A #Mysterious #Monolith in the #Utah #Desert Vanished #Overnight

Issued by Smithsonian Magazine

Theories regarding the 12-foot-tall metal structure’s origins—and ultimate fate—abound

By Nora McGreevy

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

NOVEMBER 25, 2020 | UPDATED: NOVEMBER 30, 2020 3:40PM




Editor's Note, November 30, 2020: Earlier this month, surveyors in Utah's Red Rock Country stumbled onto a 12-foot-tall metal monolith of unknown origin. At some point on Friday night, the structure vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, baffling local authorities and sparking a renewed round of speculation regarding its creation and ultimate fate. Read more about the mysterious monolith below.

A survey crew from Utah’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) flew low in a helicopter over the state’s Red Rocks Country last week, scanning the craggy landscape. The team was working with the Division of Wildlife Resources to count bighorn sheep, which roam in this secluded part of the desert in southeastern Utah.

But instead of the sure-footed climbers, something else caught the researchers’ attention: a shiny metal monolith protruding from the red rocks. The strange, three-sided structure stood out against the surrounding desert and resembled something out of a science fiction movie.

“One of the biologists is the one who spotted it and we just happened to fly directly over the top of it,” pilot Bret Hutchings tells local television station KSL’s Andrew Adams. “He was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around!’ And I was like, ‘what?’ And he’s like, ‘There’s this thing back there—we’ve got to go look at it!’”

The crew descended on foot to inspect the object. Up close, the team estimated that the structure stood about 10 or 12 feet high, and was firmly anchored in the rocks beneath, Hutchings tells KSL. “We were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it,” he adds.

Although the object is clearly man-made, officials still have no clue why it’s there—or who might have put it there, as Leah Asmelash reports for CNN. In videos provided by the Utah DPS, crew members clamber over the sloping red rocks to get a closer look. “OK, the intrepid explorers go down to investigate the alien life form,” one person jokes in the video. “Who does this kind of stuff?”

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