les lettres de Christian.
Pendant
des années, Wyatt Martin a pensé qu’il écrirait peut-être un livre,
mais il sait aujourd’hui qu’il ne le fera pas. Pas plus qu’il ne
m’autorisera à jeter un œil à ses archives. Quand je lui demande s’il
est prêt à emporter ce qu’il sait dans la tombe, il répond que c’est
exactement ce que Christian souhaitait qu’il fasse. “Il n’a jamais
cessé de dire que son identité et son origine devaient rester secrètes.
Il disait que c’est ainsi que fonctionnent les mystères. Pour garder
l’intérêt des gens, il faut leur en révéler très peu.”
Randall Sullivan
Doomsday machine
Stanley Kubrick en a cauchemardé dans son film Docteur Folamour (1964), les Soviétiques l’auraient fait. Ils auraient mis au point dans les années 1980 une machine infernale (Doomsday Machine ou machine du Jugement dernier) “garantissant une réponse soviétique automatique à une frappe nucléaire américaine”, explique le mensuel américain Wired. L’existence
de ce système, baptisé Périmètre, est confirmée dans le magazine par
plusieurs anciens hauts responsables militaires russes mais toujours
niée officiellement. Pourquoi “les Soviétiques ne l’ont-ils pas dit au monde, ou au moins à la Maison-Blanche ?” Citant deux militaires russes, le magazine avance l’hypothèse selon laquelle “en
garantissant que Moscou pourrait riposter, Périmètre a en fait été
conçu pour empêcher un militaire ou un politique soviétique trop zélé de
déclencher une frappe prématurée en cas de crise”.
■ À lire
2012 Scénarios pour une fin du monde, de Didier Jamet et Fabrice Mottez (Belin, coll. “Pour la science”, 2009).
Un
journaliste scientifique s’associe à un astrophysicien pour démonter
les scénarios apocalyptiques les plus répandus et explorer les thèses
catastrophistes qui demeurent possibles au regard de la science. La fin
du monde aura bien lieu, au plus tard dans un milliard d’années environ,
mais la science ne saurait être plus précise dans ses prédictions !
Source
Wired
San Francisco
www.wired.comMensuel
870 000 exemplaires
anglais
Fondée
en 1993, cette revue à la maquette détonante est une référence
internationale de la culture technophile. "Câblé" couvre sans
complaisance l'actualité internationale en mettant l'accent sur les
nouvelles technologies et les sciences. En 2009, le magazine a été
décliné dans des éditions britannique (Wired UK) et italienne (Wired Italia).
Le
site reprend les articles du mensuel tout en proposant un très grand
nombre d'articles exclusifs et des tests de matériels (gadgets, hi-fi,
vidéo, etc.). Il compte une communauté extrêmement active de blogueurs
et accueille 24 millions de visiteurs uniques par mois.
* * *
The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic
monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for
rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who
created them—and he's not talking. Photo: Dan Winters The
strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern
Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in
a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them
weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound
capstone. Approaching the edifice, it's hard not to think immediately of
England's Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it.
Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque
on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of
intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun
and stars—and the "guides" themselves, directives carved into the rocks.
These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to
Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely
eugenic (guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity);
others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (prize
truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite).
What's
most widely agreed upon—based on the evidence available—is that the
Guidestones are meant to instruct the dazed survivors of some impending
apocalypse as they attempt to reconstitute civilization. Not everyone is
comfortable with this notion. A few days before I visited, the stones
had been splattered with polyurethane
and spray-painted with graffiti, including slogans like "Death to the
new world order." This defacement was the first serious act of vandalism
in the Guidestones' history, but it was hardly the first objection to
their existence. In fact, for more than three decades this uncanny
structure in the heart of the Bible Belt has been generating responses
that range from enchantment to horror. Supporters (notable among them
Yoko Ono) have praised the messages as a stirring call to rational
thinking, akin to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Opponents have attacked them as the Ten Commandments of the Antichrist.
