A Utah helicopter crew found a mysterious monolith in the Utah desert. No one knows what the shiny metal object really is, how it ended up there, or who did it.
A Monolith in the Desert
While supporting the Division of Wildlife Resources in surveying the wild bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, teammates of a helicopter crew discovered something weird in the rocky desert below.
A smooth, metallic block standing upon the Earth isn’t something you usually come across around those areas, so the crew landed and took a clearer look at it.
While it didn’t manage to do anything as seen in sci-fi movies, the mysterious metal block raised many questions. Most of which are still unanswered.
“One of the biologists … identified it, and we were surprisingly flying directly over the top of it,” pilot Bret Hutchings spoke to CNN affiliate KSL. “He was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn back, turns back!’ And I was like, ‘What is it?’ And he’s like, ‘There’s this structure back there — we’ve got to go see it closely!’”
The team landed close to the monolith and investigated. One member joked that if something were to happen to any of them, the other should try and escape from it.
The metal rectangle, which stood approximately between 10 and 12 feet tall, failed to do anything special and seemed to made of metal sheeting. Whoever put it there didn’t just drop it. They went to the work of cutting the cut rock base and placing the monolith in that spot.
“That has to be the strangest thing that I’ve witnessed out there in all my years of flying,” Hutchings said. “I’m guessing it’s some new wave artist or something or, you know, somebody that was a huge ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ fan.”
Keeping It a Secret
The Department of Public Safety agreed to keep the mysterious object’s location a secret. They feared that science fiction fans would gather there. If so, fans might injure themselves or become stranded during the journey. Despite efforts to maintain the monolith’s location, the Internet worked hard to find the mysterious Utah monolith’s location based on photos published by Utah authorities. According to multiple Reddit threads, users narrowed down search location already.
News of the mysterious monolith discovered in the remote Utah desert made international headlines. However, the creator is hiding. He probably does not want to be found. If government authorities find his identity, the government will probably fine them heavily.
“It is illegal to place structures or art installation without receiving the permits and authorization on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you come from,” the Utah Department of Public Safety released on its website.
