Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson, a journalist for the Athens-Banner Herald based in Athens, Georgia (the Georgia Guidestones are located in the US state of Georgia), wrote a report that went mostly unnoticed by the mainstream media. Two weeks ago a video posted by YouTube user tatoott1009 showed strange red stains on top of the stones, which led Johnson to conduct his investigative report.

According to the article from The Athens-Banner Herald:

Was a sacrifice performed at the Georgia Guidestones?

That’s a question posed by some after a video posted on YouTube purported to show red stains recently found on the mysterious Stonehenge-like monument in Elbert County.

Speculation surrounds the video, posted online March 27. Taken from a drone-mounted camera, the video shows the top of the capstone atop the four 19-foot-tall Guidestones, on which there appears to be a substance trickling from a red blotch. The narrator of the video suggests it is blood. He claimed to have made the discovery when flying his quadcopter.

“A while ago, a pastor of a local church warned that the Guidestones would lead to blood sacrifices on the spot where they stood,” said the video’s narrator. “He was making the point this monument is some kind of an occult symbol used for pagan rituals.”

The Elbert County Sheriff’s Office is investigating this most recent strange occurrence at the granite structure that has fascinated people worldwide. Sheriff’s Capt. Darren Scarborough said last week that when the YouTube video appeared, the phone at the sheriff’s office began ringing off the hook.

“Everyone was wanting to know why, who, what, when, where and how,” he said.

Deputies climbed a ladder to the capstone to investigate, and said it did not appear that there was a stain of any kind atop the monument.

“There was something that was a bluish-black, maybe where water hadpooled,” Scarborough said. “To the naked eye it does not look red. In that video it looks like someone ‘Photoshopped’ it to make it look like there was blood.”

Even so, samples of residue present at the site were collected with swabs and are being tested. “We can’t jump to conclusions,” Scarborough said. “We have to methodically do what we do.”

The Guidestones are supposed to be monitored around the clock via a closed-circuit camera that transmits images to Elbert County emergency dispatchers. Video footage from Guidestones surveillance is maintained for about 30 days, according to Scarborough.

“If it comes back as being blood, which I don’t think it will, then we will begin reviewing the tapes,” Scarborough said.

The monument was commissioned in 1979 by a man using the name “R.C. Christian.” He reportedly approached the Elberton Granite Finishing Co. with plans for four vertical granite stones standing nearly 20 feet tall, each to be inscribed with the same 10 precepts for humanity, carved in eight languages.

It has been suggested the inscriptions describe the basic concepts required to rebuild civilization following a nuclear Doomsday.

The Guidestones were erected in a field off Georgia Highway 77. Opened to the public in 1980, they immediately became a magnet for conspiracy theorists. Visitors have scrawled symbols and commentary on the monument, and even made alterations to the design.

Locals tell stories of witchcraft taking place at the stones and relate instances of teenagers in black garb carrying buckets of chicken blood at the site.

“To some, it’s the holiest spot on Earth,” Hudson Cone, a former Elberton Granite Association employee, told The New York Times. “To others, it’s a monument to the devil.”

Supporters of the Guidestones such as Yoko Ono have praised their messages as “a stirring call to rational thinking.” On the other hand, Wired magazine reported others consider the messages to be the “Ten Commandments of the Antichrist.”

The Guidestones have become a subject of interest for conspiracy theorists. One of them, an activist named Mark Dice, demanded that the Guidestones “be smashed into a million pieces, and then the rubble used for a construction project.” He claimed the Guidestones are of “a deep Satanic origin,” and that R. C. Christian belongs to “a Luciferian secret society” related to the New World Order.

In 2009, a cube of granite was removed from the top of one of the Guidestones. Four years later, the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man from Alabama after catching him trying to replace the cube in the middle of the night. He reportedly confessed to the theft, explaining he wanted the chunk of granite for “personal esoteric and numerological reasons.” When caught replacing the cube, he reportedly explained that he “didn’t want that weight anymore.”

Last year, when a new cube appeared in its place, marked with the letters MM and JAM, and the numbers 8, 16, 20, and 14.

The mystery was solved when a tip to the sheriff’s office led Scarborough to a YouTube video about a couple from Florida who were married at the Guidestones in 2013. Michael Massanelli reportedly explained he had the cube engraved to commemorate the date (8/16/2014) of the first anniversary of his marriage to Jennifer Anne Massanelli.

The Elberton Star reported that when Scarborough contacted Massanelli, the man readily confessed and wanted to know if he would be criminally charged. After conferring with Sheriff Melvin Andrews and the Elberton Granite Association, Scarborough informed Massanelli that he would not be charged since the stunt did not cause any damage.