Mysterious monolith in US desert disappears

A mysterious metal monolith found in the remote desert of the western United States, sparking a national guessing game over how it got there, has apparently disappeared, officials said.

The Bureau of Land Management in Utah said on Saturday it had received “credible reports” that the object had been removed “by an unknown party” on Friday evening.

The bureau “did not remove the structure which is considered private property,” it said.

“We do not investigate crimes involving private property.”

The shiny, triangular pillar which protruded some 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah, was spotted on November 18 by local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air.

After landing their helicopter to investigate, Utah Department of Public Safety crew members found “a metal monolith installed in the ground.”

News of the discovery quickly went viral, with many noting the object’s similarity with strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”