The last image I captured prior to sunrise is ‘Utah Monolith and Zodiacal Light’. The wedge of light created by sunlight being reflected back from interplanetary dust within our solar system is Zodiacal Light, and can be seen at the right in the image above. There was a very brief window during which the zodiacal light became visible as the sun neared the horizon, as shortly thereafter it would be snuffed out by the impending dawn.
WHAT WAS THE UTAH MONOLITH’S AFFECT UPON US?
I find it funny that many people have referred to the Monolith as a ‘hoax’, as if we actually believed that aliens put it there? A hoax implies overt deceit. The monolith imparts wonder. There was no treasure inside it, no riddles, no maps, no signs or signatures.
It just was.
Quite a few people seem incensed that something human-made would be introduced to an assumedly ‘pristine’ desert environment, that it somehow ruined a place that had some sort of impact upon society or ‘the environment’ as a whole. There are countless—probably tens of thousands—of small erosional alcoves like this on BLM lands throughout southern Utah, some of them easily accessible, most not. There are also countless paved roads, buildings, dirt roads, mining-era detritus, homes, telephone poles, road-signs, fence-post holes, fire rings, cigarette butts, campsites, cairns, trails… the list goes on. Few of these anthropogenic artifacts garner any interest whatsoever, precisely because they are mundane.
The Lockhart Basin Monolith was anything but.
I’m doubtful that the fabricator of the object could have foreseen the breadth of its impact, at least not in any meaningful way beyond key-clicks. 2020 has been a year that we all want to forget, and yet the brief existential wonderment that the object imparted to many served a temporary reprieve from our reality. The object irrigated the imaginations of science fiction aficionados, motivated intrepid road warriors looking for their next adventure, and certainly fertilized internet social media remora to try to wangle a(nother?) brief moment in the illusory silicon spotlight.
And then there were a few of us who were motivated to see the object due to its most base allure, that is, the abstruse staging of a primally non-natural object in an environment that appears untouched by our species. The minimalist, geometric nature of the object and its careful placement in that erosional alcove captured the imagination of many, and for a variety of reasons. I do not pretend to know whether the founder of the object considers him-/herself artist or artisan, but even if the object in and of itself was not unique per se, the circumstances around its placement and discovery surely is.
WHY DID I BOTHER?
Within 90 minutes of learning that the object’s location had been revealed, I decided to go capture it and its environment before… I wasn’t sure, but before the objective became untenable. Two hours later I was on the road, and arrived at the location in Lockhart Basin around 9:30 PM. I was drawn to the object like a moth to a light; I knew that I was capable of capturing it in the manner that it deserved. It’s what I do… try to do, anyway. I hope I succeeded.
A mere 37 hours after this image was captured, the Utah Monolith was gone.