The New York Times has a somewhat tongue-in-cheek theory about the mysterious Utah monolith — we’re the aliens, and we may be to blame for putting it there.
The Utah monolith was discovered in late November by a team of biologists. Since then, other versions of the monolith have popped up across the world, including some in California, Romania and several places around the world.
So, we may never know the origins of the mysterious monoliths that have popped up around the world. But the monoliths might speak to a larger phenomenon going on across the world — the monoliths show that Earth is still a massive planet that has yet to be fully discovered.
The appearance of a monolith in a hinterland is a satisfying reminder that the world remains very large. It is still possible for an artist, or a prankster, or an artist-prankster, to slip undetected into the backcountry and leave something weird and alluring behind.
In fact, The New York Times suggests the discovery of the monolith captivated the world because it’s been such an odd year, where things aren’t normal.
In any year, the discovery of a mysterious monument in the desert would capture the imagination. But the fascination that has greeted the monolith these past few weeks feels significant, the sign of a jolt to the collective unconscious. The monolith is a literal blank screen, on whose shimmering surface we can etch our terrors, longings, fantasies, crackpot theories, gallows humor and other dreams and nightmares incubated in the anxious purgatory of 2020.
Read more at The New York Times.