The bizarre metallic monolith that was discovered in a remote area the Utah desert has now been removed permanently by a group of hikers, one of whom reportedly said, “Don’t leave trash in the desert.”
Since the discovery of the monument last month and the subsequent revelation of its location, the site was slowly turning into a tourist hotspot, leading some environmentally aware activists to remove the object in the name of protecting the landscape.
The monolith vanished on the night of November 27, but a Facebook user called Ross Bernards explained how he witnessed precisely how the structure was toppled and taken away.
Bernards explained how he and a group of friends passed numerous other hikers on the way to the monument but had the place to themselves for an hour and 40 minutes after arriving.
At 8:40pm, Bernards said he saw a group of four men approaching the site. He goes on to explain what happened next in his Facebook post.
“4 guys rounded the corner and 2 of them walked forward. They gave a couple of pushes on the monolith and one of them said “You better have got your pictures.” He then gave it a big push, and it went over, leaning to one side. He yelled back to his other friends that they didn’t need the tools. The other guy with him at the monolith then said “this is why you don’t leave trash in the desert.” Then all four of them came up and pushed it almost to the ground on one side, before they decided push it back the other when it then popped out and landed on the ground with a loud bang. They quickly broke it apart and as they were carrying to the wheelbarrow that they had brought one of them looked back at us all and said “Leave no trace.” That was at 8:48.”
“If you’re asking why we didn’t stop them well, they were right to take it out. We stayed the night and the next day hiked to a hill top overlooking the area where we saw at least 70 different cars (and a plane) in and out. Cars parking everywhere in the delicate desert landscape. Nobody following a path or each other. We could literally see people trying to approach it from every direction to try and reach it, permanently altering the untouched landscape. Mother Nature is an artist, it’s best to leave the art in the wild to her.”
According to other reports, the first people to arrive at the scene after the monument was removed noticed that the words “bye, bitch” had been scrawled into the dirt near where the monolith had been placed and that there was “a fresh pee stain right next to it.”
An eyewitness also describes seeing a truck leaving the scene with “a large object strapped down in the bed with the hatch open.”
Utah state officials say they had nothing to do with the removal of the monolith.
Meanwhile, to make things more bizarre, an almost identical object to the Utah monument was discovered just days later in Romania near an ancient fortress and archaeological site in the city of Piatra Neamt.
