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Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#371

Post by killjoywashere »

blululu wrote: post #278
JoeDaDude wrote: post #127

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: https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/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

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#372

Post by 3s »

lultimouomo wrote: post #61
MrSourz wrote: post #41

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... [2] https://goo.gl/maps/2xdrTqcnguX3ky8AA

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…

This reminds me of #SmashTheStone from a few years back when the 4chan community came together track down and prevent 9gag from burying a meme-carved rock. Video from the internet historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFykQv6Q08

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#373

Post by cowboysauce »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #334
ericmay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't know that this thing existed like 2 hours ago and now you want to change the laws in our national parks to allow art installations across our parks? Why even have national parks and try to preserve wilderness? Maybe we can set up a Starbucks next to it and some bathrooms too. It's the famous monolith! Come one come all! > The purpose of the law is to improve the quality of life. I don't see how litter in m…

Simply put, I think it is cool and would like to to stick around. For what it is worth, here are a few points to consider. There already is art Throughout the wilderness and I think it is great. Sometimes the art is as simple as a statue or plaque commemorating a historic location, other times it is DIY art like this. The point of national parks isn’t to preserve wilderness for the sake of preservation. The point is…

> The point of national parks isn’t to preserve wilderness for the sake of preservation. The point is recreation.

The national parks service philosophy is very preservationist. They advise people to follow guidelines that are literally called “leave no trace”. Their mission statement uses the word preserve in the first sentence. Hell, part of the reason why Big Bend national park never became an international park (among many others) was because the parks service disagreed with the laxer, conservationist approach that Mexican authorities favored.

>The point is recreation. This is why they are full of artificial modifications like roads, trails, and sometimes attractions with shops and bathrooms.

Those modifications are done carefully to have as little impact on the environment and a lot of types of recreation are completed banned in national parks, hunting being the obvious one. The use of vehicles (including bicycles) is completely banned in federally designated wilderness.

What steps did whoever installed this take to make sure that this thing isn’t going to leech metals into an ephemeral watering hole used by wildlife?

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#374

Post by angst_ridden »

nitrogen wrote: post #185
fbn79 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#376

Post by BLKNSLVR »

skissane wrote: post #333
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word on the street that the extremity of the "in secret" part is the Director of Public Prosecutions, Christian Porter, protecting old party mate, Alexander Downer, to keep his name out of the mud for as long as possible, as it's likely he was the top of the chain of authorization for the bugging, being that he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time and was outspoken against East Timor for accusing Aust…

I agree with you. Minor factual correction though: Christian Porter is the Attorney-General, not the DPP

Sorry, yes, Christian porter is the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions is a position within the Attorney-General's Department.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#377

Post by justinclift »

blovescoffee wrote: post #260
IshKebab wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no chance it is solid. It's probably 5mm thick at most.

The news reporters linked on the original reddit post said it was solid.

While that's true, there are clearly screws or rivets in the video's of it. It's extremely unlikely to be solid metal, though it may be filled with rock/sand/something.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#378

Post by alliao »

angst_ridden wrote: post #374
nitrogen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I feel you. As New Zealander watching lord of the rings with local soap opera actors appearing randomly really break whatever immersion you tried to build up...

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#380

Post by joe_the_user »

bgravinz wrote: post #173
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Once an entire government worth of people led the US into war that cost millions of lives over fake reports of nukes. It would be interesting to compare the damage caused by open, crowd-sourced investigative efforts against the damage caused of closed "authoritative" investigative efforts.

It's clearly possible to be against jumping to conclusions with crowd sourced material and also being false claims by the government (especially given that in the case of the Iraq invasion we don't how much fraud or bad faith really went into it).

Which is to say that measuring damage done by the Iraq invasion versus damage cause people falsely finger individuals for crimes is an exercise in fallacious analogy. The US isn't planning to crowd source their next invasion research question.

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