Close on the heels of mysterious appearance and disappearance of a metal monolith in Utah Desert of USA, another similar monolith appeared and disappeared, this time across Atlantic in Romania, almost half a world away. Shiny metal monolith vanished on Tuesday from Romania’s mountainous Neamt county, four days after its sudden appearance close to an ancient Dacian fortress. In no time this sparked speculation that it may be related to Utah incident.
Alien-looking pillar, was spotted in a Utah desert in the United States about two weeks ago. It disappeared after generating much excitement internationally among science-fiction fans, hearkening to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke. In the Kubrick movie, an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that appears to play a role in the development of human evolution.
Rather than being an alien structure, the truth of the Romanian monolith may be more prosaic. It was spotted a few metres away from the well-known archaeological landmark the Petrodava Dacian Fortress, an fort built by the ancient Dacian people between 82 BC and AD 106. The triangular structure with a height of about 13 feet has one side facing Mount Ceahlau, known locally as the Holy Mountain. It is one of the most famous mountains in Romania, and is listed as one of the seven natural wonders of the country.
“The 2.8 metre (9ft) tall structure disappeared overnight as quietly as it was erected last week,” journalist Robert Iosub of the Ziar Piatra Neamt local newspaper, who had seen the structure, said.
“An unidentified person, apparently a bad local welder, made it … now all that remains is just a small hole covered by rocky soil,” local reporters had discovered, he said. The sheet metal structure had a badly-welded join.
A spokeswoman for Piatra Neamt police, Georgiana Mosu, said officers are conducting an inquiry into the illegally-installed structure, which was positioned in a protected archaeological area from Nov. 27.
On the other side of globe, no word is still there on dramatic monolith saga in south-eastern Utah desert. A state crew that buzzed through the wilderness, counting bighorn sheep from a helicopter, had found the alien-looking object on Nov. 18. The riddle in the desert, twice as tall as an average adult, drew scores of the curious to see it, even though its exact location was not made public, according to accounts on social media.
A Utah helicopter crew buzzed over the south-eastern part of the state looking for bighorn sheep last week, but instead, sitting beneath them in the middle of the desert was a bright shiny monolith, the stuff of sci-fi sagas.
No one seems to know where it went. Neither the federal Bureau of Land Management nor the state’s Department of Public Safety said they had any idea, nor they seem to have any wish to investigate it further.
“We have received reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the ‘monolith’ has been removed from Bureau of Land Management public lands by an unknown party,” the state agency posted on Saturday on its website. It said the object was reportedly removed on Friday evening. Utah’s Bureau of Land Management said on Sunday that it was a private property and they don’t investigate crimes related to private property.
The art world has speculated that the object was the work of John McCracken, a sculptor fond who died in 2011. His son, Patrick McCracken, has told The New York Times that his father told him in 2002 that “he would like to leave his artwork in remote places to be discovered later.” But that all remain only speculations so far.
Whatever the Utah object’s origins, it has fired up the minds of conspiracy theorists and sci-fi fans on social media. In the Stanley Kubrick’s film, an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that appears to play a key role in man’s evolution from the apes. People have also recalled that a similar version appeared nearly 20 years ago on New Year’s Day in Seattle. The mystery in Utah is deepened by the fact that nobody actually knows that when it appeared first. It was discovered on Nov. 18, but many people believe it could have been there for a longer time.
So far nobody has come forward to stake any type of claims on these mysteries.
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.”
The Utah monolith provoked arguments about tourists who drove huge distances to see the monolith and were accused of trashing the location, which authorities had tried to keep secret to avoid people getting lost. But many tracked down the co-ordinates and published them – leading people to drive many hours through the night to reach the 12ft aluminium structure.
Now, after first Utah, and then Romania, it remains to be seen whether somebody somewhere else picks the prank and tries to play the game. It will be interesting to wait and watch and no doubt that many people around the globe will be keenly searching for some unexplained monoliths.