A group of four men demolished the metal column that mysteriously appeared in a remote section of the Utah desert, reportedly calling it “trash.”
Photographer Ross Bernards recounted how the group dismantled the monolith. According to Bernards, he and a few friends drove for six hours on November 27. Their mission – to see the viral sculpture and take photos of it by moonlight.
“We passed one group as we hiked towards the mysterious monolith, while another group was there when we arrived, and they left pretty quick after we got there,” the photographer wrote in the caption of his Instagram post. “For the next hour and 40 minutes, we had the place to ourselves.”
After a while, however, they heard voices approaching. Bernards stepped aside to give way to the new group who might also want to take photos of the object.
“Four guys rounded the corner and two of them walked forward,” he continued. “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.’
The four guys reportedly pushed the object to the ground and broke it apart. They then carried it in a wheelbarrow and told Bernards’ group, “Leave no trace.”
Can It Be Considered Vandalism?
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is in charge of the part of the desert where the monolith appeared. However, it earlier expressed that it will not be investigating the object, which it considers to be private property.
The local sheriff, on the other hand, also kept their hands-off the case. They said they don’t have the proper resources to look into the object’s arrival or demolition.
Bernards expressed why he and his friends didn’t do anything when the group took away the object.
“If you’re asking why we didn’t stop them well, they were right to take it out,” the photographer wrote. “We stayed the night and the next day hiked to a hilltop 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.”
Science Fiction Reference
The object went viral online when it first appeared on November 18. Many said it’s akin to the “monoliths” in the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick. Because of this reference, some joked that it might have an alien origin.
However, Bernards’ photos show that the object is merely metal sheets attached to a wooden stand. It’s still unclear who put the sculpture in the middle of the desert and for what purpose.
