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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

#391

Post by jml7c5 »

dkersten wrote: post #151
rantwasp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hah. gold is not that rare. even an entry level billionaire could afford a monolith this size

Printer ink then ;-) On a more serious note, Rhodium fits the bill: super expensive, hard, durable, silvery and corrosion resistant. Using the 7,700 lbs estimate elsewhere here, and a price of Rhodium I randomly found on the internet of $16,100 per troy oz, the material of this structure, if made from Rhodium, would cost about $1,749,005. Which is actually not bad, for a very rich person. I guess they'd have to build…

I think you calculated that wrong. I get $1.8B at that price.[0] Though that 7700 lb estimate assumed the sculpture was made of aluminum; rhodium is about 4.5X as dense, so it'd be closer to $8.1B.

[0]: 7700 lb * 14.5833 troy oz/lb * 16100 $/troy oz = 1,807,891,701

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#392

Post by fireattack »

skunkworker wrote: post #293
Phenomenit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How someone found it: "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 it up wi…

Source for those interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f... I'm still gobsmacked about the specific geological knowledge and application here turning into a very precise and relatively small search area.

With the risk of sounding like downplaying it, I think the crucial part here is the potential range of the helicopter, which is fairly limited with the information given (start location, time etc.), and the fact they can walk in from somewhere flat enough to land the helicopter.

The geological part is nice but not necessary (you just need to be able to tell the colors of rocks).

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#393

Post by RoutinePlayer »

skunkworker wrote: post #293
Phenomenit wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How someone found it: "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 it up wi…

Source for those interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f... I'm still gobsmacked about the specific geological knowledge and application here turning into a very precise and relatively small search area.

this type of knowledge is quite expected from certain analysts in certain agencies [this comment will self-destruct in 5 minutes]

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#394

Post by [deleted] »

jdmichal wrote: post #310
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.

I had something similar happen on a show, I believe this one titled Drive : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/ They had a scene that was "outside Gainesville, FL". That's where I went to university and from the highway it's basically flat forests. The scene instead looked semi-arid with mountains in the background... Ah, looks like my exact story is documented exactly on IMDB! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/…

[deleted]

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#395

Post by stirlo »

skissane wrote: post #280
techer wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93East_Timor_s... Australia and East Timor negotiated a treaty to divide up oil and gas in the sea between the two countries. Australia bugged the East Timorese government offices to get an unfair advantage in the negotiations. The East Timorese government found about this, and then sued Australia in the Permanent Court of Arbitration to have the treaty invalidated. An Au…

I'm sorry but whats wrong with this?

It's exactly the job of the Australian intelligence agencies to protect for the countries interests and gain advantages where they can.

This case is even more reasonable as it's a country spying on a country so both parties have the opportunity do so.

The NSA has directly spied on corporations (Airbus) and passed the information to their own corporations (Boeing) in the past which seems less acceptable to me.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#396

Post by blackrock »

It’s possibly a Quantum Tunneling Device for interstellar travel.

An old advanced alien civilization created thousands of these QTD, and sent them all over the galaxy, to land on rocky habitable planets, waiting to be discovered one day.

In essence, these devices are synchronized with a quantum clock, for instantaneous bidirectional quantum communication across vast interstellar distances.

It uses the essence of quantum entanglement, whereby every nanosecond, a quantum bit is revealed, and its complement device is triggered. Thus allowing for massive instantaneous communication across vast interstellar distances.

Furthermore, by standing in front of the QTD device, and eliciting an audible command, the device will scan the subject in front of it, and allow himself to be dematerialized and transported to any other node in the interstellar QTD network. Some may call this a Stargate.

Or it was planted there by some hippy high on shrooms.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#397

Post by caf »

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…

"Vancouver Never Plays Itself"

https://vimeo.com/138807572

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#398

Post by chrissnell »

usefulcat wrote: post #124
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For just that weight of metal...not too expensive. To get it formed into that shape, potentially very expensive. It looks like aluminum. Someone posted 23.5" x 23.5" x ~144" as the dimensions. This comes out to be 46 cubic feet, and would weigh about 7,700 lbs. A floor of the price would be ~40 cents/lb scrap price, or ~$3,100. Ballpark 80-120 cents/lb might be a more realistic price if it were straightforward to man…

> And logistically, it would be far easier to transport to a remote location via helicopter if it wasn't solid. Cue reddit researchers combing through old helicopter flight plans/paths from the relevant time frame? Though I would have thought an off road vehicle might be more likely; looks like it's only about 2-3 miles from the nearest road. Edit: actually there appears to be a dirt road ~1k feet or less away

The road is Lockhart Basin Road, well-known among Utah off-roaders. I've been there, and also camped on one of the fingers of Hatch Point, directly above the monolith.

I took this one on the point overlooking the monolith: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUFR5GZF2fX/?igshid=11nr2ljs2dh6...

I took this photo not too far from the monolith:

https://flic.kr/p/8MWSQp

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#399

Post by caf »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #245
Youden wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any machining, metal forming, etc. would require specialized large equipmen, and would quickly drive the cost up, potentially an order of magnitude higher than material costs. It seems unlikely that there are serious tolerances to be kept here, couldn't this just be cast messily using a sand/clay mould and then cleaned up with portable power tools? That way you don't need any special equipment and you can use whate…

Large scale castings are also tricky. You can't cast a rectangular prism and get good results. As the metal freezes (solidifies), it shrinks. You'd end up with a very poor surface finish at best, and chunks missing at worst. The shrinkage needs to be made up for with some additional molten metal. The fix is pretty simple though. You need directional solidification, meaning the freezing starts on one end and moved tow…

Iceland's electricity production mix seems to be typically about 70% Hydro and 30% Geothermal (which does not change the overall point - just interesting).

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#400

Post by chordalkeyboard »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #195
bgravinz wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ha, if only they had the guts to be so specific! They just hid behind the blanket statement of "WMD"s and deflected any questions of specifics. Could have been nerve gas, could have been a biological agent. Everyone played their role (media and government) in deflecting attention away from the core issue that we were being bullshitted.

> Everyone played their role (media and government) in deflecting attention away from the core issue that we were being bullshitted.

That would never happen today.

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