BLM confirms ‘monolith’ was removed, say visitors left behind human waste

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) visited the site where an illegally installed “monolith” had previously been discovered to confirm that an unknown party removed the structure sometime on the evening of Friday, November 27.

BLM stated it did not remove the structure, which was discovered on public lands on November 18.

Despite attempts to keep visitors from locating the monolith, over the course of Thanksgiving week, the BLM said a relatively large number of people still showed up to the site, which has not been developed for heavy visitation.

“The structure received national and international interest and sparked a dialogue regarding who installed it and what it symbolized, generating widespread attention,” read a BLM press release. “The BLM received both positive and negative input regarding the status of the structure and was investigating who installed it when a person or group removed it.”

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act prohibit any development on public lands without approval by the BLM.

“We recognize the incredible interest the ‘monolith’ has generated world-wide. Many people have been enjoying the mystery and view it as a welcome distraction from the 2020 news cycle,” said Monticello Field Manager Amber Denton Johnson. “Even so, it was installed without authorization on public lands and the site is in a remote area without services for the large number of people who now want to see it. Whenever you visit public lands please follow Leave No Trace principles and Federal and local laws and guidance.”

The BLM said visitors who flocked to the site parked on vegetation and left behind human waste as evidence of their visit. There is no restrooms or parking areas at this site and the BLM recommends that visitors not attempt to visit the site, which has no cell service and requires high clearance vehicles.

Discovery Channel’s Dave Sparks from the Diesel Brothers has found the mysterious monolith in Utah that has the internet in a frenzy.

He posted on his instagram feed they were there, and showed him standing by the pillar.

Authorities say passenger vehicles have already been towed from the area.

“We remind the public that driving off designated roads and trails in the Monticello Field Office is illegal.”

The Monticello Field Office has a number of remarkable places to explore that have been developed for visitation.

For additional information, please contact the Monticello Field Office at 435-587-1500 or by email at
blm_ut_mt_mail@blm.gov.

While assisting the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in a count of bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, the Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau spotted a metal monolith in a remote area of red rock.

Crew members report there was no evidence indicating who or what could have placed the monolith in such a challenging area to access.

Mysterious findings and intrigue are not uncommon in the Utah area. Over the summer, new photographs of Area 51 were made public, offering angles of the mysterious base taken from northwest of the base looking southeast. The new angles are rarely, if ever, publicly seen angles of the Groom Lake area.

For as long as humans have lived in the Uintah Basin, they’ve been seeing strange things in the sky. In the 1970s, Utah State professor Frank Salisbury wrote a well-documented book about hundreds of UFO sightings in the basin.

But the strangeness goes way beyond mystery aircraft. For 15 generations, indigenous tribes, including the Utes, have referred to this sandstone ridge as being “in the path of the skinwalker.” They consider the skinwalker a malevolent spirit and a shapeshifter.