Weird Monoliths in the Desert
Are they alien beacons — or art installations? We're really going to have to put on our thinking caps to work this one out
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No doubt by now you’ve seen in the news that a mysterious monolith — gleaming of mirrored silver — was found in the Nevada desert. You may also remember an equally famous monolith appearing in the Utah desert in 2020. That one made world headlines too, as it was a pretty novel idea — so novel that many more artists threw their hats into the rings, and Business Insider reported that within a month, as many as 87 (!!) had appeared all around the world.
There is even a Wikipedia page dedicated to these monoliths. Scroll through that page and you might be surprised to see just how often this happens. Many of the most popular are in a similar style and likely come from the same artist; but the majority appear to be copycat works from diverse artists.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcb71af18-d67e-42d9-8a04-af425d42e173_1600x900.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff99b282a-ce5a-49a4-99c3-6d6d702b4af3_1599x899.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7f650c7b-9d05-4234-b921-0e5b66af481f_1920x2880.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fba186992-094f-4a7b-b775-9cb9bfd5dcba_2165x2157.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa5723b3d-f7c3-46fc-911c-c7bf7eed9747_960x640.webp)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2f0c013c-f650-415d-91a6-a8d9b89f7fb8_1920x1084.jpeg)
And now, finally, we know what they mean.