# The door to nowhere **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 24, 2020, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328 "2020-11-24T04:36:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/21 "2020-11-25T19:12:21Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > This is very **Stephen King/Dark Tower** -esque. A large poster fixed to the inside of the door frame featuring _lobstrosities_ would have been cool. Where were you 30 years ago?!? That would have been majorly cool. I don’t think that even back then, we would have been motivated to build stairs to nowhere. Our door was free and we had left over paint and post hole concrete, so really all it cost us was a little gas and a few hours “work”. When you live out in the sticks, you find entertainment where you can. No matter how bored we were, we never considered building stairs or a monolith. I salute the unknown artists who’s inspiration and imagination motivated them to add a little mystery to the world! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/22 "2020-11-25T19:56:02Z")
I had heard that this piece of folk art in my region was taken down because of the August derecho, but this story indicates otherwise. > **[Iowa’s beloved ‘Hula-Hoop Tree’ cut down by landowner](https://www.thegazette.com/community/iowas-beloved-hula-hoop-tree-cut-down-by-landowner/)** > > The Hula-Hoop Tree, one of Eastern Iowa’s most whimsical tourist attractions, was taken down this week out of safety concerns. … ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/23 "2020-11-25T20:00:12Z")
This story reminds me in a roundabout way of a story I read in a zine many years ago. The writer had been on vacation a few years previously, and while he was in a small bar, he used the men’s room and used a golf pencil in his wallet to write “BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT” on the wall next to the urinal. He left and promptly forgot about his Zappa-inspired graffiti. Shortly before writing this story, he was once again vacationing in this town, and remembered the bar, and when he went to the restroom saw his handwriting on the wall, along with a full column of Zappa song titles all the way down to the floor, and a second column started right next to it. 😂 ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/24 "2020-11-25T20:37:36Z")
> [@JaneDoe42](#): > > Where were you 30 years ago?!? That would have been majorly cool. _Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham? Ded-a-chek?_ 😉 🦞 ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/25 "2020-11-25T23:14:26Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > Wildlife officials spotted the “unusual” structure while counting sheep, leaving them baffled. That seems hazardous, counting sheep while flying a helicopter. A fellow could fall asleep. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/26 "2020-11-26T17:16:25Z")
> [@JaneDoe42](#): > > The federal government didn’t seem to like it as much as the visitors, I went out to repaint a few months after the land became a national resource and the door was gone, all the rocks were scattered and the post holes had been filled. The article about the Utah monolith in the Times yesterday ended with the admonition that no one was allowed to put something on federal lands “no matter what planet they are from”. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/27 "2020-11-29T08:14:21Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Shortly before writing this story, he was once again vacationing in this town, and remembered the bar, and when he went to the restroom saw his handwriting on the wall, along with a full column of Zappa song titles all the way down to the floor, and a second column started right next to it There has been a lot of argument about the NYC “broken windows” policing policy, and a lot of it was people talking past each other about what the idea meant, and what police were actually doing, and what the effect of what was on what. I had noticed years earlier that graffiti inspired more related graffiti, and found that the people who wrote the library management textbook I was reading had found that you had to clean up graffiti in the dark back aisles of your library, before you started getting sex and smoking back there. So I never was convinced that the “broken windows” idea was entirely without merit. I’m pretty sure that the people who run BLM and National Parks think the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/28 "2020-11-29T21:12:17Z")
I’ve seen paper taped to the walls in gas station bathrooms while traveling, and they encouraged people to leave messages. Most of them were positive - Bible verses, other inspirational sayings, people talking about their trip and the beautiful day, teenagers writing down the name of their crush, etc. In the meantime, the monolith has been removed, IMHO by whoever put it there. > **[Mystery metal monolith vanishes from Utah desert](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/29/monolith-vanishes-from-utah-desert)** > > Metal structure that prompted multiple theories about how it came to be was removed by ‘an unknown party’, officials say ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/29 "2020-12-02T04:53:25Z")
In the meantime, a similar structure showed up in Romania, and disappeared just as quickly. > **[Now the Romanian monolith has disappeared, just like the mysterious Utah...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2020/12/01/romanian-monolith-new-structure-revealed-after-utah-desert-mystery/3786428001/)** > > After a Utah monolith earns worldwide attention, only to disappear, a new monolith appears in Romania … and then vanishes. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/30 "2020-12-02T05:17:52Z")
This all reminds me somewhat of [https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Door-Alexander-Key/dp/0590431307](https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Door-Alexander-Key/dp/0590431307) that I read as a kid. I thought it interesting at the time that a book with “door” in its name would be written by someone whose name was “Key”, so it’s been burned into my memory. A partially false memory unfortunately. When I googled for it, I thought it was called “The Hidden Door”, but that and the author’s full name made Google understand what I was looking for. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/31 "2020-12-02T22:09:06Z")
Oh, look! A monolith! No, wait, it’s gone. Crop circles are so 20th century, dude. Monoliths are where it’s at. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/32 "2020-12-03T04:24:38Z")
Monoliths were so 19 yrs ago. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328/33 "2020-12-03T16:35:45Z")
Japanese Phoebe: You are the Emperor of Last Year! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-door-to-nowhere/926328.md?page=1)