Monolith update: Las Vegas police take down shiny mystery slab
Mysterious monolith removed in desert near Las Vegas (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
LAS VEGAS - The mystery monolith that appeared north of Las Vegas near Gass Peak has been removed by authorities.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department gave an update on social media Friday, about a week after it mysteriously appeared in the Nevada desert.
"A lot of you have asked about the mysterious monolith that was recently spotted north of Las Vegas," police said on X, formerly Twitter. "Yesterday afternoon, we assisted with the removal of the item due to public safety and environmental concerns."
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Police said the object is made of reflective sheet metal folded into a triangle and secured with rebar and concrete. It’s 77 inches tall, and each face is 13 inches wide.
The LVMPD said it’s being stored in an undisclosed location until authorities can figure out what to do with it. It was illegally installed on federal land established to protect bighorn sheep and is home to rare plants and desert tortoises.
Monolith removed from desert north of Las Vegas (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
"We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water... but check this out!" Las Vegas Metro Search and Rescue posted on its Facebook page earlier this week.
Police said there’s no investigation into who the monolith belongs to or how it ended up in the desert.
Similar monoliths also have been found in Belgium, Romania and the Isle of Wight – an island in the English Channel.
In November 2020, one of the monoliths, estimated at between 10 feet and 12 feet high, was found by Utah state wildlife employees who were counting sheep from a helicopter.
The otherworldly structures evoke the object that appears in the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey." All of them disappeared as quickly as they popped up.
FOX’s Chris Williams and The Associated Press contributed to this report.