Whoever
the anonymous architects of the Guidestones were, they knew what they
were doing: The monument is a highly engineered structure that
flawlessly tracks the sun. It also manages to engender endless
fascination, thanks to a carefully orchestrated aura of mystery. And the
stones have attracted plenty of devotees to defend against folks who
would like them destroyed. Clearly, whoever had the monument placed here
understood one thing very well: People prize what they don't understand
at least as much as what they do.
The
story of the Georgia Guidestones began on a Friday afternoon in June
1979, when an elegant gray-haired gentleman showed up in Elbert County,
made his way to the offices of Elberton Granite Finishing, and
introduced himself as Robert C. Christian. He claimed to represent "a
small group of loyal Americans" who had been planning the installation
of an unusually large and complex stone monument. Christian had come to
Elberton—the county seat and the granite capital of the world—because he
believed its quarries produced the finest stone on the planet.
Joe
Fendley, Elberton Granite's president, nodded absently, distracted by
the rush to complete his weekly payroll. But when Christian began to
describe the monument he had in mind, Fendley stopped what he was doing.
Not only was the man asking for stones larger than any that had been
quarried in the county, he also wanted them cut, finished, and assembled
into some kind of enormous astronomical instrument.
What in the world would it be for? Fendley asked. Christian explained
that the structure he had in mind would serve as a compass, calendar,
and clock. It would also need to be engraved with a set of guides
written in eight of the world's major languages. And it had to be
capable of withstanding the most catastrophic events, so that the
shattered remnants of humanity would be able to use those guides to
reestablish a better civilization than the one that was about to destroy
itself.
Monumental Precision
Built to
survive the apocalypse, the Georgia Guidestones are not merely
instructions for the future—the massive granite slabs also function as a
clock, calendar, and compass.
The monument sits at the highest point in Elbert County and is oriented to track the sun's east-west migration year-round.
On an equinox or solstice, visitors who stand at the west side of the
"mail slot" are positioned to see the sun rise on the horizon.
An eye-level hole drilled into the center support stone allows stargazers on the south side to locate Polaris, the North Star.
A 7/8-inch hole drilled through the capstone focuses a sunbeam on the center column and at noon pinpoints the day of the year.Text: Erik Malinowski; illustration: Steve Sanford
Fendley
is now deceased, but shortly after the Guidestones went up, an Atlanta
television reporter asked what he was thinking when he first heard
Christian's plan. "I was thinking, 'I got a nut in here now. How am I
going get him out?'" Fendley said. He attempted to discourage the man by
quoting him a price several times higher than for any project
commissioned there before. The job would require special tools, heavy
equipment, and paid consultants, Fendley explained. But Christian merely
nodded and asked how long it would take. Fendley didn't rightly
know—six months, at least. He wouldn't be able to even consider such an
undertaking, he added, until he knew it could be paid for. When
Christian asked whether there was a banker in town he considered
trustworthy, Fendley saw his chance to unload the strange man and sent
him to look for Wyatt Martin, president of the Granite City Bank.
The
tall and courtly Martin—the only man in Elberton besides Fendley known
to have met R. C. Christian face-to-face—is now 78. "Fendley called me
and said, 'A kook over here wants some kind of crazy monument,'" Martin
says. "But when this fella showed up he was wearing a very nice,
expensive suit, which made me take him a little more seriously. And he
was well-spoken, obviously an educated person." Martin was naturally taken aback when the man told him straight out that R. C. Christian
was a pseudonym. He added that his group had been planning this
secretly for 20 years and wanted to remain anonymous forever. "And when
he told me what it was he and this group wanted to do, I just about fell
over," Martin says. "I told him, 'I believe you'd be just as well off
to take the money and throw it out in the street into the gutters.' He
just sort of looked at me and shook his head, like he felt kinda sorry
for me, and said, 'You don't understand.'"
