Utah Monolith
Last week, a metallic pillar 9.5 feet tall was discovered in the canyons of southeast Utah by state biologists.Widely described as a monolith, it appears to be made of stainless steel riveted together into the shape of a triangular prism. Dated to some time between August 2015 and October 2016, its origin remains unknown.
The so-called monolith reminded me of the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, an epic 1968 science fiction movie by Stanley Kubrick that I had referenced in this previous blogpost.
A similar monolith appeared during the early scenes of the movie that lead viewers to conclude it was placed there in ancient Africa by an unseen alien race to encourage the development of intelligent life on earth. The implied purpose was to instill thought to the tribe of apes that first came in contact with the monolith With such thinking skills, the tribe discovered bone fragments could be used as weapons to fend off invading tribes and tools to hunt for food, a critical step in the evolution of man.
Fast forward several million years, the movie shows astronauts on the moon where they find another monolith that is receiving radio signals from Jupiter. So a “space odyssey" to Jupiter is planned to further investigate the source of the radio waves.
On the way to Jupiter, the on-board computer nicknamed HAL tries to sabotage the mission and the only surviving astronaut, ironically named Dave, saves the day by unplugging Hal and manually guiding the spaceship to Jupiter where the monolith is found orbiting the large planet.
From that point on, the movie gets really strange in that Dave, while trying to explore the orbiting monolith, is pulled into a vortex of colored light, carried across vast distances of space, while viewing bizarre cosmological phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colors.
Eventually he finds himself in a large bedroom where he sees, and then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the room, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying on a bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Dave reaches for it, he is transformed into a baby enclosed in a womb-like transparent orb of light, which floats in space towards Earth as the movie ends. The implication is he will share his newfound, immense knowledge with Earthlings upon his return. We’re still waiting!
The Monolith in the movie seems to represent and even trigger epic transitions in the history of humankind, with the evolution of humans from ape-like beings to civilized people, hence the odyssey of humankind.
The Utah monolith is just another reminder of the continuing human story. The monolith’s origin is still unknown, just like in the movie! I love this stuff!
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