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(Reuters) – They were on a mission to count sheep when they found something they hadn’t counted on.
As a helicopter crew from Utah flew over the southeastern part of the state in search of bighorn sheep last week, sitting beneath them in the middle of the desert was a glowing monolith, the stuff of science fiction sagas.
State Department of Public Safety pilot Bret Hutchings recalled that someone on board saw the gleaming metal object firmly implanted in a small clearing against the reddening of the rocks and sand below.
“It’s like, wait, wait, wait, turn around, turn around,” Hutchings told KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. “There’s this thing, there’s this thing back there. We have to go see him. “
After Hutchings left his helicopter in the remote area, which remains undisclosed to deter a flood of onlookers, they took a closer look but found “no obvious indication” of how he got there, the public safety department said.
Images released by the department show the monolith climbing onto the shoulders of one man standing on the shoulders of another after the discovery last Wednesday.
Hutchings joked about the object’s possible otherworldly origins and the obvious parallels to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1968 film, but thought the answer was more realistic.
“I guess it’s some new wave artist or something, or someone who is just a huge fan of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,'” he said.
In the movie, an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that seems to play a key role in the evolution of man from the apes.
Whatever the origin of the Utah object, it has awakened the minds of conspiracy theorists and sci-fi fans on social media.
“Finally someone gets it!” said Twitter user Dwight Jackson from Calgary, Alberta. “This is the 2020 reboot we’ve been waiting for! Where is the mothership …?”
The US Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, declined to comment late Tuesday on its investigation into the matter.
But he issued a reminder on Twitter that “using, occupying or developing public lands or their resources without the required authorization is illegal, no matter what planet you are from.”
(New York Peter Szekely Report; Bill Tarrant and Michael Perry Editing)
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