Martin
led Christian down the street to the town square, where the city had
commissioned a towering Bicentennial Memorial Fountain, which included a
ring of 13 granite panels, each roughly 2 by 3 feet, signifying the
original colonies. "I told him that was about the biggest project ever
undertaken around here, and it was nothing compared to what he was
talking about," Martin says. "That didn't seem to bother him at all."
Promising to return on Monday, the man went off to charter a plane and
spend the weekend scouting locations from the air. "By then I half
believed him," Martin says.
When
Christian came back to the bank Monday, Martin explained that he could
not proceed unless he could verify the man's true identity and "get some
assurance you can pay for this thing." Eventually, the two negotiated
an agreement: Christian would reveal his real name on the condition that
Martin promise to serve as his sole intermediary, sign a
confidentiality agreement pledging never to disclose the information to
another living soul, and agree to destroy all documents and records
related to the project when it was finished. "He said he was going to
send the money from different banks across the country," Martin says,
"because he wanted to make sure it couldn't be traced. He made it clear
that he was very serious about secrecy."
Before
leaving town, Christian met again with Fendley and presented the
contractor with a shoe box containing a wooden model of the monument he
wanted, plus 10 or so pages of detailed specifications. Fendley accepted
the model and instructions but remained skeptical until Martin phoned
the following Friday to say he had just received a $10,000 deposit.
After that, Fendley stopped questioning and started working. "My daddy
loved a challenge," says Fendley's daughter, Melissa Fendley Caruso,
"and he said this was the most challenging project in the history of
Elbert County."
Construction of the Guidestones
got under way later that summer. Fendley's company lovingly documented
the progress of the work in hundreds of photographs. Jackhammers were
used to gouge 114 feet into the rock at Pyramid Quarry, searching for
hunks of granite big enough to yield the final stones. Fendley and his
crew held their breath when the first 28-ton slab was lifted to the
surface, wondering if their derricks would buckle under the weight. A
special burner (essentially a narrowly focused rocket motor used to cut
and finish large blocks of granite) was trucked to Elberton to clean and
size the stones, and a pair of master stonecutters was hired to smooth
them.
Fendley and Martin helped Christian find a
suitable site for the Guidestones in Elbert County: a flat-topped hill
rising above the pastures of the Double 7 Farms, with vistas in all
directions. For $5,000, owner Wayne Mullinex signed over a 5-acre plot.
In addition to the payment, Christian granted lifetime cattle-grazing
rights to Mullinex and his children, and Mullinex's construction company
got to lay the foundation for the Guidestones.
With
the purchase of the land, the Guidestones' future was set. Christian
said good-bye to Fendley at the granite company office, adding, "You'll
never see me again." Christian then turned and walked out the
door—without so much as a handshake.
From then on,
Christian communicated solely through Martin, writing a few weeks later
to ask that ownership of the land and monument be transferred to Elbert
County, which still holds it. Christian reasoned that civic pride would
protect it over time. "All of Mr. Christian's correspondence came from
different cities around the country," Martin says. "He never sent
anything from the same place twice."
|
| Daybreak: A carefully cut slot in the Guidestones' center column frames the sunrise on solstices and equinoxes. Photo: Dan Winters |
The
astrological specifications for the Guidestones were so complex that
Fendley had to retain the services of an astronomer from the University
of Georgia to help implement the design. The four outer stones were to
be oriented based on the limits of the sun's yearly migration. The
center column needed two precisely calibrated features: a hole through
which the North Star would be visible at all times, and a slot that was
to align with the position of the rising sun during the solstices and
equinoxes. The principal component of the capstone was a 7\8-inch
aperture through which a beam of sunlight would pass at noon each day,
shining on the center stone to indicate the day of the year.
