whodunnit

Alien Art (?) Object Disappeared From Utah Desert

Mysterious. Photo: Utah Bureau of Land Management/Facebook

The mystery of Utah’s most famous bit of alien debris thickens: A strange silvery monolith that recently materialized near Moab has reportedly vanished as abruptly as it appeared. That’s according to Utah’s Bureau of Land Management, which says that the “illegally installed structure” was “removed … by an unknown party” on November 27. The Bureau did not speculate as to who or what dropped the monolith to begin with, nor who picked it up. Therefore, I think we can safely continue to assume it came from space.

The monolith — a three-sided, metal structure sunken into the red rock — first came to the attention of the Utah Department of Public Safety’s Aero Bureau on November 18, when officers spotted it during some routine sheep surveillance. Helicopter pilot Bret Hutchings called the object “about the strangest thing” he’d seen in his entire career: Standing about ten to 12 feet tall, the pillar looked like somebody had specifically planted it there, in a random patch of desert.

“Somebody took the time to use some type of concrete-cutting tool or something to really dig down, almost in the exact shape of the object, and embed it really well,” Public Safety Lt. Nick Street told the New York Times. “It’s odd. There are roads close by, but to haul the materials to cut into the rock, and haul the metal, which is taller than 12 feet in sections — to do all that in that remote spot is definitely interesting.”

Interesting, and probably also easier if you have extraterrestrial tools, although that origin theory is purely speculative, of course! Anyway, officials declined to disclose the monolith’s location, but internet sleuths tracked it down, with one David Surber posting video of the discovery to Instagram. Surber concluded that it was hollow, made by riveting together three aluminum strips, meaning it may be reasonably lightweight. Officials believe the column to be a public-art installation, the Bureau of Land Management warning that “using, occupying, or developing the public lands or their resources without a required authorization is illegal, no matter what planet you are from.” They will not be investigating the matter any further, however, because the local sheriff’s office handles “crimes involving private property,” which the monolith is.

Hm yes well, the question remains: Whose private property do we believe this towering land knife to be? I mean, it could be manmade; it could also be a scrap of spacecraft that came loose and fell to Earth during one of the aliens’ many fly-by adventures. An unwieldy metal spike driven into a rocky, out-of-the-way canyon, removed as tidily and suddenly as it appeared? Yeah, I think the easiest explanation (aliens) is probably the correct one.

Alien Art (?) Object Disappeared From Utah Desert