This sort of reminds me of another mysterious desert artifact, the Mojave Megaphone.
That, to me, is much weirder than the Utah monolith. That thing looks like it has to have some story behind it.
Reddit user Tim Slane has apparently used Google Maps to not only locate the “monolith”, but by comparing images from different years, found it was not there in 2015, and had appeared by 2016.
Despite similarities to sculptures by John McCracken, who died in 2011, his gallerist, David Zwirner, stated "While this is not a work by the late American artist John McCracken, we suspect it is a work by a fellow artist paying homage to McCracken.”
Lieutenant Nick Street of the Utah Department of Public Safety said the monolith had “human-made rivets” and was buried into the rock to an unknown depth. “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.”
So, in addition to it not truly being a monolith because it isn’t made of stone (the “lith” part of monolith), it is riveted together and not cut from a single piece of material (the “mono” part of monolith.)
Great articles, @Retzbu_Tox; thanks for sharing them!
The images I see of McCracken’s metal “plank” art looks like they are shiny and featureless, as though they are a solid chunk of material. They might possibly be hollow (a folded sheet of metal with one well-disguised welded seam?), but they definitely are not riveted together, so this wouldn’t even be a McCracken piece that someone else dragged out into the wilderness.
Have you tried shifting a 1’ × 4’ × 9’ basalt or granite monolith? That shit is heavy.
I think it’s pretty obvious that this was put there by someone on the off chance that it would be discovered and blow people’s minds. I admire their foresight and patience. To make this perfect, they would have sunk a duplicate SE of Madagascar on the exact opposite side of the world.
You just have to bring in some specialists from the UK.
Not black basalt, although it looked like that. Michael Benson’s excellent Space Odyssey, about the making of the movie, says the production team tried many different kinds of wood after Kubrick rejected the acrylic slab. They finally went with hardwood, sprayed with graphite and matte black paint, and then they had to go to great lengths to keep it clean and dust- and fingerprint-free. See pp. 149-150 in the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Space-Odyssey-Stanley-Kubrick-Masterpiece/dp/1501163930/ref=sr_1_2?crid=15ZHNP6BTUVMF&dchild=1&keywords=space+odyssey+michael+benson&qid=1606316466&s=books&sprefix=space+odyssey%2Cstripbooks%2C141&sr=1-2
Thanks for the correction! I have read that book, but don’t own a copy.
Movie crossover madness!
Google Maps:
38°20’35.1"N 109°39’58.2"W
38.34308380558686, -109.6661854786307
Ah – not that far from Moab. I’ve been there many times, hiking through Arches, Dead Horse Point state park, and Canyonlands. Never been very close to that spot, though, South Southwest of Moab, and apparently a fair distance off route 132 and even the closest hiking trails. Not surprised they’d rather people didn’t try getting there. Although it’s not exactly way off in the Deep Desert.
Thank you! I wondered where I accidentally dropped my interstellar subspace beacon’s antenna.
Tripler
Nanoo-nanoo.
Tripler, you’re late! You were supposed to arrive . . . Labor Day!
Looks like people are starting to go visit now that the location is known. There are some more close up views of its construction in this video.
Looks like it has a triangular cross-section. Definitely not a 2001 homage or reproduction.
Unfortunate that someone posted the location, though.
State employee spotted mysterious metal structure amid red rocks while counting bighorn sheep.
Perhaps it was all just a dream.
I always understood the monolith to be a precisely dimensioned space of nothing, full of stars.
Weird. I intended one of the two videos I linked to be this one. It has a more close-up view.