Remember that out-of-this-world monolith found in the middle of nowhere by a Utah helicopter crew last Monday?
Yeah, it vanished.
If you didn't catch the original story, a crew with the Utah Department of Public Safety was helping Wildlife Services count Bighorn sheep when they stumbled across this in the middle of a desert canyon miles from civilization:
The crew said it was deeply anchored in the ground, but bore no identifying marks to indicate who built it or why it had been placed there. The helicopter pilot called it "the strangest thing" he'd ever come across in his career and compared it to the monolith from the famous sci-fi film "2001: A Space Odyssey:"
The monolith gained international attention overnight and has an extensive Reddit thread dedicated to unraveling its secrets. People reportedly began flocking to the site – enough that the government had to release a statement telling people to stop littering, destroying vegetation, and, uh, releasing their bowels all over the place.
It even inspired Lego art:
Because the monument was illegally planted on public land, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it was going to investigate the monolith. Well, turns out they didn't move fast enough (yay for government efficiency!) because, on Friday evening, someone removed the dang thing and somehow hauled it out of there without a trace.
A Reddit user was the first to notice, posting that he'd driven all night only to find the monolith had been removed:
This single triangular piece was all that remained:
Here's what the Bureau of Land Management said:
"We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the "monolith" has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party. The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff's office. The structure has received international and national attention and we received reports that a person or group removed it on the evening of Nov. 27."
That "person or group" apparently used a concrete-cutting tool to remove the monolith.
The Bureau of Land Management said it wouldn't be investigating further and is leaving any follow up to the local sheriff.
2020 has been filled with pandemics, murder hornets, the fall of Western civilization, and now mysterious alien-like monoliths that vanish from the desert.
