Lanka Talents

Andy Merritt, a British artist who creates outdoor public sculptures as part of the duo, Something and Son, said that when he saw stories about the Utah monolith, he thought it was “either an artist, or a rich person who’s got fantasies around 2001: A Space Odyssey”.

“There are so many artists who do stuff in unusual places, especially in America,” said Merritt, who plans to “fossilise” a suburban house in Milton Keynes, north of London, next spring by pouring a mixture into the interior and making a cast of its negative space. “Even in my own work, we always want to be doing things in unusual places.

“If you took what they did in the middle of Utah – presuming it is an artist – and put it in another location, like a public square, it would be a lot less interesting. It’s the landscape itself that really is the talking point.”

Video from the dozens – perhaps even hundreds of people – who have already visited the location suggest a professional job. Three large sheets of what appears to be stainless steel were riveted together, with the inside left hollow. Whoever put it there used heavy-duty tools to cut into the bedrock and embed the structure.

“From the beginning I had hopes it was otherworldly… who wouldn’t want it to be. Yet deep down inside you know it was most likely just a very patient artist or Space Odyssey 2001 fan,” David reflects, after his trip to visit the monolith.

Like Andy Merritt, he’s referring to the imposing black monoliths that play an important, but mysterious, role in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In an interview on Thursday, a public information officer at the Utah Department of Public Safety told the BBC that while they don’t encourage anyone to travel to the monolith because it could be dangerous, they can’t do anything to stop them as the area is public land. No decision has been made to remove it.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” said Corporal Andrew Battenfield, when told people had been turning up and posting pictures on social media. “It’s a free country.”