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Mysterious 'obelisk' in US desert draws wild theories

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2020/reuters/11/24/usa-monolith.jpg"/><figcaption>Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources crew members walk near a metal monolith they discovered in a remote area of Red Rock Country in Utah, US November 18, 2020. <em>Utah Department of Public Safety via Reuters</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>LOS ANGELES - A mysterious metal &quot;obelisk&quot; found buried in the remote western United States desert has inflamed the imaginations of UFO spotters, conspiracy theorists and Stanley Kubrick fans around the world.</p><p>The shiny, triangular pillar -- which protrudes approximately 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah -- was spotted last Wednesday by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air.</p><p>Landing to investigate, Utah Department of Public Safety crew members found &quot;a metal monolith installed in the ground&quot; but &quot;no obvious indication of who might have put the monolith there.&quot;</p><p>&quot;It is illegal to install structures or art without authorization on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you&#x27;re from,&quot; warned the agency in a tongue-in-cheek press release Monday. </p><p>News of the discovery quickly went viral online, with many noting the object&#x27;s similarity with strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Kubrick&#x27;s classic sci-fi &quot;2001: A Space Odyssey.&quot;</p><p>Others remarked on its discovery during a turbulent year that has seen the world gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, and optimistically speculated it could have a different function entirely.</p><p>&quot;This is the &#x27;reset&#x27; button for 2020. Can someone please press it quickly?&quot; joked one Instagram user.</p><p>&quot;Up close it reads: &#x27;Covid vaccine inside&#x27;&quot; wrote another.</p><p>With officials refusing to disclose the object&#x27;s location out of fear that hordes of curious sightseers would flock to the remote wilderness, a race has also begun online to geo-locate the &quot;obelisk&quot; using surrounding rock formations.</p><p>Bret Hutchings, the pilot who happened to fly over the obelisk, speculated that the obelisk had been planted by &quot;some new wave artist.&quot;</p><p>Some observers pointed out the object&#x27;s resemblance to the avant-garde work of John McCracken, a US artist who lived for a time in nearby New Mexico, and died in 2011.</p><p>&quot;While this is not a work by the late American artist John McCracken, we suspect it is a work by a fellow artist paying homage to McCracken,&quot; a spokeswoman for his representative David Zwirner told AFP.</p><p>Either way, Hutchings admitted it was &quot;about the strangest thing I&#x27;ve come across out there, in all my years of flying.&quot;</p><p>&quot;We were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it,&quot; he told local news channel KSLTV.</p><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/twmFxKVwBcc?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

<p>LOS ANGELES - A mysterious metal "obelisk" found buried in the remote western United States desert has inflamed the imaginations of UFO spotters, conspiracy theorists and Stanley Kubrick fans around the world.</p>

LOS ANGELES - A mysterious metal "obelisk" found buried in the remote western United States desert has inflamed the imaginations of UFO spotters, conspiracy theorists and Stanley Kubrick fans around the world.