COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — The businesses that closed in Colorado City, Arizona Friday morning, seemingly for good if you read the signs on the doors, all of a sudden re-opened today.

"There's one hardware store, one grocery store, one dry goods store, one radio shack, and others," said Jethro Barlow.

Barlow is a consultant to Bruce Wisan, the court-appointed fiduciary managing the assets of the FLDS trust's land and property in the area.

Barlow wanted to make it clear the fiduciary was not behind all the stores closing.

"The fiduciary didn't take any action that would have precipitated this," said Barlow, "In fact, if he could have prevented it, I'm sure he would."

Still, the question remains, what happened?

Isaac Wyler, a former member of the polygamous sect, says the stores closing may have been in anticipation for the end of the world.

"The Lifting Up" is something that would have been a prophesy from Warren Jeffs, even from his Texas jail cell.

Related:

Polygamist leader's end-of-world prophecy has neighbors worried

There's mystery, worry, and new indications of turmoil among followers of imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

"Apparently, from what I've heard, there was just a prophecy that told the "Lifting Up" would occur before the end of the year," said Wyler in a phone interview Friday afternoon.

However, the stores re-opened Saturday morning.

Jeffs and his followers have done things like this before.

This past July, they spent two months constructing a 10-story tower at their ranch in Eldorado, Texas.

A few days after it was finished, they demolished it. No one knows why.

Wyler believes Jeffs is somehow responsible for the tower and for the closed stores.

"Warren would have told them to do that. They wouldn't do that on their own. They wouldn't dare," said Wyler.

Related topics