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As mysteriously as it arrived, a metal monolith that was discovered last week by Utah public safety workers is no longer, authorities said Saturday.
The three-sided metal structure was removed late Friday “by an unknown portion” of public land on which it was found, the Utah federal office of the Bureau of Land Management said in a statement.
The bureau said it had not removed the monolith, which it considers “private property.”
The Utah Department of Public Safety said Monday it found the object while searching for a bighorn sheep.
“HE WENT!” the Department of Public Safety said, reacting to the news in an Instagram post. “Almost as quickly as it appeared, now it’s gone,” the department said, adding: “I can only speculate” that aliens recovered it, using the emoji for aliens.
“Maybe you will come visit us in Canada! ”One person commented.
It was a mystery how the monolith was installed in the first place.
Lt. Nick Street, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said the monolith had been embedded in the rock.
“Someone took the time to use some kind of concrete cutting tool or something to really dig, almost the exact shape of the object, and embed it really well,” he said. “It’s strange. There are roads nearby, but transporting the materials to cut the rock and transport the metal, which is over 12 feet in sections, doing all of that in that remote location is definitely interesting.”
Authorities said the structure was likely a work of art and that its installation on public land was illegal. It was unclear who had put it there, and when, but the art world quickly speculated that it was the work of John McCracken, a sci-fi sculptor. He died in 2011.
His son, Patrick McCracken, told The New York Times this week that his father had told him in 2002 that “he would like to leave his artwork in remote places to be discovered later.”
While officials declined to reveal the location of the monolith, some people tracked it down. David Surber, who visited the structure this week and posted videos of it on Instagram, said it was located near Lockhart Basin Road, which is south of Moab.
The Bureau of Land Management said it would not investigate the disappearance because “crimes involving private property” are administered by the local sheriff’s office. The San Juan and Grand County Sheriff’s Offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Surber, who traveled to the monolith, posted about her disappearance on her Instagram story Saturday night. “Apparently the monolith is gone,” he said. “Nature returned to its natural state, I suppose.” – The New York Times
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