A reddit user [1] found its location [2] and another figured out it was installed sometime during 2015-2016 based on when the satellite imagery changed.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/k01dc3/mysterious_m...
This guy really is something:
> I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak.
https://old.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f...
You have to love the internet sometimes. Someone who works construction (as he stated) can develop a fun investigatory hobby just via the internet. The he can sign his work with a silly name like bear__f##ker (which I'm guessing is a reference to the movie super troopers).
On the other hand, it was people like this that once fingered the wrong person for the Boston Marathon bombing. It's all well and good as long as we remember not to put too much stock in it when it really matters.
I feel the same way about the people who do OSINT, which is featured in HN every now and then. A fascinating world, to be sure!
Imagine if these people would investigate voter fraud. No mainstream media would ever report that ;P
44 bits.
It's relatively well known that 33 distinct bits is enough to uniquely identify any individual person now alive on Earth.[1]
Geospatially, assuming 10m resolution, 44 bits is enough to identify any unique location on Earth's land surface (46 bits buys you the oceans).
Searching for a ~1m^2 monolith visually within a 10m^2 square is reasonable.
GNU units:
You have: ln((.3 * 4 * (earthradius^2) * pi)/10m^2)/ln(2)
You want:
Definition: 43.798784
You have: ln((1 * 4 * (earthradius^2) * pi)/10m^2)/ln(2)
You want:
Definition: 45.535749
For comparison, cellphone positioning accuracy is typically 8--600m:
- 3G iPhone w/ A-GPS ~ 8 meters
- 3G iPhone w/ wifi ~ 74 meters
- 3G iPhone w/ Cellular positioning ~ 600 meters
https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/07/07/how-accur...
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/
________________________________
Notes:
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304012305/33bits.org/about/
You may also find 4chan users' tracking of Shia Labeouf's flag interesting.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good...
Internet Historian did a wonderful series of videos about this. The investigative abilities of some people is just awe inspiring.
I wish the video there included the post-capture flagpole. Did the guy actually replace it with an American flag? Don't leave us hanging!
As someone who is house-hunting at the moment, this is exactly what I do all evening for houses without an explicit address in the online exposé. Most of the time, the combination of solar panels and the positions of rooftop windows and the chimney is a collision free hash value.
How someone found it:
"I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak."
u/Bear__Fucker
Source for those interested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f...
I'm still gobsmacked about the specific geological knowledge and application here turning into a very precise and relatively small search area.
With the risk of sounding like downplaying it, I think the crucial part here is the potential range of the helicopter, which is fairly limited with the information given (start location, time etc.), and the fact they can walk in from somewhere flat enough to land the helicopter.
The geological part is nice but not necessary (you just need to be able to tell the colors of rocks).
this type of knowledge is quite expected from certain analysts in certain agencies [this comment will self-destruct in 5 minutes]
Not a follower of the show but I see on IMDB that WestWorld was filmed near that location in 2016. Maybe something left off during filming?
At least some of it was filmed by Lake Powell, closer to the southwest corner of Utah. It was really weird to see a bunch of troops coming ashore where I was hanging out on the beach a year earlier, against a very recognizable backdrop. Definitely broke the suspension of disbelief.
Try living in Los Angeles. Every other movie has some local detail pretending to be somewhere else. And if you're ever going up the highway east of the Sierra Nevada, be sure to stop in at Lone Pine's film history museum. The Alabama Hills just west of town have been stand-ins for every western state, as well as Mars, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East ... It's disconcerting to be watching a movie and seeing known landmarks pop up on alien planets, or see Mt. Whitney in the background of a shot in the "Himalaya."
I had something similar happen on a show, I believe this one titled Drive:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/
They had a scene that was "outside Gainesville, FL". That's where I went to university and from the highway it's basically flat forests. The scene instead looked semi-arid with mountains in the background...
Ah, looks like my exact story is documented exactly on IMDB!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/goofs?item=gf0809526
The show only lasted 6 episodes, so...
The location is only 15 miles from Moab as the crow flies.
My bet is someone living in Moab wanted to do a desert art project and chose this location that was reasonably close, but still fairly remote.
People do all kinds of stuff out in the desert around Moab.
Just about 10-20 miles northwest of this monolith there's a small slacklining festival called GGBY held in a similarly remote location. Look up Fruit Bowl Highline Area on google maps and check out youtube to see some of the wild stuff people do!
Maybe someone or a specific studio didn't pay the bill to remove it.
> installed 2015-2016 based on satellite imagery
Unless the artist practiced very good OpSec or was so disciplined that he never checked for satellite imagery of his monument, someone with the right credentials -- like the government with a subpeona or a Google insider -- could identify the artist based on his IP address.
Murderers have been identified and convicted by looking up a unique map coordinate on Google Maps, even going back as far Yahoo Maps.
Google is very unlikely to keep logs for so long.
I wouldn't bet on that at all
I thought the US government decided it would be easier to pay tech giants to keep data longer than collecting it itself and storing it. That way they can just ask for it when they need it.
