That Mysterious Silver Monolith In the Utah Desert Has Disappeared (cnn.com) 73
A Slashdot reader quotes CNN:
A tall, silver, shining metal monolith discovered in the desert in southeastern Utah — which prompted theories of alien placement and drew determined hikers to its secret location — has now disappeared, the state's Bureau of Land Management said Saturday.
The monolith was removed by an "unknown party" sometime Friday night, the agency said in a Facebook post.
"We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the 'monolith,' has been removed" from BLM public lands, the post said. "The BLM did not remove the structure, which is considered private property."
The monolith was first discovered November 18 by officers from the Utah Department of Public Safety's Aero Bureau. They were flying by helicopter, helping the Division of Wildlife Resources count bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, when they spotted something that seemed right out of "2001: A Space Odyssey..." Pilot Bret Hutchings guessed it was "between 10 and 12 feet high..."
In an official statement, the Utah Department of Public Safety emphasized that it's still illegal to install structures or art on public lands, "no matter what planet you're from."
The monolith was removed by an "unknown party" sometime Friday night, the agency said in a Facebook post.
"We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the 'monolith,' has been removed" from BLM public lands, the post said. "The BLM did not remove the structure, which is considered private property."
The monolith was first discovered November 18 by officers from the Utah Department of Public Safety's Aero Bureau. They were flying by helicopter, helping the Division of Wildlife Resources count bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, when they spotted something that seemed right out of "2001: A Space Odyssey..." Pilot Bret Hutchings guessed it was "between 10 and 12 feet high..."
In an official statement, the Utah Department of Public Safety emphasized that it's still illegal to install structures or art on public lands, "no matter what planet you're from."
Damned Illegal Aliens (Score:5, Funny)
Curse you Marvin the Martian.
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When I saw a picture of the structure, my first thought was "were there any puzzles nearby, with grids of squares and little symbols on them? Or discs with lines coming out of them? And statues of petrified people?"
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Curse you Marvin the Martian.
Be thankful there wasn't an earth shattering kaboom.
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If you find yourself choosing between a pig in a jumpsuit and a cape-wearing duck in 1950s sci-fi schtick, go with the pig. Trust me.
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In an official statement, the Utah Department of Public Safety emphasized
Did this emphasis include screeching and throwing bones in the air?
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I, for one, welcome our new park vandalizing over--wait, come back!
Bureau of Land Management (Score:1)
Not a monolith (Score:5, Funny)
It was fake. The aliens installed a fake monolith, probably as an insult to our species and the whole planet in general. It had rivets, it was sheets of aluminum riveted into a triangular monolith-looking shape. We should demand a real monolith like the Europans have.
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So, some kind of (alien?) death ray device then.
Re: Not a monolith (Score:2)
Only humans are so primitive, they still think in concepts like "insults". And you wonder why you haven't found extraterrestrials yet...
Speaking as an extraterrestrial... ;)
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Yeah, how difficult it was to just take a slab of aluminum and hard anodize it. Sloppy work from the artist side.
It has moved (Score:2)
It's obviously on Europa now. This is probably a Tesla stunt. They like stainless steel and they have the rockets to move it :^)
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They like stainless steel and they have the rockets to move it :^)
I have it on good authority that the monolith was seen being strapped to the top of a Delorean - and then just disappeared.
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They like stainless steel and they have the rockets to move it :^)
I have it on good authority that the monolith was seen being strapped to the top of a Delorean - and then just disappeared.
Great Scott!
Likely it was just a PR stunt (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much the thing weights. Would seem to be quite the operation to place it and remove traces then remove it and remove traces.
I also wonder if it was all done by air lift which has to have a record? Or heavy equipment on public property and removing the tracks and such.
Re:Likely it was just a PR stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
I wondered what that Banksy fellow had been up to...
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Re:Likely it was just a PR stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
I can not believe this was done without pre approval by authorities after all there had to be some money for someone.
