Whether it was driven by mere curiosity about a random oddity or a full-on embrace of sci-fi weirdness, the discovery of a large metal “monolith” — named after the mysterious obelisk-like structure in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — in an obscure location in the Utah desert took the world by storm.
And in a story that has taken far more turns than anything about a 12-foot-tall inanimate object should, there’s been a new development .
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So, to recap: wildlife officials first reported finding the monolith on November 18 while out counting big horn sheep from a helicopter.
News of the discovery broke on November 23 when Utah’s Bureau of Land Management put out an official statement discouraging anyone from trying to locate the monolith.
Naturally, internet sleuths were on the case by that point anyway.
Within days, they had narrowed it down.
Helped in no small part by the folks on the r/FindTheMonolith community on Reddit and a few viral posts, including the one below on Instagram, the location of the monolith and details about it started to spread online.
It was tall, about 12 feet, held together with rivets, not magnetic, and just kind of standing there.
Internet sleuths managed to track down some more details about the mysterious object.
I mean, who doesn’t love a good mystery?
The sleuths didn’t just find the Utah monolith on the map — they also found out its history. Turns out, it had been there for years, since sometime before October 2016, when it first showed up on Google Earth.
Another detective believes he’s figured out where it came from.
Explaining a theory on Twitter, @stainonmars suggested it had been part of a photo shoot series that a pair of artists collaborated on. He believes they simply left the large structure behind after carrying it out to the desert years earlier for their shoot.
Regardless, on November 28, the Bureau of Land Management reported that the Utah monolith was gone.
And Instagram user @rossbernards said he saw it being pulled down and taken away. Despite the BLM’s attempts to discourage curious onlookers from visiting the monolith, it had become a serious draw. That wasn’t a good thing. The area is not easily accessed and has no cell service or restrooms. Visitors were leaving garbage and worse behind, and if anyone got stuck out there, they’d be in big trouble.
That was the big reason the group of four men who hauled the thing away gave for removing it, according to @rossbernards, saying “Leave no trace” as they packed up.
But for a brief time, there were two monoliths in the world.
Because just before the monolith in Utah was carried off into the night, a new structure appeared on a hillside in Romania. It wasn’t exactly identical , but it was about as tall and also three-sided and made from metal. However, it had been welded together rather than riveted, and instead of being shiny on the exterior, it was covered in rough circles, as if a grinder had been taken to it.
Authorities in Romania were just as baffled.
“It is on private property, but we still don’t know who the monolith’s owner is yet. It is in a protected area on an archaeological site,” said Ministry of Culture representative Rocsana Josanu, according to Euro Weekly News . “Before installing something there, they needed permission from our institution, one that must then be approved by the Ministry of Culture.”
But the Romanian investigation had hardly gotten off the ground when the monolith disappeared.
As Reuters reported, the monolith vanished at some point overnight between November 30 and December 1. This time, however, it would seem that no Instagrammers were on the scene to capture the monolith being taken down.
And yet, the authorities don’t seem to mind.
“The 2.8 metre (9ft) tall structure disappeared overnight as quietly as it was erected last week,” local reporters said, according to Reuters .
“An unidentified person, apparently a bad local welder, made it … now all that remains is just a small hole covered by rocky soil.”
While the internet’s dedicated sleuths may have solved some mysteries, questions remain unanswered.
Was the Utah monolith really just an art project abandoned years ago? Was the Romanian monolith just a prank or a copycat? Because if it was a publicity stunt, it doesn’t seem to have gotten publicity for much of anything, and removing it doesn’t serve a purpose for that.
And will we see another monolith pop up soon?
What do you think about all this? Let us know in the comments!