You can be convicted for looking at a map where the only thing was tracked is your ip? This is all kinds of insane. No wonder the US incarcerates so many innocent people.
2001 Expedia map
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/us/internet-used-to-find-...
> The federal complaint says ... the newspaper received a letter that said ''nice sob story,'' with a computer-generated map showing an intersection in West Alton in St. Charles County, along with a handwritten X.
> ... searchers found human skeletal remains within 50 yards of the location shown by the map's X, about 300 yards from where the decomposed bodies of Ms. Wilson and another victim, Verona Thompson, had been found.
> A search by Illinois State Police of Internet mapping companies led to an exact match between features on a map sent to the Post-Dispatch and one found on Expedia.com.
> On June 3, the Microsoft Corporation, which tracks access to that Web site, showed the F.B.I. that only someone with the Internet Provider address 65.227.106.78 visited the Expedia.com site and searched the West Alton area within days of the map's mailing to the Post-Dispatch. The user name of that IP address was ''MSN/maurytravis.''
Unlikely. But it can be a clue that leads to the right person, which can then lead to more direct evidence that could form the basis of a conviction on the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof.
It's just basic detective work, updated for new technology.
This reminds me of other "land art" installations around the country. Presumably, these are done with the landowners permission:
The Lightning Field:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lightning_Field
Spiral Jetty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty
Negative Space:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Negative_(artwork)
Amarillo Ramp:
Adding to this list Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels - the best of the genre IMO: https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/nancy... I believe that most of these were sponsored by the DIA art foundation and had some administrative backing.
Adding Maya Lin's Eleven Minute Line: https://www.sartle.com/artwork/eleven-minute-line-maya-lin
Not quite art but related: Mojave Phone Booth: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mojave-phone-booth
Prada Marfa
(deleting, because now my comment is getting pasted all over the Internet, and though it was not to my knowledge misleading, it didn't actually provide any useful information)
> And the sister of the brother who died there is asking for people to delete the post and to please not go there.
That's an unreasonable request without an explanation.
Even with the explanation it’s an unreasonable request, because the public owns that land.
.
Former full text of parent:
> My local outdoor group is going nuts over this. They've known about it for years, exactly where it is, and what it means.
> And the sister of the brother who died there is asking for people to please not go there and for the link to be deleted (from the group; I'm not sure they realize how viral it went).
Might as well delete that. Turns out this information is wrong. The sister later explained that she misread the coordinates which are nearby, but are not at the exact location of, the monolith.
I can no longer edit or delete my parent comment here.
Is this part true? "They've known about it for years, exactly where it is, and what it means."
Fellow Utah County man here. If I was you, I'd contact the BLM with the full story and share the confidential information with them at least to try to convince them not to remove it. I really feel for the sister, probably her worst nightmare for this story to blow up like it has. Curiosity can be destructive.
I don't know if it's true or not, but of all the text I've seen on the internet, this comment has to be the most likely to make the people who read it reply with "tell me more!!!"
well done
I know. I'm sorry. I have a screenshot if push comes to shove but I'm being vague on purpose for the privacy of those in my community.
No I totally get it. Is the implication that the monolith marks a human grave?
Kind of interesting. You can google map yourself to within a few 100 meters of the thing. I suspect the people who "found it" were really just pimping it? If there isn't already there will be trash around it soon. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Green+River,+UT/38.3431111,-...
Does anyone remember the monolith that showed up in Seattle in 2001? It moved around a bit, including to a swampy island in the middle of green lake.
I recall that. At the time I knew someone who claimed to be in contact with the perpetrators, and I had heard that the city made an arrangement for a permanent installation of that piece.
I think I can infer from the wiki page that this either fell through, or my friend was making stuff up, because it appears to be at a metalworking shop.
No mysterious origin, but the "Tree of Utah" in the middle of the Utah salt flats, next to the highway...is similarly out of place and unexpected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor:_The_Tree_of_Utah
How expensive would a solid piece of metal that size be?
For just that weight of metal...not too expensive. To get it formed into that shape, potentially very expensive.
It looks like aluminum. Someone posted 23.5" x 23.5" x ~144" as the dimensions. This comes out to be 46 cubic feet, and would weigh about 7,700 lbs. A floor of the price would be ~40 cents/lb scrap price, or ~$3,100. Ballpark 80-120 cents/lb might be a more realistic price if it were straightforward to manufacture like that (which it's certainly not).
As an industrial engineer and former employee of one of the largest aluminum plants in the world, I can safely say I doubt it is solid rolled aluminum, and bet it would be way bigger of an extrusion that is possible. And logistically, it would be far easier to transport to a remote location via helicopter if it wasn't solid. Any machining, metal forming, etc. would require specialized large equipment, and would quickly drive the cost up, potentially an order of magnitude higher than material costs.
Which is all wrong.
The monolith in 2001 had dimensions in ratios of 1:4:9 [and continuing into other dimensions...].
Why the heck would you go to all the work of putting a monolith of the wrong shape out there?
1:4:9 is too 2000's. 1:9:49 is what you want these days.
