Another Mystery Monolith Appears, This Time in California

As 2020 winds to a close and the worst year in many of our lifetimes is [this close] to being a bad memory, one of the odder mysteries of the year has popped up. Following the discovery of a mysterious, 2001-like Monolith in Utah, copycats have popped up…first in Romania, and now in California. In a world that’s increasingly always under surveillance, the ability to make a large object seemingly appear out of nowhere without getting caught is impressive, and the oddity and seeming randomness of the acts have attracted considerable attention from the media and the public.

The three-sided, metallic obelisk was discovered at the top of Pine Mountain in Atascadero. This one, unlike the one in Utah, was not planted in the ground, but rather standing there under its own weight and could be pushed over or removed more easily than the San Juan County monolith.

The Utah Monolith apparently stood for about four years in a red sandstone slot canyon in northern San Juan County, Utah, according to a journalist who used satellite photos of the area to determine that it was placed sometime between July and October of 2016. At that time, according to local news reports, the area would have been part of a federally-protected area called Bears Ears National Monument, although it was removed from that designation by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 as part of a larger movement to reduce the amount of protected land in the country.

The area was distant from established trails and had no public amenities like restrooms or cellular reception, so the Monolith managed to remain undetected for quite some time — until the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources found it during a helicopter survey of bighorn sheep. It disappeared shortly after being discovered, with an eyewitness claiming that an unidentified group of four men came to take it away.

The next day, another one appeared atop Batca Doamnei Hill in the Romanian city of Piatra Neamt, reportedly not far from the Petrodava Dacian Fortress archeological landmark. That one apparently vanished yesterday, and without an eyewitness account so far. Now, California.

Some assume that this is some kind of elaborate marketing campaign, but it seems equally plausible that, given the attention attracted by the Utah monolith, the Romanian and Californian verisons are just copycats looking to bring a little of the “magic” of the original discovery to new places. Each one seems to be about 10 feet tall and 18 inches wide, made of stainless steel or aluminum sheet metal.

If someone — human, corporate, or alien — takes credit for the structures, we’ll have that news, too. What do you think the monoliths are all about? Sound off in the comments below.