Mysterious monolith appears near the Las Vegas desert, recalling the frenzy of 2020

Internet sleuths, cooped up during Covid-related shutdowns and suffering the aftermath of the US presidential election, were searching for an answer. Work of an artist? Extraterrestrials? Random YouTube pranksters? As people craved an origin story, copycat monoliths began popping up across the world. Few responses followed.

“We see a lot of strange things when people go hiking, like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water…but look at this!” Las Vegas police wrote in a social media thread Monday that included two photos of the monolith. Police said the metal structure was spotted on a hiking trail near Gass Peak, north of Vegas.

The monolith seen in the police department's photos is glassy, ​​as if it were pulled from a fifth-dimensional bookshelf in “Interstellar.”

LVMPD said it was answering numerous questions about the monolith Tuesday morning, but it did not answer questions about its origins or whether police planned to monitor the structure.

But police advised hikers to observe trail safety using the monolith, especially as “the Internet gets to work solving this mystery.”

What was the Utah monolith?

The original monolith was discovered by authorities in November 2020, shortly before Thanksgiving. Utah Land and Safety officials were in a remote area of ​​the Utah desert when they discovered the object, which had apparently been hidden there for years. (Reddit sleuths discovered via Google Earth that the monolith was likely installed in 2016.)

“We joked that if one of us suddenly disappeared, then the rest of us would run away,” pilot Bret Hutchings told Salt Lake City news station KSL-TV at the time .

So yeah, it's a bit weird, right? That didn't stop people from flocking to the remote Utah desert to take photos and see the structure. Many have speculated that it was the work of aliens. (Mostly as a joke. Mostly…) TikTok videos suggested the structure signaled the arrival of aliens or another cryptid.

The world quickly entered what can only be described as monolithic madness. UFO YouTubers have been investigating the site. Brands such as Southwest Airlines And Moon Pie makes jokes. Stephen Colbert even concocted a 12-minute “monolithic monologue” on the structure.

Then the Utah monolith…disappeared. And there was never a clear answer as to where he went or how he got there. Amid debate over land preservation, one group has suggested dismantling the Utah structure and returning it to federal land managers, but questions remain about the monolith's whereabouts.

Utah's Bureau of Land Management told The Washington Post on Tuesday that it was “verifying” the condition of the original monolith, but did not immediately offer more details.

Were there other monoliths? And did aliens make them?

The Utah monolith was just the beginning. A similar structure appeared in Romania, although it looked a little different, and many considered it a copy. Another appeared in California, but it seemed a little too light compared to Utah's structure. (The destruction of this California monolith was also well documented.) One appeared in New Mexico, but, as social media videos show, it was demolished relatively quickly.

Multiple versions of the monoliths were subsequently spotted around the world in late 2020, although many were considered direct-to-video sequels to the original – including one that was installed at the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas in December 2020.

Lots of monoliths. A lot of attention. And it only proliferated more conspiracy theories and questions about their origin.

The main theory was that the original was simply an artistic prop, with some suggesting it was installed to say… something …about the environment.

Some in the art world have speculated that John McCracken, a minimalist sculptor and science fiction fan, assembled the object before his death in 2011, the New York Times reported at the time. His son, Patrick McCracken, and his gallerist, David Zwirner, supported this theory, but Zwirner later recanted. There were also theories that performance artist Zardulu was responsible, but she did not take credit. And a prank art collective called Most Famous Artist claimed responsibility for the monoliths (and then sold a version of the monoliths for around $45,000 in December 2020), but its authorship has been disputed.

So here we are, in 2024, and the search to understand the original Utah monolith remains a puzzling little moment in history.

The specifics of the monoliths' origins and departures may not matter. The original play, the sequels, and the overall conversation together constituted an artistic event. It was an opportunity for the whole world to notice, in real time, the appearance and meaning of an object.

It also showed us that society has no problem indulging in a good conspiracy theory, especially when it's a little more fun and offbeat.

And, if nothing else, it was a good test of what happens when aliens TO DO happen, right?