[imagesource:lvmpd/x]

The latest addition to a series of quickly vanishing monoliths has appeared in the Nevada desert after local police reported that a search and rescue team found the strange structure over the weekend.

Jutting out of the rocks in a remote mountain range near Las Vegas, the glimmering rectangular prism’s reflective surface looks otherworldly in the vast desert landscape and has local authorities stumped.

Las Vegas police said on the social platform X that members of its search and rescue unit found the otherworldly object over the weekend near Gass Peak, part of the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises can be found roaming. At 2,114 metres, it is among the highest peaks in the area.

“We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water,” the police department wrote. “But check this out!”

MYSTERIOUS MONOLITH!

We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water… but check this out!
Over the weekend, @LVMPDSAR spotted this mysterious monolith near Gass Peak north of the valley. pic.twitter.com/YRsvhJIU5M

— LVMPD (@LVMPD) June 17, 2024

The odd structure is reminiscent of the monoliths from Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey and is the latest in a series of these structures that seem to appear at random all across the world since 2020, before disappearing just as mysteriously.

In November of that year, a similar metal monolith was found deep in the Mars-like landscape of Utah’s red-rock desert. Then came sightings in Romania, central California, and even on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

The Utah monolith was eventually torn down by two locals who became upset over the amount of people travelling to the site and leaving waste and damage in their wake.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now worried the same damage could happen at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which was established to protect bighorn sheep and is home to rare plants.

“People might come looking for it and be coming with inappropriate vehicles or driving where they shouldn’t, trampling plants,” said Christa Weise, the refuge’s acting manager.

However, Whitney Tassie, a curator of modern and contemporary art at the Utah Museum of Fine Art says that the monolith was fascinating in part because of its context in the landscape.

“That’s a big, big part of land art in general is this idea of an experience, of a journey.”

“It’s good to think about our relationship with the earth, which is ultimately what these sorts of projects do. Man’s impact on the environment front and centre.”

These mysterious erections seem to be the crop circles of our century, and so far no one has been able to figure out who is behind them.

[source:ap]