[ad_1]
David Surber / Instagram
American David Surber drove overnight to find the mysterious structure after finding the coordinates online.
When Utah officials announced they had found a mysterious metallic monolith deep in the desert, they deliberately did not reveal the exact location, knowing that amateur detectives would try to find it and potentially get lost in the process.
Within 48 hours, several amateur detectives had found him. But it is still unclear who put the glowing three-meter-high column there and why.
In a statement shared on its website Monday, the Utah Department of Public Safety said the structure was discovered by its Aero Bureau and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in Red Rock Country while counting bighorn sheep in a part of southeastern Utah.
Utah Department of Public Safety
Authorities did not reveal the exact location of the facility in an effort to prevent people from attempting to locate it.
“While on this mission, they spotted an unusual object and landed nearby to investigate further,” the statement read. “The crew members found a metal monolith installed in the ground in a remote area of red rock.”
READ MORE:
* Space rarity? Mysterious monolith found in a remote US desert.
* How this became possibly the most viewed photograph of all time
* Wildlife now roams where the US once forged its deadliest weapons
Authorities said it was unclear who installed the structure, but warned that it is illegal to install “unauthorized structures or art on public land administered by the federal government, no matter what planet it is from.”
By Wednesday, images appeared on Instagram of people posing next to the structure in canyon country.
David Surber, a 33-year-old former U.S. Army infantry officer from Utah, told the BBC who drove for six hours at night in search of the monolith after seeing a Reddit post that claimed to have pinpointed the location.
“I decided to go there first because I was drawn to the fact that this object had been there for five years, hidden in nature,” he said.
Tim Slane, the Reddit user who shared the coordinates, said he had tracked the flight path of the authorities’ helicopter until it went off the radar.
He then compared photos and videos of the canyon shared by authorities with online maps. Google Earth photos of the canyon from October 2016 show a column-shaped shadow on the canyon that is not visible on maps from previous years.
Suber said in an Instagram post that he had the monolith all to himself for about 10 minutes before other people started showing up.
While it remains a mystery who installed the structure, experts believe it is a work of conceptual art, according to the BBC report.
Wendy Wischer of the University of Utah School of Fine Arts speculated that a group of people must have installed it, as it would have been too big of a job for one person.
“Most artists want some recognition for what they are doing, but this seems to include a level of humor and mystery as part of the intent,” he said.
However, many of those who shared images of the monolith on social media like to think, or joke, that it was put there by aliens.
“I found the monolith. It can confirm both the alien construction and the time-traveling super portal, ”said one Instagram user. “After taking a hyperspace trip aboard the Heart of Gold, we went back to the 14th century and talked about plagues with some farmers in Caffa. What a day.”
Others, however, simply enjoyed the adventure of finding it for themselves.
“It’s not every day that an inexplicable monolith (art installation? Alien marker?) Appears in your ‘backyard,’” said another person.
“I can’t tell you how much I love this fun distraction from this crazy year we’ve had!”
