One year after bombing: Georgia Guidestones never again to rise on the Elbert County ridge

“What if I told you that America has its own Stonehenge?” Those words were printed 10 years ago in the book “History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time.”

That Stonehenge referenced in the book was Georgia’s Guidestones, the enormous granite monument in Elbert County that was destroyed a year ago on Thursday, July 6.

The monument which since 1980 dominated a high ridge several miles outside Elberton was heavily damaged by a bomb that shattered one of the four 19-foot-high granite blocks. A decision was then made to push the remaining stones over.

The Guidestones are gone. The identity of the bomber remains a mystery.

Conspiracy theory: How the Georgia Guidestones became a target for conspiracy theorists

The bomber’s motive is unknown; however, the monument had come under recent attack in a heated political year with one candidate for governor calling for its destruction. And for years previously, many had construed an anti-Christian meaning in the mysterious messages carved into the stone.

The words were imbedded in eight languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish.

Some marveled at the giant creation that aligned to celestial events such as the solstices, while others feared their own interpretation of the message. But for whatever reasons, the Georgia Guidestones attracted numerous tourists to this corner of the state, where granite is the foundation of the county's history.

The Guidestones will not be rebuilt, according to officials in Elbert County in positions to know.

Talk about rebuilding was optimistic in the days after the Guidestones were destroyed, but that soon ebbed. And has now ended.

“We’re completely done with it,” Elbert County Commission Chairman Lee Vaughn said this week.

No rebuilding: Elbert County won't rebuild bombed Georgia Guidestones, will donate monument's remains

The county had inherited the land where the monument stood through a deed made by the mysterious man who had the monument built, but those acres were returned to the original owner Wayne Mullinex.

“It went back to the original owner as the deed required,” Vaughn said. “He has sold it to a gentleman, from my understanding, who is going to build a house and live there.”

Vaughn, like many others in the Elbert County community, was disappointed that the Guidestones were destroyed, bringing to an end a tourist attraction that was written about in numerous books and became a much-discussed and known entity once the internet came into its own.

“For months after it happened, people would still go to the site, look around, pick up pieces, that sort of thing,” Vaughn said.

Chris Kubas, executive vice president of the Elberton Granite Association, said there was initially a huge push to rebuild the monument, possibly leaving off the controversial messages. However, that exuberance faded in time.

“People are starting to realize it was a tourism draw. We’ve seen a decrease in the number of tourism folks that come into Elberton because of it,” he said.

Monumental debate: Georgia Guidestones bomber eludes investigators as Elbert debates rebuilding monument

People are especially frustrated at the lack of information on the criminal investigation, according to Kubas.

“We know nothing more today than we knew the day it happened. They just say it’s an ongoing investigation,” said Kubas, who was in the military for eight years and was a demolition specialist.

“I have knowledge of explosives and it took some knowledge on how to put it together. Someone knew what they were doing or had access to someone who did,” he said.

Vaughn also believes that the bomber didn’t act alone, but worked in a criminal conspiracy with someone else.

Kubas said the stones were collected and moved to a new location, although it is unknown what will be done with the remains.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Jesse Maddox, who supervises the Athens office, said recently that every lead was examined in the investigation.

“Everything we’ve run down turned out to be inaccurate or if it required follow-up. It didn’t lead to the identity of anyone or any group of people,” he said.

“The reality of it being technically a property crime, we won’t leave it open forever and when we do close it, we invite anybody to get a copy,” he said.

The bombing appears to be an isolated incident in the respect that the suspect apparently achieved a goal and has not committed any similar crimes, according to Maddox.

The agent said investigators believe the bomb was ignited by a firearm.

Maddox did not mention what type of bomb material was used, but Tannerite is exploded by a firearm and this apparently could have been used to detonate the actual bomb.

The Elbert County Sheriff’s Office had access to a video camera at the site and the video shows a person at the site, the explosion, and the Guidestone bomber leaving in a car.

“The video is not that good,” Maddox said, “but thank goodness there was some video.”

The Guidestones were the subjects of books and became internet fodder due to the mystery of who created it and the meaning behind the inscribed messages.

Several people credited R.C. Christian, who worked with a banker in Elberton, as the one who financed the monument's construction.

Jim Cleveland, a Florida writer, told the Banner-Herald last year that he believes that Robert Carter Cook, who died in 1991, is the mystery man. Cook was described in a New York Times article as a proponent of birth control as a means to maintain a human population balance.

In an e-mail to the Banner-Herald, an out-of-state attorney maintained the monument was destroyed “by the hand of God” or a Directed Energy Weapon controlled by someone in the “deep state.”

Conspiracies abound in the void that has become America’s Stonehenge.

“I still get questions a lot,” said Vaughn, the elected official. “There are the conspiracy theories that the county has swept it under the rug.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia Guidestones' conspiracies remains; the monument is lost