Considering all the destruction people do every year to national parks [theguardian.com] and state parks [nbcnews.com], money doesn't have to be in the mix.
I wonder how much the thing weights
Had you read the article, you would have seen this:
The monolith wasn't magnetic or solid (he said it sounded "like a cardboard box" when he knocked on it).
I also wonder if it was all done by air lift which has to have a record? Or heavy equipment on public property and removing the tracks and such.
You can hike to this location if you're determined. It's not overly difficult. And if the structure was hollow, as the person above said, it wouldn't be difficult to install it without help.
Also, this short clip [imgur.com] shows what's left. The bottom plate is thin metal. If the entire thing was the same, one person could have easily assembled it in less than an hour.
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You're just saying that because you put Zombies instead of Aliens on your 2020 bingo card.
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It was likely a wood frame with thin aluminum panels riveted or screwed the frame. You could have hiked in in disassembled with two people and put it together in a couple hours.
It was a hoax just like crop circles, a couple people who got drunk and decided to try to see if they could create international news.
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I also wonder if it was all done by air lift which has to have a record?
No, record necessary. Even if you fly out of a controlled air space, under VFR, you just say Departing to the North or whatever.
And I do not have a South Utah flight chart in front of me but I have never seen a park that had restricted air space over it - except some with national monuments. So, no one would have batted an eye flying over it. And there is also a trick with helicopters (and fixed winged aircraft when conditions are right) where you can make yourself invisible to air traffic control.
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What? Do you even read articles? The thing weighed next to nothing, welded from sheet metal and hollow. Putting in bed of pickup truck with one end on roof rack and driving away is trivial.
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There's some possibility that it was a work of art by the late John McCracken. His representative claims this is the case, anyway. This NYT article [nytimes.com] has more on this theory, and a photo of another very similar piece in a gallery. It would certainly be a great art project for someone into aliens and time travel stories to hire someone to install something like this posthumously.
Assuming it's made of sheet metal on a frame, it's not necessarily heavy. I think I can see something like bolt heads in the picture,
Re: Likely it was just a PR stunt (Score:2)
I really doubt whoever removed it was the people who installed it. My guess is its an art installation and when it went viral someone went out and grabbed it and its sitting in their garage or backyard right now.
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A PR stunt? The whole point of a PR stunt is to draw attention to someone or to a cause or organization. What kind of PR stunt would stay anonymous? And now that it's been proclaimed to be illegal, if someone were to come forward and claim the structure, they would be in legal hot water. Not a great way to get attention. If it was a PR stunt, it was very poorly thought through.
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I can not believe this was done without pre approval by authorities after all there had to be some money for someone.
"Had to be"? Paranoid much?
I wonder how much the thing weighs.
Not much since it was hollow.
Would seem to be quite the operation to place it and remove traces then remove it and remove traces.
It was screwed together with normal screws, so not really no. Also, there were traces including a piece of the "monolith" (https://www.instagram.com/p/CIKNW3JJtrZ/?utm_source=ig_embed).
I also wonder if it was all done by air lift which has to have a record? Or heavy equipment on public property and removing the tracks and such.
Probably a pickup truck. Ooooh, scary.
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This was done without pre approval [wikipedia.org]
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I can not believe this was done without pre approval by authorities after all there had to be some money for someone.
In America the Authorities do no know about or pre-approve transactions. Private commerce is rampant.
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what's mysterious about it? (Score:2)
A hollow aluminum sheet metal sculpture that only needs short hike from drive-able route, trivial to place, disassemble and drive off with.
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Had it been all metal I would be more impressed, but then I can't stand making things not designed to last many years outdoors.
It wasn't needed anymore (Score:4, Funny)
The Aliens cut the cables of the Arecibo observatory so a couple of days later they removed the monolith.
And now they're on the way to the moon to wait for the Chinese robot and install the monolith there to amaze the sensors.
It's all an Alien Reality Show.