The
main feature of the monument, though, would be the 10 dictates carved
into both faces of the outer stones, in eight languages: English,
Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, and Swahili. A mission
statement of sorts (let these be guidestones to an age of reason) was
also to be engraved on the sides of the capstone in Egyptian
hieroglyphics, classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Babylonian cuneiform. The
United Nations provided some of the translations (including those for
the dead languages), which were stenciled onto the stones and etched
with a sandblaster.
By
early 1980, a bulldozer was scraping the Double 7 hilltop to bedrock,
where five granite slabs serving as a foundation were laid out in a
paddle-wheel design. A 100-foot-tall crane was used to lift the stones
into place. Each of the outer rocks was 16 feet 4 inches high, 6 feet 6
inches wide, and 1 foot 7 inches thick. The center column was the same
(except only half the width), and the capstone measured 9 feet 8 inches
long, 6 feet 6 inches wide, and 1 foot 7 inches thick. Including the
foundation stones, the monument's total weight was almost 240,000
pounds. Covered with sheets of black plastic in preparation for an
unveiling on the vernal equinox, the Guidestones towered over the cattle
that continued to graze beneath it at the approach of winter's end.
The
monument ignited controversy before it was even finished. The first
rumor began among members of the Elberton Granite Association, jealous
of the attention being showered on one of their own: Fendley was behind
the whole thing, they said, aided by his friend Martin, the banker. The
gossip became so poisonous that the two men agreed to take a lie
detector test at the Elberton Civic Center. The scandal withered when The Elberton Star
reported that they had both passed convincingly, but the publicity
brought a new wave of complaints. As word of what was being inscribed
spread, Martin recalls, even people he considered friends asked him why
he was doing the devil's work. A local minister, James Travenstead,
predicted that "occult groups" would flock to the Guidestones, warning
that "someday a sacrifice will take place here." Those inclined to agree
were hardly discouraged by Charlie Clamp, the sandblaster charged with
carving each of the 4,000-plus characters on the stones: During the
hundreds of hours he spent etching the guides, Clamp said, he had been
constantly distracted by "strange music and disjointed voices."
 |
The
team that built the Guidestones didn't know who was financing the
project
—just that it was the biggest monument in county history.
Local
banker Wyatt Martin inspects the English lettering
with sandblaster
Charlie Clamp before the 1980 unveiling.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendley Enterprises Inc.
|
The unveiling on March 22, 1980, was a community celebration.
Congressmember Doug Barnard, whose district contained Elberton,
addressed a crowd of 400 that flowed down the hillside and included
television news crews from Atlanta. Soon Joe Fendley was the most famous
Elbertonian since Daniel Tucker, the 18th-century minister memorialized
in the folk song "Old Dan Tucker." Bounded by the Savannah and Broad
rivers but miles from the nearest interstate—"as rural as rural can be,"
in the words of current Star publisher Gary Jones—Elberton was
suddenly a tourist destination, with visitors from all over the world
showing up to see the Guidestones. "We'd have people from Japan and
China and India and everywhere wanting to go up and see the monument,"
Martin says. And Fendley's boast that he had "put Elberton on the map"
was affirmed literally in spring 2005, when National Geographic Traveler listed the Guidestones as a feature in its Geotourism MapGuide to Appalachia.
But
many who read what was written on the stones were unsettled. Guide
number one was, of course, the real stopper: maintain humanity under
500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. There were already 4.5
billion people on the planet, meaning eight out of nine had to go (today
it would be closer to 12 out of 13). This instruction was echoed and
expanded by tenet number two: guide reproduction wisely—improving
fitness and diversity. It didn't take a great deal of imagination to
draw an analogy to the practices of, among others, the Nazis. Guide
number three instructed readers to unite humanity with a living new
language. This sent a shiver up the spine of local ministers who knew
that the Book of Revelations warned of a common tongue and a one-world
government as the accomplishments of the Antichrist. Guide number
four—rule passion—faith—tradition—and all things with tempered
reason—was similarly threatening to Christians committed to the primacy
of faith over all. The last six guides were homiletic by comparison.
