A mysterious monolith that was found in the remote Utah desert has been removed by an ‘unknown party’ after its sudden arrival sparked theories it was left by aliens.
The shiny triangular pillar, which protruded approximately 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah, was spotted last Wednesday by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air.
However the three-sided structure was removed by ‘an unknown party’ on Friday evening, the Bureau of Land Management Utah said in a statement.
A mysterious monolith that was found in the remote Utah desert has been removed by an ‘unknown party’, according to officials
However the BLM said it had not removed the structure ‘which is considered private property’ and would not be investigating because ‘crimes involving private property’ are managed by the local sheriff’s office.
The BLM said in a Facebook post on Saturday: ‘We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the ‘monolith’ has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party.
‘The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff’s office.
The shiny, triangular pillar, which protruded approximately 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah, was spotted last Wednesday by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air
‘The structure has received international and national attention and we received reports that a person or group removed it on the evening of November 27.’
Utah Department of Public Safety said on Monday that crew members found ‘a metal monolith installed in the ground’ but ‘no obvious indication of who might have put the monolith there.’
‘It is illegal to install structures or art without authorization on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you’re from,’ warned the agency in a tongue-in-cheek press release Monday.
The BLM said in a Facebook post on Saturday: ‘We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the ‘monolith’ has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party’
News of the discovery quickly went viral online, with many noting the object’s similarity to the strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’
Curious tourists tracked down the mysterious monolith as it was revealed that a similar version appeared nearly 20 years ago on New Years Day in Seattle.
Across the globe UFO spotters and conspiracy theorists became obsessed with the shiny, triangular pillar.
Utah: The smooth, tall structure was found during a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah on November 18
Internet sleuths also managed to pinpoint the pillar’s position within hours of the announcement of the discovery
A Reddit user said they had managed to geo-locate the obelisk using surrounding rock formations.
Sharing the Google Earth location – where a small structure can be seen, roughly six miles from the nearest road – the user said the structure was first photographed by Google in 2016.
Some satellite images of the monolith date back to a year earlier in 2015.
Several adventurous hikers successfully located the monolith on Tuesday and gleefully climbed the mystifying object and snapped photos with it, even though officials didn’t disclose its exact location for fear people would get lost searching for it.
Though the structure was only discovered by authorities this month, Google Earth images show it had been standing since at least 2015 or 2016.
Lieutenant Nick Street, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said it’s possible the structure had been there for ’40, 50 years, maybe more.’
Officials suggest it could be have been constructed by an artist or a huge fan of 2001: Space Odyssey – the structure resembles the machines found in Arthur C. Clarke’s story (pictured)
‘It’s the type of material that doesn’t degrade with the elements. It may only be a few years old, who knows. There’s no real way based on the material it’s made out of how long it’s actually been there,’ he said on Tuesday.
Some pointed out the object’s resemblance to the avant-garde work of John McCracken, an American artist who lived for a time in nearby New Mexico, and died in 2011.
McCracken was known for his freestanding sculptures in the shape of pyramids, cubes, or sleek slabs.
Some observers also pointed out the object’s resemblance to the avant-garde work of John McCracken (left) an American artist who lived for a time in nearby New Mexico, and died in 2011. He was known for his freestanding sculptures in the shape of pyramids, cubes, or sleek slabs (right)
The monolith most closely resembles McCracken’s plank-like sculptures featured at his exhibit at the David Zwirner art gallery in New York.
On Tuesday a spokeswoman for David Zwirner said it was not one of McCracken’s works, but possibly by a fellow artist paying homage.
However later in the day Zwirner gave another statement which suggested the piece was indeed by McCracken, meaning it had lain undiscovered in the desert for nearly a decade.
The monolith was located inside a red rock cove but workers have withheld details about its exact location to prevent others from endangering themselves trying to get a closer look
‘The gallery is divided on this,’ Zwirner said. ‘I believe this is definitely by John.’
They added: ‘Who would have known that 2020 had yet another surprise for us. Just when we thought we had seen it all. Let’s go see it.’
Explorer David Surber visited the monolith last week and posted the co-ordinates to Instagram and revealed that it was located near Lockhart Basin Road, near Moab.
He has since posted about its disappearance to his Instagram Story on Saturday night: ‘Apparently the monolith is gone.
‘Nature returned back to her natural state I suppose. Something positive for people to rally behind in 2020.’
On social media, others remarked on its discovery during a turbulent year that has seen the world gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, and optimistically speculated it could have a different function entirely.
Utah: Officials have refused to disclose the metal obelisk’s location out of fear that curious sightseers would flock to the remote wilderness, but internet sleuths managed to pinpoint its position nonetheless. Google Earth images show it has been there since 2016 or 2015
‘This is the ‘reset’ button for 2020. Can someone please press it quickly?’ joked one Instagram user.
‘Up close it reads: “Covid vaccine inside”‘ wrote another.
Bret Hutchings, the pilot who happened to fly over the obelisk, speculated that it had been planted by ‘some new wave artist.’
Either way, Hutchings admitted it was ‘about the strangest thing I’ve come across out there, in all my years of flying.’
‘We were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it,’ he told local news channel KSLTV.
A view of the mystery monolith in Magnuson Park in Seattle pictured on January 2, 2001
Utah has a history of ‘land art,’ unusual installations that cropped up far from population centers in the 1960s and ’70s.
The most famous, Spiral Jetty, a 1,500-foot-long coil by artist Robert Smithson in 1970 that’s composed entirely of mud, salt crystals and basalt.
Located on the northeastern edge of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point, the jetty appears and disappears depending on water levels.
So far, no one has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the monolith, though.
And it hasn’t disturbed the bighorn sheep that live in the southern half of Utah. Their population was once down to under a thousand in the 1970s, but conservation efforts have seen them make a big comeback in recent decades.