Are aliens or artists behind the monolith mystery
The monoliths phenomenon is one of the greatest mysteries of the 2020s. But was it the work of artists or aliens?
Image: A mysterious monolith appeared in Joggers Park, Mumbai in March 2021 | Akella Srinivas Ramalingaswami / Shutterstock.com
When Utah state biologists set out to survey wild bighorn sheep one cold November morning, they probably didn't imagine they would uncover one of the greatest mysteries of the 2020s so far.
Hidden in a dusty slot canyon in northern San Juan County, in an almost impossible-to-access area known as Lockhart Basin, sat a towering monolith. This giant metal structure was the first of over 200 to mysteriously appear across the globe.
The discovery
In November 2020, while counting wild bighorn sheep in San Juan County, Utah, a group of state biologists made a confusing discovery. From their helicopter, they saw a large metal structure embedded in the red sandstone. Intrigued and a little trepidatious, they asked pilot Bret Hutchings to fly closer.
Hutchings remembers the day clearly, ‘One of the biologists... spotted it, and we just happened to fly directly over the top of it. 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!”’
Excitedly, the group realised they were looking at a monolith. Monoliths are usually stone and shaped into columns by natural geological processes. However, this one was crafted from stainless steel and aluminium sheets, which were carefully pieced together with manmade rivets.
It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to what sort of supernatural forces were behind the monolith’s sudden appearance. ‘We were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it,’ Hutchings laughed. To this day, nobody really knows when it first appeared, but Google Map searches reveal it was erected somewhere between August 2015 and October 2016.
Web sleuths also used Google Maps to pinpoint the monolith's exact location. Utah state officials had previously concealed this information, claiming tourism would harm the area's delicate ecology, ‘While curiosity is understandable, we discourage visiting the monolith. Along with safety concerns, increased crowds threaten the archaeological resources in the area. Unintentional damage is still damage.’
After weeks of heavy-footed tourism, base jumper Andy Lewis and tour guide Sylvan Christensen removed the monolith, reiterating the state's concerns about the surrounding environment.
The aftermath
So, what happened next? Unbelievably, this marked the beginning of an eerie worldwide monolith mania. Strange structures suddenly materialised everywhere from Europe to Australia, in hard-to-reach and random places.
On 7th February 2021, in St. Gertraudi, Austria, a monolith was found in the middle of a snowy field, unblemished by footsteps or vehicle tracks.
On 16th December 2020, another one appeared near the La Pajcha waterfall in Bolivia, engraved with Mandarin, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic scriptures. It was nowhere to be seen the following day.
On 17th February 2021, a monolith popped up on a roundabout in the Democratic Republic of Congo and was quickly burnt down by suspicious locals.
These are just a few of the hundreds of similar incidents that followed Utah. Curious onlookers started to ask questions – who was behind the monoliths, how were they being erected and why did they matter?
Artists or aliens?
Some people believe that the original Utah monolith was constructed by an artist, and inspired hundreds of copycats all around the world. But who could this artist be? John McCracken is the top contender. He lived in the southwest desert, believed in the existence of UFOs and expressed an interest in creating a lasting monument in the desert before he died.
However, David Zwirner, a close friend and business associate, later said, ‘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 was a perfectionist.’
Other possibilities include Petecia Le Fawnhawk, Derek DeSpain and Zardulu the Mythmaker, but no one has come forward and claimed the work as their own.
But the artist theory doesn’t explain why so many monoliths popped up all at once, across dozens and dozens of countries that didn’t share the same language or news sources. This has led others to claim the monoliths are extraterrestrial.
Alien theorists argue that it would be practically impossible for humans to transport, erect and dismantle the giant metal structures without being noticed. Plus, why do so many of them include strange writing and scriptures? With more and more evidence coming out about the existence of UFOs, does this theory really seem so outlandish?
