Less than 10 days after it had been discovered by wildlife biologists conducting a helicopter assessment of bighorn sheep, government authorities and witnesses stated that a strange silver monolith found in the Utah desert vanished.
Just 10 days later amid the pandemic, the pop-up metal monolith that has become the subject of worldwide interest after it was discovered on Nov. 18 in a remote area of the Utah desert was removed. On Monday, public officials proceeded to claim that they had no knowledge about either the placement or removal or even a potential theft of the object, that had been installed on public property.
Kimberly Finch, BLM spokesperson stated in a comment on November 27: "We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the 'monolith' has been removed from Bureau of Land Management public lands by an unknown party." She had also said that the department did not eliminate the structure.
The Tribune wrote that Salt Lake City's Spencer Owen stated that he had seen the monolith on Friday afternoon and set up camp overnight in the location, however, on Saturday, as he went back to the area, people who pass by him on the path informed him that it was missing. All that has been remaining when he reached at the place had been a triangular piece of metal over a triangular gap in the rocks.
"I was really bummed," he said in his video on Instagram. "It was so pretty and shiny. I wanted to go see it again."
Aliens or artists?
Theories and jokes became common. The very first assumption from the public has been, of course, aliens. Such theories are the only ones that had only became stronger after the federal Land Management Bureau confirmed Saturday that the monolith had unexpectedly vanished. A chunk of rock was still in its place, seeming to mark the lost monolith.
Pilot Bret Hutchings had this to say when the monolith has been found by one of his officers: "He was like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around!' And I was like, 'What?' And he's like, 'There's this thing back there - we've got to go look at it!'" he told KSL of Salt Lake City. "We just happened to fly directly over the top of it."
People immediately began to make alien jokes, and when the monolith vanished, there have been no jokes.
Even in the post regarding the monolith's disappearance, the department of the sheriff laughed at the alien theories, posting on social media a collage of aliens in films and at the same time, asking citizens if on the evening of November 27th, they remember anybody from the lineup given as being in the location of the mysterious structure.
Besides this, one theory claimed that Petecia Le Fawnhawk, a Southwestern artist who used to work and live in Utah, had been building on the monolith. She told Artnet News that although she "did have the thought to plant secret monuments in the desert," Fawnhawk "cannot claim this one," although she had previously put structures in the area.
The monolith was instantly examined by others, including The Art Newspaper, as the creation of the sculpture artist John McCracken, who passed in 2011 and lived in New Mexico.
Initially, David Zwirner, whose galleries portrayed McCracken and displayed his art, also stated that he thought the structure was McCracken's, yet changed his opinion since then.
"I love the idea of this being John's work, but when you look closely at the photos of the Utah monolith, you will see rivets and screws that are not consistent with how John wanted his work to be constructed," he stated in a comment. "He was a perfectionist. While I know that this is not John's work, I also know that he would have enjoyed the Utah location and would have greatly appreciated the mystery surrounding this work. We all think it is a wonderful homage."
