Gem-spitting preacher claims to visit heaven, meets FOX 5 I-Team instead

WINDER, Ga. - It may be one of our wildest investigations to date.

An ex-con who claimed to travel to Heaven once a week to talk to the dead with people giving his ministry thousands of dollars each year.

To top it off, this traveling preacher routinely spits out gemstones that he claimed came from God. Despite how it sounded, plenty of Georgians and at least one famous musician have been active followers of Fred Williams Ministries.

When the FOX 5 I-Team first heard about Fred Williams, the first thought was bewilderment. Then we heard Williams was bringing his ministry to Winder. Our next thought - we've got to go undercover to see this for ourselves.

We sent three members undercover on a Friday night. Just like us, others in the audience also used their cell phones to record what they saw.

So what did we see?

According to Williams, we saw signs and wonders. According to critics, we saw a magic show.

"God's going to change the way he does signs and wonders with us," Williams announced to the crowd of about 20.

At various times, the 67-year-old made loud noises by blowing into a ram's horn, known as a shofar. He would sometimes wear a prayer shawl. Some in the crowd chanted during parts of his talk. Others closes their eyes and listened.

But everyone got excited when the miracles happened.

"Is it on me?" Williams asked as he revealed blue dust on his neck.

"Yes!" said one woman. "It's blue!"

Blue sapphire dust that supposedly indicated the presence of an angel. Regular followers also showed us their collection of colorful feathers they found scattered around at earlier services, again evidence, they said, of angels among us in every room of the house.

"These came in the restroom," one woman helpfully explained as she pulled feathers out of a plastic bag.

But as we would soon learn, the big event always involved a gemstone.

"It came out of my ear one time," Williams told his audience. "Out of my hair. Out of my hands."

Williams started his ministry four years ago in his hometown of Blackville, South Carolina. That was also where he served time in the late 1990s for forgery and receiving stolen goods. He told his followers prison helped him find salvation and turn his life around.

Search YouTube and you find videos of Williams laying hands on a room packed with frenetic followers, another showing the excitement of finding gemstones at one of his services.

But not everyone who leaves believes.

"I firmly believe he's a fake," Scott Allison stressed. "Absolutely. There's no question in my mind."

Reverend Allison pastors a small church in Hoschton. A few months ago, a friend encouraged him to attend one of Fred Williams' services.

"Did you expect to see some miracles?" I asked.

"I did. I just felt like everything was staged. And I sit there the latter part of it just trying to figure out how he was doing it."

"Like a magician?"

"Like a magician."

"You know people who have given money to him?"

"Oh absolutely"

"How much money?"

"Thousands," answered Allison.

Most of his followers we saw that Friday night were older, but one man stood out: Brian "Head" Welch. He's the co-founder of the heavy metal band Korn.  Multiple people tell us Welch is a regular at Williams' prayer sessions and has donated money. We also saw Welch there on Sunday of that same weekend.

Welch would not answer questions about how much he's contributed to the ministry or whether he believed Williams was telling the truth.

In a statement, Welch said "I have an innocent curiosity to see how different people love Jesus. I visit churches and groups worldwide that express their faith in different ways; traditional and sometimes very non-traditional. I plan on writing my 4th book about all my global adventures and I will address a couple of these wild Atlanta experiences (that I visited a few times and will not be returning) in the book."

Wild is right.

Fred Williams pulled our undercover producer from the crowd, clapped her hands a few times, then suddenly tensed up as if something was happened to his body. Eventually he leaned down and spit out a light green gemstone into her hands.

"Oh my goodness!" said someone in the crowd. "Isn't that gorgeous? Beautiful!"

It certainly was sparkling. But if it came from heaven, the Creator seems partial to costume jewelry. Two experts examined the gem and gave us their opinion --  it's actually Cubic Zirconia. A gem made by man.

In fact, those experts told us various Chinese manufacturers sell the same light green gemstone for as little as 78 cents each.

We waited for Williams to wrap up his weekend prayer session in Winder and caught up to him on a Sunday afternoon as he prepared to drive home to South Carolina.

"These gemstones that you say came down from Heaven. You really believe that?" I asked.

"I don't say that. They come down from Heaven, amen? I don't say that. They just appear out of Heaven, amen?"

"They don't come from say, China?" I suggested.

"Uh, I don't believe they do. I believe they come from Heaven."

So what about those expert opinions that his heaven-sent gems are really cheap knockoffs?

"I think you can't take something from a heavenly realm and do a worldly test, an earthly test and expect to get a worldly answer," Williams explained.

"So you're saying there's no way to prove you're a fraud." I pointed out.

"I believe the Holy Spirit is the one who leads people into all truth," Williams replied. "And people have to decide for themselves. Why would a man 67 years old like I am want to try to dupe somebody just for a dollar and tell them it's from the Lord? Why would somebody do that?"

"Well, it's not just a dollar," I responded. "You know how much money you made in your ministry last year, right?"

"I think I do."

According to their own tax returns, in the last three years the non-profit Fred Williams Ministries collected $239,429 in donations.

"I'm not accepted by the church status quo," Williams stressed. "And I understand that. Nobody's teaching what I'm teaching. No one else is experiencing some of the things I'm experiencing."

But critics say they had their own experience. The kind you get after leaving a David Copperfield performance.

"It was sad really to see," Rev. Allison remembered from his visit to a Fred Williams service. "To stage all this, to make people believe. You know, God is awesome just like He is. We don't have to spit out gems."