Todd Robert Petersen on the Impossible Balancing of Preservation, Leisure, and Weirdness
January 29, 2021
From a helicopter flying over a remote canyon in southeast Utah, a group of wildlife biologists spotted a curious inorganic shape on the ground. They set down and discovered a polished metal monolith three meters tall. This discovery sparked an internet conflagration. Was it the work of aliens? Of artists? Maybe both. This discovery was cool and fun, a great diversion during those bleak days after the election and the late-fall Covid surge.
Talk of the monolith kindled the imagination, causing joy in the Bureau of Land Management, who issued the following statement in response to the discovery: “Although we can’t comment on active investigations, the Bureau of Land Management would like to remind public land visitors that using, occupying, or developing the public lands or their resources without… required authorization is illegal, no matter what planet you are from.”