Utah monolith

The Utah monolith was a metal pillar that stood in a slot canyon in northern San Juan County, Utah, United States. The pillar was 9.5 ft (2.9 m) tall and made of metal sheets riveted into a triangular prism. It was unlawfully placed on public land between July and October 2016, where it stood unnoticed for over four years until its discovery and removal in late 2020. The identity of its creators and their objectives remain unknown as of 2026. Officials with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources discovered the monolith in November 2020 during a helicopter survey of wild bighorn sheep. Within days of its discovery, members of the public located the pillar using GPS mapping software; many visitors then traveled to the remote location, causing damage to the local environment. Following intense media coverage, the monolith was covertly removed on November 27, 2020, by four residents of Moab, Utah, including athlete Andy Lewis. After nearly a month in their possession, Lewis gave the monolith to the Bureau of Land Management. Following the discovery of the monolith, over two hundred similar metal columns were erected throughout the world, including elsewhere in North America and in countries in Europe and Australia. Many were built by local artists as deliberate imitations of the Utah monolith.