The usually quiet sands were deluged by paranormal-seekers, and the National Trust was forced to dispatch rangers to the beach, which they own, to prevent overcrowding. Since then, monoliths have been found on Dartmoor and atop Glastonbury Tor, and, last weekend, at the centre of Merry Maidens stone circle, Cornwall.
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Monoliths could fill the gap in the public imagination left by crop circles. In Utah, authorities did not reveal the pillar s location because they did not want to tempt amateurs on a dangerous desert hike - but internet sleuths found it anyway, with the help of Google Earth s geolocation tool.
The unexplained, shimmering monolith discovered last month in the red-rock desert, southeastern Utah
Credit: Terrance Siemon / AP
It is a fittingly wacky end to a truly bizarre year. Last month, in the rocky wilderness of the American Southwest, the birthplace of so many myths and cowboy legends, biologists surveying sheep in Utah’s Red Rock Country spotted a shiny object from a helicopter. Upon inspection, they discovered a shimmering, three-sided metal monolith, about 12ft high, in the middle of the desert. Images from Google Earth suggest it was placed there some time between 2015 and 2016.
Soon, copycat structures began sprouting up everywhere – at least 18 across Europe, the US and Australia, at the latest count. The trend reached Britain on December 6, when dog walkers on Compton Beach, on the Isle of Wight, happened across a mysterious reflective structure standing on a wooden plinth.