Space oddity? Monolith in Utah desert mystifies helicopter crew
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[November 25, 2020]
By Peter Szekely
(Reuters) - They were on a mission to count
sheep when they found something they had not counted on.
As a Utah helicopter crew buzzed over the southeastern part of the state
looking for bighorn sheep last week, sitting beneath them in the middle
of the desert was a bright shiny monolith, the stuff of sci-fi sagas.
Pilot Bret Hutchings of the state Department of Public Safety recalled
someone on board spotting the gleaming metal object firmly implanted in
a small clearing set against the redness of the rocks and sand below.
“He’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around,” Hutchings told
KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. “There’s this thing, there’s this thing back
there. We’ve got to go look at it.”
After Hutchings set their helicopter down in the remote area, which
remains undisclosed to discourage a rush of gawkers, they got a closer
look, but found "no obvious indication" of how it got there, the public
safety department said.
Images released by the department show the monolith coming up to the
shoulders of a man standing on the shoulders of another after the
discovery last Wednesday.
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Hutchings joked about the object's possible other-worldly origins and
the obvious parallel to the classic 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, but
thought the answer was more down to Earth.
"I’m assuming it is some new wave artist or something, or somebody who
just is a big '2001: A Space Odyssey' fan,” he said.
In the film, an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that appears to
play a key role in man's evolution from the apes.
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![](../images/112520pics/news_f11.jpg)
A Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau and Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources crew member stands near a metal monolith
discovered in a remote area of Red Rock Country in Utah, U.S.
November 18, 2020. Picture taken November 18, 2020. Utah Department
of Public Safety via REUTERS
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Whatever the Utah object's origins, it has fired up the minds of
conspiracy theorists and sci-fi fans on social media.
"Finally someone gets it!" said Twitter user Dwight Jackson of
Calgary, Alberta. "This is the 2020 reset we've been waiting for!
Where is the mothership...?"
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, declined to
comment late on Tuesday on its investigation into the matter.
But it issued a reminder on Twitter that "using, occupying, or
developing the public lands or their resources without a required
authorization is illegal, no matter what planet you are from."
(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Bill Tarrant and
Michael Perry)
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