Elberton’s famous Georgia Guidestones were destroyed in 2022, and the investigation into who blew them up has gone nowhere.
But a CNN reporter thinks he may have solved another mystery: Who built the guidestones in the first place?
The man responsible for their construction in 1980 used the pseudonym Robert Christian or R.C. Christian. His real name, according to CNN’s Thomas Lake, was Herbert H. Kersten, an Iowa physician who died in 2005.
Lake based his guess on information inadvertently revealed to a documentary filmmaker by an Elberton banker who kept Christian’s financial records but had vowed never to reveal his identity. The address on a document shown on camera and other clues led to Kersten.
For example, one of the guidestones’ principles is that humankind should never exceed half a billion people. And Christian wrote a book extolling the virtues of population control like China’s one-child policy.
Kersten, who was the same age as Christian, often wrote about the dangers of overpopulation as well. He also supported Klansman David Duke for president and was friends with notorious eugenicist William Shockley.
While some on the right, like fringe 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor, thought the guidestones were satanic, most people in Elberton and beyond regarded them as a benign curiosity. If Lake is correct, their creator’s beliefs certainly put the guidestones’ statements in a different light.
Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.
