Mysterious obelisk found in US desert spawns tall stories

LOS ANGELES • A mysterious metal "obelisk" found buried in the remote western United States desert has inflamed the imaginations of UFO spotters, conspiracy theorists and Stanley Kubrick fans around the world.

The shiny, triangular pillar - which protrudes approximately 3.6m from the red rocks of southern Utah - was spotted on Nov 18 by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air.

Landing to investigate, Utah Department of Public Safety crew found "a metal monolith installed in the ground" but "no obvious indication of who might have put the monolith there".

"It is illegal to install structures or art without authorisation on federally managed public lands, no matter what planet you're from," warned the agency in a tongue-in-cheek press statement on Monday.

News of the discovery quickly went viral online, with many noting the object's similarity with strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Kubrick's classic sci-fi film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With officials refusing to disclose the object's location out of fear that hordes of curious sightseers would flock to the remote wilderness, a race has also begun online to geo-locate the "obelisk" using surrounding rock formations.

Some observers pointed out the object's resemblance to the avant-garde work of American artist John McCracken, who had lived for a time in nearby New Mexico, and died in 2011.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for his representative David Zwirner said it was not one of McCracken's works, but possibly by a fellow artist paying homage.

However, later in the day, Mr Zwirner gave another statement in which he suggested that the piece was indeed by McCracken, meaning it had lain undiscovered in the desert for nearly a decade.

"The gallery is divided on this," he said. "I believe this is definitely by John.

"Who would have known that 2020 had yet another surprise for us. Just when we thought we had seen it all. Let's go see it."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE