Monoliths have popped up in surprising places over the past few weeks, making appearances in the American states of Utah and California, and Romania, the mysterious monolith was spotted on the Isle of Wight. Several of these tall, shiny pillars have now been found at sites around the globe without warning or explanation since mid-November
The first was discovered in the US, when a helicopter crew flying over a remote part of a Utah desert counting sheep spotted a strange statue below.
While authorities, scientists were speculating how the shimmering, mirrored object was installed at a remote spot in the desert, the monolith disappeared just as mysteriously as it appeared on 27 November.
Several of these tall, shiny pillars have now been found at sites around the globe without warning or explanation since mid-November.
This metal monolith was found on 18 November and disappeared just as mysteriously as it appeared on 27 November.
Around the same time as the Utah one vanished, a shiny metal monolith appeared on the other side of the globe in the Romanian hillside.
Then, over the first weekend in December, people stumbled across a tall shiny monolith on a beach on the Isle of Wight. The pillar was spotted on Compton Beach on the west side of the island.
A metal monolith also mysteriously appeared in the middle of a field in BaaS rode in Belgium in December.
Spain, Germany and Colombia have also seen strange tall structures pop up since the first monolith was found in the US.
The shining metal objects have sparked a flurry of memes and even conspiracy theories on social media.
As mystery shrouded the first monoliths, an anonymous collective called The Most Famous Artist took credit for the ones in Utah and California, and is selling several replicas for $45,000 (£34,000) each.
The structures have sparked comparisons with the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that appears to play a role in the development of human evolution.
Bret Hutchings, a helicopter pilot who first spotted the Utah monolith, told local news station KSLTV he thought the structures could be from “a new wave artist” or someone who was a fan of the Stanley Kubrick film.