While conducting a count of bighorn sheep in a portion of southeastern Utah, on Nov. 18, 2020, researchers spotted a mysterious metal monument in the middle of the desert.
Who embedded a large metal monolith in the remote Utah desert?
State wildlife officials are scratching their heads after discovering a bizarre 10-foot-tall (3 meters) installation in Red Rock Country in southeastern Utah. The shiny silver rectangle sits in the center of the dead end of one of the many shallow rock ravines that scour this desert region. Its discovery had wildlife officials feeling as if they'd been dropped into an episode of "Ancient Aliens."
"OK, the intrepid explorers go down to investigate the, uh, alien life-form," one chuckles as he takes a video of his companions hiking to the monolith on Nov. 18.
The monolith failed to immediately do anything mystical, though officials noted with surprise that someone had taken the trouble to cut into the hard-packed earth to install the monument. There was no indication of who had left the monolith, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.