Gleaming monolith pops up in Nevada desert, the latest in a series of quickly vanishing structures
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2024 (839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The strange monolith looks like it could have come from another world.
Jutting out of the rocks in a remote mountain range near Las Vegas, the glimmering rectangular prism’s reflective surface imitates the vast desert landscape surrounding the mountain peak where it has been erected.
But where did the object come from, and is it still there? That’s a mystery the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it was trying to solve after learning about it Monday through a social media post.
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 6,937 feet (2,114 meters), it is among the highest peaks in the area north of Las Vegas.
“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!”
Photos accompanying the department’s post show the strange structure standing tall against a bright blue sky, with distant views of the Las Vegas valley. It evokes the object that appears in the Stanley Kubrick movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Neither the police department nor its search and rescue unit immediately responded Monday to requests for more information about their discovery — the latest in a series of mysterious shiny columns popping up around the globe since at least 2020.
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 on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.
All of them disappeared as quickly as they popped up.
The Utah structure, which captured the world’s imagination during the pandemic, is believed to be the first in the series. It stood at about 12 feet (3.6 meters) and had been embedded in the rock in an area so remote that officials didn’t immediately reveal its location for fear of people getting lost or stranded while trying to find it.
Hordes of curious tourists still managed to find it, and along the way flattened plants with their cars and left behind human waste in the bathroom-free backcountry. Two men known for extreme sports in Utah’s sweeping outdoor landscapes say it was that kind of damage that made them step in late at night and tear it down.
Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it is worried the same level of damage could happen at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which was established to protect bighorn sheep and is home to rare plants. It is the largest wildlife refuge outside of Alaska and can cover the state of Rhode Island twice.
“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.
The Utah and Nevada structures were illegally installed on federal land.
