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Aliens Took Back Their Monolith: Utah Mystery Structure Has Been Removed

Well, this has been fun. A strange, mysterious structure that’s been dubbed the Utah monolith, discovered earlier this month in the red mountains in Utah and initially described as an alien creation, has been stolen.
Utah monolith has been removed after story goes viral 7 photos
Photo: Facebook / BLM Utah
Strange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn'tStrange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn'tStrange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn'tStrange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn'tStrange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn'tStrange metal monolith spotted by helicopter in the Utah mountains could be alien but it probably isn't
“Missing” is perhaps a more accurate term, since it could be that whoever put it there came back for it when it started getting too much attention and authorities said they were investigating how it got there in the first place. Maybe the aliens came back for their shiny monolith?

That was the initial joke by the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS), whose Aero Bureau made the discovery along with biologists from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, while out by helicopter to count bighorn sheep in the area. The monolith was found in a remote canyon with difficult access, and the DPS ran with the alien joke from the start, going as far as to inform whoever put it there that being from an alien planet didn’t mean they could plant their stuff into federal land without approval.

The location of the monolith was initially kept a secret but this is 2020, so Internet sleuths figured it out by analyzing the helicopter’s flight path and the images of the surrounding area posted to social media by authorities. It wasn’t long before adventurers and Instagrammers flocked the area, eager to see what was either proof of aliens visiting our planet (lol, not) or some type of modern art installation.

Whatever it was, it’s gone now. The Bureau of Land Management Utah has just confirmed the news on Facebook: the monolith, which was private property, has been removed from the area, which is public land. They’re probably still investigating how it got there (which is a crime) but don’t care about who took it (because it’s not theirs to care for).

“We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the 'monolith' has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party. The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property,” the statement says.

It notes that “a person or group” removed it on November 27, presumably after sundown. As we reported yesterday, though it was hollow and made of riveted sheets of aluminum, the monolith was planted into the rocky bed, which probably meant heavy-duty drilling machinery had been required to put it there. This hadn’t been a one-man job.

The monolith first appeared on Google Earth in October 2016, as a dot and a long shadow, Internet sleuths discovered this week. Previous images from August 2015 don’t include it, so it was put there in this timeframe. It took nearly five years to discover it (whatever it was) and less than a week to make it disappear – and that’s 2020 for you in a nutshell.









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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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