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.
Even as locals debated the relative
merits of these commandments, the dire predictions of Travenstead seemed
to be coming true. Within a few months, a coven of witches from Atlanta
adopted the Guidestones as their home away from home, making weekend
pilgrimages to Elberton to stage various pagan rites ("dancing and
chanting and all that kind of thing," Martin says) and at least one
warlock-witch marriage ceremony. No humans were sacrificed on the altar
of the stones, but there are rumors that several chickens were beheaded.
A 1981 article in the monthly magazine UFO Report cited Naunie
Batchelder (identified in the story as "a noted Atlanta psychic") as
predicting that the true purpose of the guides would be revealed "within
the next 30 years." Viewed from directly overhead, the Guidestones
formed an X, the piece in UFO Report observed, making for a perfect landing site.
Visitors
kept coming, but after several failed investigations into the identity
of R. C. Christian, the media lost interest. Curiosity flared again
briefly in 1993, when Yoko Ono contributed a track called "Georgia
Stone" to a tribute album for avant-garde composer John Cage, with Ono
chanting the 10th and final guide nearly verbatim: "Be not a cancer on
Earth—leave room for nature—leave room for nature." A decade later,
however, when comedienne Roseanne Barr tried to work a bit on the
Guidestones into her comeback tour, nobody seemed to care.
Christian
kept in touch with Martin, writing the banker so regularly that they
became pen pals. Occasionally, Christian would call from a pay phone at
the Atlanta airport to say he was in the area, and the two would
rendezvous for dinner in the college town of Athens, a 40-mile drive
west of Elberton. By this time, Martin no longer questioned Christian's
secrecy. The older man had successfully deflected Martin's curiosity
when the two first met, by quoting Henry James' observations of
Stonehenge: "You may put a hundred questions to these rough-hewn giants
as they bend in grim contemplation of their fallen companions, but your
curiosity falls dead in the vast sunny stillness that enshrouds them."
Christian "never would tell me a thing about this group he belonged to,"
Martin says. The banker received his last letter from Christian right
around the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and assumes the man—who
would have been in his mid-eighties—has since passed away.
|
Joe Fendley of Elberton Granite Finishing
posing with his masterpiece.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendley Enterprises Inc. |
The mysterious story of R. C. Christian and the absence of information
about the true meaning of the Guidestones was bound to become an
irresistible draw for conspiracy theorists and "investigators" of all
kinds. Not surprisingly, three decades later there is no shortage of
observers rushing to fill the void with all sorts of explanations.
Among them is an activist named Mark Dice, author of a book called The Resistance Manifesto. In 2005, Dice (who was using a pseudonym of his own—"John Conner"—appropriated from the Terminator
franchise's main character) began to demand that the Guidestones be
"smashed into a million pieces." He claims that the monument has "a deep
Satanic origin," a stance that has earned him plenty of coverage, both
in print and on the Web. According to Dice, Christian was a high-ranking
member of "a Luciferian secret society" at the forefront of the New
World Order. "The elite are planning to develop successful
life-extension technology in the next few decades that will nearly stop
the aging process," Dice says, "and they fear that with the current
population of Earth so high, the masses will be using resources that the
elite want for themselves. The Guidestones are the New World Order's
Ten Commandments. They're also a way for the elite to get a laugh at the
expense of the uninformed masses, as their agenda stands as clear as
day and the zombies don't even notice it."
Ironically,
Dice's message has mainly produced greater publicity for the
Guidestones. This, in turn, has brought fresh visitors to the monument
and made Elbert County officials even less inclined to remove the area's
only major tourist attraction.
