The script called for Ming’s Destructo Ray to be mounted in some difficult to attack place.
The Mojave Desert is nowhere near Burning Man. But there are plenty of weird people out there who would make an extreme effort to mount an enigmatic art project somewhat in the spirit of Burning Man.
The placement really doesn’t make sense as lift points either, nor would you need so many. One or two would be sufficient.
Add to that the piece on the far end that brings it level, no need for discs.
It bears almost no resemblance to any actual sirens and is more poorly constructed than even Ww1 sirens.
It has too many unnecessary features to be a hastily built item with a purpose
But it’s too poorly built to be an engineered piece.
I certainly wouldn’t rule out partial or even complete building in place , so I wouldn’t even count on having to carry the whole thing up there at once.
If i prepared it , putting it in place could be done by myself before lunchtime
I could see the crude drum skin bit.
I’d call that all very plausible.
I also wouldn’t rule out many Jeeps and rock trucks from just driving right up to it. Though i didn’t look at the surrounding area much.
Burning Man is held in the north west end of Nevada, and the Mojave Megaphone is just over the southwest border with California. They aren’t NEAR each other, but they’re comically far apart. Mojave would only be a couple hours out of the way for Burners returning home to LA or Phoenix, for instance.
And Burning Man attracts folks from all over the country, and the large-scale welding projects that people make for it aren’t made on site. I’m fairly certain that there are burners who would ALSO enjoy trips to Mojave, especially if large-scale pranksterism is involved. Heck, the Mojave Phone Booth mentioned upthread was popularized by burners.
The one tick against my theory is that there are a few web comments of people suggesting the megaphone has been there since the 70s, but I’m inclined to doubt them. The earliest dates that seem certain are from the late 90s. THAT would line up with the rise of Burning Man and the particular style of jagged industrial steel art that this reminds me of.
What I was thinking. A good piece can tell you a lot about yourself based on what you see when you look at it. It doesn’t have to “be” anything apart from a kind of mirror.
Plus nobody but an artist would sloppily weld galvanized pipe as a vertical support to a chunk of rebar as a horizontal support. This just screams " whatever junk i could get my hands on"