> And logistically, it would be far easier to transport to a remote location via helicopter if it wasn't solid.
Cue reddit researchers combing through old helicopter flight plans/paths from the relevant time frame? Though I would have thought an off road vehicle might be more likely; looks like it's only about 2-3 miles from the nearest road.
Edit: actually there appears to be a dirt road ~1k feet or less away
The road is Lockhart Basin Road, well-known among Utah off-roaders. I've been there, and also camped on one of the fingers of Hatch Point, directly above the monolith.
I took this one on the point overlooking the monolith: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUFR5GZF2fX/?igshid=11nr2ljs2dh6...
I took this photo not too far from the monolith:
I didn't realize it was so close to a road. I'd really like to think it came in via helicopter though, because it's a more cool and clandestine story.
> Any machining, metal forming, etc. would require specialized large equipmen, and would quickly drive the cost up, potentially an order of magnitude higher than material costs.
It seems unlikely that there are serious tolerances to be kept here, couldn't this just be cast messily using a sand/clay mould and then cleaned up with portable power tools?
That way you don't need any special equipment and you can use whatever Aluminium you can get your hands on. Hell, you can even recycle Aluminium cans.
Large scale castings are also tricky. You can't cast a rectangular prism and get good results. As the metal freezes (solidifies), it shrinks. You'd end up with a very poor surface finish at best, and chunks missing at worst. The shrinkage needs to be made up for with some additional molten metal.
The fix is pretty simple though. You need directional solidification, meaning the freezing starts on one end and moved towards the other. If you apply a draft angle of 1 degree or so to the parallel faces, you will have enough difference in dimensions to get directional solidification working fine.
>That way you don't need any special equipment and you can use whatever Aluminium you can get your hands on. Hell, you can even recycle Aluminium cans.
I'd advise against mixing alloys, but you may still be alright to get something, but it will be worthless if you try to recycle it again. Mixed scrap fetches far less than sorted scrap when you try to sell it. E.g. Some alloys might allow 1-2% copper, while others require <0.01% copper. Each pound of type 1 mixed with type 2 requires lots of pig (pure aluminum, no alloying elements) to be added to get the proportions back to something you can legally call whatever alloy you're targeting.
Aluminum cans aren't a wonderful source for things like this because they contain a thin plastic film on the inside to prevent the liquid contained from having its flavor tainted. Normal recycling processes handle this fine, but cannot handle the plastic labels added on many small brewery cans. Those should be cut off prior to recycling.
------
Side note - It is incredibly energy intensive to mine bauxite, refine it through an electrolysis process into alumina, and finally alloying it into your preferred type of aluminum. It recycles incredibly well though. Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves about 95% of the energy compared to new aluminum. This 95% savings is about 14,000 kWh. The energy intensity is part of why Iceland houses 4 smelters. With nearly 100% of electricity production coming from hydroelectric, they have incredibly cheap electricity, and it's economically viable for the likes of Alcoa, Rio Tinto, and Century Aluminum to haul bauxite ore from around the world to a tiny country with almost no manufacturing base, process it, then haul it around the world to its final destination.
It would be hard to maintain a flat surface that large manually, doable but tough.
Sand cast and polished...
As I noted in another response, you can't cast a rectangular prism and expect a good result. You'd need to add some angle to the edges to ensure it solidifies correctly, but doing so takes away from the monolith feel.
That's also a lot of polishing for the finish you would get from sand casting.
If you look closely there appear to be small rivets, so I don't think that it is solid.
A quick look around the internet[0] gives 6" aluminium square bars at $1,473 for 144".
The monolith is about 141" long, and has sides of about 23.5", so 16 of those bars would neatly fill it.
So if it is solid aluminium, that's about $23,500 in material.
[0]: https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/buy/aluminum/6-aluminum-squa...
Good math... Aluminum comes in different alloys, this is likely 6061 (precipitation-hardened aluminium alloy, containing magnesium and silicon as its major alloying elements) - 6061 is about two bucks per pound [2]...
Using the weight calculator [1], and plugging in 23.5/23.5/141 (all in inches) I am getting about 7.7K lbs, or around $15K in material costs. Given it’s unusual shape, I’m assuming that normal is producing it. This would require additional costs for machining and processing Dash I’d probably say it would be several thousand dollars in additional costs. Overall this looks to me like a $25,000 piece of metal...
[1] https://www.bostoncenterless.com/tools/metal-weight-calculat...
[2] https://fastmetals.com/collections/aluminum-extruded-square-...
That does t hold. Aluminum that big isn’t just something you’d buy from McMaster-Carr.
It looks like it might be sheet metal screwed to a wooden frame, judging from what look like screws near the edges. Why would aliens bring a solid block of aluminum all the way across the 8th dimension?
Given that the excitement will have died down by the time its precise structure is revealed, I'd say a simpler design served its purpose quite well.
Apparently this guy was just there a few minutes ago: https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_iU8JgeIr/
Get a daily email with the the top stories from Hacker News. No spam, unsubscribe at any time.