Las Vegas Monolith: Mysterious Column Removed From Hiking Trail Near Gass Peak

CNN
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A strange monolith discovered protruding from rocks in a remote mountain range near Las Vegas has been taken down by authorities.

How it got there is still unresolved.

“It remains unclear how the object got to its location or who may be responsible,” Las Vegas police said Friday in a series of posts on X announcing the removal of the 6-foot-4 glittering prism.

Its discovery the previous weekend and rapid removal for public safety and environmental reasons reignited a pandemic-era mystery that captured the public imagination when glowing monoliths evoking the object that appears in the Stanley Kubrick's film “2001: A Space Odyssey” has begun. to appear all over the world.

Members of the Las Vegas police search and rescue team found the object near Gass Peak, part of the sprawling Desert National Wildlife Refuge where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises roam.

This is the latest discovery in a series of mysterious columns that have appeared since at least 2020.

In November of that year, a similar metallic monolith was discovered deep in the Martian landscape of Utah's red rock desert. Then came sightings in Romania, central California, New Mexico and on the famous Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

All of them disappeared as quickly as they appeared, adding to the story.

“This thing is not from another world,” Lt. Nick Street of the Utah Department of Public Safety said at the time.

The Utah monolith, believed to be the first in the series, had been embedded in rock in such an isolated area that authorities did not immediately reveal its location for fear that people would get lost or found stuck trying to find him. But Internet sleuths quickly found the coordinates and hordes of curious tourists eager to see and touch the otherworldly object arrived, flattening the plants with their cars and leaving behind human waste in the backcountry without toilets.

Authorities said the same concerns led them to demolish the last monolith on Thursday.

It was illegally settled on federal land created to protect bighorn sheep and is home to rare plants and desert tortoises. The Desert National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the largest wildlife refuge outside of Alaska and can cover twice the state of Rhode Island.

Christa Weise, interim director of the wildlife refuge, confirmed Friday that the monolith had been removed, but said she could not say whether federal authorities had opened a criminal investigation.

The police department said the object was being kept in a secret location while authorities tried to figure out the best way to dispose or store the massive structure made from a reflective sheet of metal molded into a prism and secured with bars reinforcement and concrete.

Photos accompanying the department's social media posts showed the object on its side after it was removed, which left a large imprint in the ground because the rebar had been buried deep in dirt and rocks.

The ministry said it “discourages anyone from venturing off marked trails or leaving objects and items behind.”

“This presents a danger to you and the environment,” Las Vegas police said.

In Utah, the removal of the monolith also left a hole in the red rock. The Bureau of Land Management said Friday it was still actively investigating the Utah case.