Utah monolith’s location found, but mystery still remains

Last week, park workers made a brilliant discovery in the Martian red desert of central Utah: a gleaming, one-meter-high sculpture they called a “monolith.”

Concerned people might get lost trying to find it, Utah Department of Public Safety workers decided to keep its location a mystery. But this mystery lasted for two days, once the images of its discovery were shared online.

The desert is spread out in dizzying variety. The Red Rock Conservation Area has 800 square kilometers of treacherous terrain and arid desert, but that didn’t deter Internet detectives.

“The fact that they have not revealed the location because they do not want people to get lost looking for it makes me want to lose myself while I look for it,” was the main comment on a web forum dedicated to the mystery.

With many eyes scanning Google Earth and satellite imagery, it didn’t take long to locate a long shadow in the desert. By posting coordinates online, the shadow piqued the interest of monolith hunters.

But, there was only one way to be sure. Utah local David Surber went looking to see if this was really the place. The 33-year-old former US Army officer drove 6 hours, overnight, after being captivated by the mystery online.

Upon reaching absolute darkness, Surber had the mysterious monument to himself.

“I had no idea it was such a beautiful sight,” he said as morning light illuminated the Red Rock desert.

He was bombarded with questions and “close to 200 messages” after telling his Instagram followers that he was heading into the desert to search for the monolith.

By bringing a magnet to “test doors or panels” he confirmed that it was not magnetic “probably aluminum”. Made of three pieces of metal, the monolith was held together with rivets.

When the sun came up, it wasn’t long before more mystery hunters appeared on the site.
“I had it just to myself for about 10 minutes in the morning before people started showing up,” Surber said. The fingerprints on the glowing sculpture showed that people had made the journey before him. The site 45 minutes north on a 4WD track called Lockhart road needs a serious set of wheels to get there, but Surber said he will “want to make the trip.”

Visiting the glittering space age monolith dispelled some of the most outlandish theories about sculpture. I mean, it was a UFO. Surber confirmed that it was a very earthy sculpture held together by simple hardware rivets.

However, many of the greater mysteries remained.

Those who looked at satellite photos of the object found it in images recorded since 2016. It had been in the Utah desert, undisturbed for almost five years.

Art historians tried to identify the creator of the mysterious artwork, which had not been claimed. Many suggested that Utah artist Petecia Le Fawnhawk, who places artwork in secret desert locations, could be behind the monolith. The surrealist sculptor is famous for placing desert artwork in “vast dream landscapes” spaces, but she did not claim this artwork.

The John McCracken Gallery, which initially thought it might have been an unknown work, suspected that “it is a work by another artist paying homage to McCracken.”

The monolith was remarkably similar to McCracken’s totem sculptures. However, the monolith appeared in the desert at least 4 years after the sculptor’s death in 2011.

Despite all these refined, high-art allusions and pretensions, there was a similarity that was inevitable.

The Monolith and its setting are straight from the first frames of Stanley Kubricks’ sci-fi film – 2001: A Space Odyssey. The similarities are striking enough to have inspired memes and the name “monolith” which was adopted from the 1968 film.

The monolith in the film was a message from interplanetary aliens, sent to inspire humans to explore the universe beyond our solar system. And while they are “definitely not aliens,” the sculpture has inspired hundreds of visitors to travel to the site.

“From the beginning I was hoping it was from another world … who wouldn’t want it to be. However, deep down you know that it was most likely a very patient artist or a Space Odyssey 2001 fanatic”, Surber said.

“Regardless of who built it or where it came from. It was a positive escape from today’s world.”

“I knew that once the place was made public, people would visit the area,” Slane said. “I’ve gotten some angry messages for having revealed the location. If I hadn’t found it, chances are someone else would have found it soon.