Phyllis Brooks,
who runs the Elbert County Chamber of Commerce, pronounced herself
aghast last November when the Guidestones were attacked by vandals for
the first time ever. While Dice denies any involvement in the assault,
he seems to have inspired it: Spray-painted on the stones were messages
like "Jesus will beat u satanist" and "No one world government." Other
defacements asserted that the Council on Foreign Relations is "ran by
the devil," that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, and that President
Obama is a Muslim. The vandals also splashed the Guidestones with
polyurethane, which is much more difficult to remove than paint. Despite
the graffiti's alignment with his views, Dice says he disapproves of
the acts. "A lot of people were glad such a thing happened and saw it as
standing up against the New World Order," Dice says, "while others who
are unhappy with the stones saw the actions as counterproductive and
inappropriate."
Martin winces every time he hears
Dice's "Luciferian secret society" take on the Guidestones. But while he
disagrees, he also admits that he doesn't know for sure. "All I can
tell you is that Mr. Christian always seemed a very decent and sincere
fella to me."
|
A worker uses a special burner to finish a slab of Pyramid Blue granite.
Photo: Courtesy of Fendley Enterprises Inc. |
Dice, of course, is far from the only person with a theory about the
Guidestones. Jay Weidner, a former Seattle radio commentator turned
erudite conspiracy hunter, has heavily invested time and energy into one
of the most popular hypotheses. He argues that Christian and his
associates were Rosicrucians, followers of the Order of the Rosy Cross, a
secret society of mystics that originated in late medieval Germany and
claim understanding of esoteric truths about nature, the universe, and
the spiritual realm that have been concealed from ordinary people.
Weidner considers the name R. C. Christian an homage to the legendary
14th-century founder of the Rosicrucians, a man first identified as
Frater C.R.C. and later as Christian Rosenkreuz. Secrecy, Weidner notes,
has been a hallmark of the Rosicrucians, a group that announced itself
to the world in the early 17th century with a pair of anonymous
manifestos that created a huge stir across Europe, despite the fact that
no one was ever able to identify a single member. While the guides on
the Georgia stones fly in the face of orthodox Christian eschatology,
they conform quite well to the tenets of Rosicrucianism, which stress
reason and endorse a harmonic relationship with nature.
Weidner
also has a theory about the purpose of the Guidestones. An authority on
the hermetic and alchemical traditions that spawned the Rosicrucians,
he believes that for generations the group has been passing down
knowledge of a solar cycle that climaxes every 13,000 years. During this
culmination, outsize coronal mass ejections are supposed to devastate
Earth. Meanwhile, the shadowy organization behind the Guidestones is now
orchestrating a "planetary chaos," Weidner believes, that began with
the recent collapse of the US financial system and will result
eventually in major disruptions of oil and food supplies, mass riots,
and ethnic wars worldwide, all leading up to the Big Event on December
21, 2012. "They want to get the population down," Weidner says, "and
this is what they think will do it. The Guidestones are there to
instruct the survivors."
On
hearing Weidner's ideas, Martin shakes his head and says it's "the sort
of thing that makes me want to tell people everything I know." Martin
has long since retired from banking and no longer lives in Elberton, yet
he's still the Guidestones' official—and only—secret-keeper. "But I
can't tell," the old man quickly adds. "I made a promise." Martin also
made a promise to destroy all the records of his dealings with
Christian, though he hasn't kept that one—at least not yet. In the back
of his garage is a large plastic bin (actually, the hard-sided case of
an IBM computer he bought back in 1983) stuffed with every document
connected to the Guidestones that ever came into his possession,
including the letters from Christian.
For years
Martin thought he might write a book, but now he knows he probably
won't. What he also won't do is allow me to look through the papers.
When I ask whether he's prepared to take what he knows to his grave,
Martin replies that Christian would want him to do just that: "All
along, he said that who he was and where he came from had to be kept a
secret. He said mysteries work that way. If you want to keep people
interested, you can let them know only so much." The rest is enshrouded
in the vast sunny stillness.
Randall Sullivan (randysul@aol.com) wrote about the electric-vehicle company ZAP in issue 16.04.
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