Daily US Times: A helicopter driver discovered a strange metal monolith in the Utah desert, leaving local authorities baffled.
While counting sheep during a flyover in the state’s remote south-eastern area, wildlife officials spotted the “unusual” object.
They said the metal had been planted in the ground between red rock.
There was no indication who installed the monolith, which was about 10 to 12ft 3.6m tall.
The helicopter pilot, Bret Hutchings, said in an interview with local news channel KSLTV: “That’s been about the strangest thing that I’ve come across out there in all my years of flying.”
The pilot said a biologist counting big horn sheep in the helicopter was the first one to spot the structure from the sky.
Mr Hutchings said: “He was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around!’. And I was like, ‘What?’. And he’s like, ‘There’s this thing back there – we’ve got to go look at it!’,”
The pilot speculated that the monolith may have been installed by “some new wave artist”, or a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Imposing black monoliths created by an unseen alien species appear in the movie, based on the writing of novelist Arthur C Clarke.
In a news release last week, he Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau released images of the rectangular-shaped metal object.
The news release said authorities would determine if “they need to investigate further”.
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