The metal monolith's appearance in the desert, discovered last Wednesday by public safety workers while scouring the red-rock region by helicopter, sparked off a frenzy with people eager to catch a glimpse of the nearly 12 feet tall structure.
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After it went missing, the Utah Bureau of Land Management said: "We may not know if an extra terrestrial or earthling installed the monolith structure, but we can confirm that it has been taken by an unknown party or parties."
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"We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the 'monolith' has been removed from Bureau of Land Management public lands by an unknown party. The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff's office. The structure has received international and national attention and we received reports that a person or group removed it.”
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That group was led by Sylvan Christensen, who posted a video of the monolith in a wheelbarrow being carried away. He also issued a statement to the local media which read: "We removed the Utah Monolith because there are clear precedents for how we share and standardize the use of our public lands, natural wildlife, native plants, fresh water sources, and human impacts upon them."
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"The mystery was the infatuation and we want to use this time to unite people behind the real issues here -- we are losing our public lands -- things like this don't help."
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