Return of the Monoliths

The inaccurately named monoliths are back! Well, one is anyway.

This one has turned up on a hill in Wales.

The silver structure was spotted by walkers on Hay Bluff, near the town of Hay-on-Wye on the weekend. Sprouting up out of the mud and measuring about 10ft (3m) tall, its discovery has led many to take to social media to question who put it there and why. 

Local builder Craig Muir said he was "taken aback" when he spotted what he assumed was "some sort of a UFO" while out hiking. "It seemed like a very fine metallic almost like a surgical steel," he said, describing the monolith, a large single upright block usually made of stone."It looked perfectly levelled and steady, despite the weather being windy." 

Since there is no way to drive up to the top of the hill, Mr Muir suggested it could have been taken there by a group of people or dropped into position from a helicopter. "It didn't seem like it was chucked in there, instead it has been accurately put in the ground," he said. "However, there were no obvious tracks around it and one would think that something like that would cause a lot of mess."

I'm sure you all remember 'Monolith Mania' back in 2020 during lockdown when these things were popping up everywhere. In November 2020, a monolith was spotted by people aboard a helicopter in the remote Utah desert in the USA, before disappearing days later.

A few days later, another monolith appeared on the Isle of Wight. Similar structures then popped up in Cornwall, and a few isolated parts of Europe. One even popped up on top of Glastonbury Tor, an area steeped in Celtic mythology, inscribed with the words "Not Banksy" on the side. In total over 200 monoliths appeared around the world - there's a full list of all sightings on this Wikipedia page.

Oh, and why did I say 'inacurately named'? Because the word monolith means 'single stone'. These are man-made artefacts (no, not alien!) and they're made of metal. If you want to see a real monolith, go to Rudston (see here).