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(this is the one that's gonna turn out to be true because, well... that's just how fucked up things are right now)
What is it ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet is was a Geocache project.
No fun these days (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people are too serious, a sign of the times I guess.
I though it was cool and as others said was a nice diversion over the train wreck 2020 has been.
Like the thing that happened in Boston many years ago, someone put up led cartoon characters and everyone freaked out. I happened to be there with some friends that night and we saw a couple of them. Again I thought it was funny at the time and wondered what it was there for. Bad timing on their part, but any idiot could see they were not dangerous
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What I found funny about that is that with the seemingly zillions of fast food bags laying on the ground and overstuffed trash cans that could have god knows what inside, authorities freaked out over Lite-Brite. I believe there was also an incident involving a Transformers action figure in some other city.
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lol. I remember reading about that. It was a publicity stunt for Aqua Team Hunger Force - The Movie from memory.
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My favorite part was that the guys who were hired to put them up treated the situation with all the seriousness it deserved - preferring to discuss hairstyles of the 70's instead. My least favorite part was that Adult Swim paid a million each to Boston and Homeland Security, when they should have paid exactly nothing for the overreaction of idiots to a clear non-threat, and
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I learned in elementary school that making people in power look stupid is probably the worst thing you can do, since they can make your life hell.
The last time I did it, was in my last year EE (me being a snot-nosed, adrenaline and hormone filled 18 year old), after I made a comment on a logic mistake in a microprocessor course (PIC assembly) and the professor told me "if you know better, come up here and show me". I did, he then typed in my program on the big screen to prove me wrong, only to embarrass him
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But you can't live your life in fear of what idiots will do when you embarrass them.
But then, did it ever really exist? (Score:2)
I have no way of verifying it ever did.
No, thanks, I can doctor pictures and write articles for reputable news agencies myself, if I want to. Siding with either direction. :)
I'm gonna need that scientific verification. Where I'm the peer to replicate measurements. Cause I haven't peer-reviewed the statistical reliability of your peer-reviewers, now have I? ;)
____ :)
If you take this post too seriously, and as more than a fun existential philosophy starter, you're gonna have a bad time.
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Actually it showed up on Google Earth images, which is how they know it was there for a long time.
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BLM or Anttifa (Score:2)
Imagine what a Beowulf cluter of fake monoliths... (Score:4, Funny)
Still nothing.
Or is it gone... (Score:1)
I await word from someone else going to visit, as I was thinking the "authorities" might have said it was gone so people would stop trying to go see it.
Apparently there have been quite a rush of locals going out there, if you follow the dirt road on a map you can make out where it connects to a highway.
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Then I will pretty much guarantee that it's in some local's garage now.
No detail measurements? (Score:2)
I haven't seen any detailed measurements, neither here nor on the previous Slashdot article.
Of course the ratios of the sides need to be 1:4:9 for this to be of any authenticity at all, even as a prank.
Found it! (Score:2)
This thing will soon show up on e-Bay and in the hundreds.
You'd think they'd have a dust cloth (Score:1)
I read the news article, looked at the pictures. If you look at the images such as https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/11... [regmedia.co.uk]
you can see some scuffing, marring, Whomever did this did not give the "monolith" a wipe down with a dust cloth. D'oh! as Homer Simpson stated...also you can see the six "bolt holes" in this silver "monolith" in the desert. The monolith in 2001 didn't have the scuffing, marring...
BLM should have kept their mouths SHUT (Score:2)
By publicizing their "find", it causes too many people to go searching for it.
Another case of social media & media frenzy destroying the good things.
Those BLM counters and pilot should have simply enjoyed the find and kept their mouths shut.
Good guys scooted (Score:2)
Stealing Scrap Metal? (Score:2)
This stealing of scrap metal needs to stop... Check the local scrap yards, I'll bet you find it.
Trail cam??? (Score:2)
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The bureaucratic mind works on a simple principle: do as little work as possible, and preferably even less.
It failed to detect any intelligent life on Earth (Score:2)