Alien Talk Podcast
Alien Talk Podcast
Appearing Monoliths: Modern Art or Elaborate Hoax?
Curious about the mysterious monoliths that have been popping up worldwide? On this episode of Alien Talk Podcast, we promise to unravel the enigma behind these reflective structures that first appeared in Utah in November 2020 and have since captivated global attention. Are these monoliths simply artistic endeavors or do they hint at something more perplexing? Join us as we dissect the materials, construction, and possible inspirations from Stanley Kubrick's film rendition of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odessey. We'll also discuss the implications of their sudden appearances and equally swift disappearances.
A fascinating perspective is given regarding the ancient wonder of Stonehenge with the theories surrounding Stonehenge's construction and offer a compelling comparison between modern monoliths and ancient structures, highlighting the enduring mystery and ingenuity behind these monumental feats. We also ponder the potential existence of lost technologies that may have enabled such impressive constructions without the aid of modern machinery.
Finally, we touch on the broader implications of the monolith phenomenon, likening it to the intriguing patterns of crop circles. What drives the creators of these enigmatic structures? Are they purely human-made, or is there a chance they are something beyond our understanding? We'll discuss the logistical challenges of placing these monoliths in remote locations, as well as the artistic and symbolic meanings they may convey, and reflect on the motivations behind their creation.
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Hello everybody, thank you for joining us on Alien Talk Podcast. This is the show where we discuss all things about aliens and UFOs and, as always, where we push the limits of our understanding. Joe Landry and Nori Oldford here once again to seek out the truth and find the facts pertaining to the highly discussed issues about extraterrestrial life and the existence of UFOs. So tonight we want to spend some time talking about monoliths, particularly the ones that have been in some news stories in recent years. They have been popularly called the appearing, disappearing monoliths.
Speaker 1:Oddly enough, despite the word monolith meaning one stone, these ones are not made of stone. Instead, they're made of metal, stainless steel or aluminum. Mere shafts of well-formed. They're made of metal, stainless steel or aluminum, mirror shafts of well-formed and well-finished metal, so that they are clearly not natural features. They were made somewhere and then moved into place, usually in spots that are off the beaten path, some even quite remote. So could these things be the work of a higher intelligence, possibly beyond our world, or are they simply the work of human creativity? And with that trickery, whoever put them there, we have to wonder what is their purpose. So stay tuned, we'll be back in one minute.
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Speaker 1:So, Lori, I guess we should begin the show with a welcome back from your voyage. You and your wife took a nice long and relaxing cruise throughout Europe and made a stop in England, Isn't that right?
Speaker 5:That is right. My wife and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in Val Renewal on the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship. We went around the British Isles. It was a fascinating trip and we absolutely loved it. And also my wife agreed to commit to me for another 30 years, so I think she really loves me.
Speaker 1:Another 30 years.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but of course I was also lucky enough to get the chance to visit Stonehenge while I was on the trip and that was quite an experience, an amazing place to see. I'm really glad I got to see it. I did not want to miss going to that place. For sure it had to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we're glad to have you guys back safe and sound, and we went ahead and put some of those photos that you took over there on our website and Facebook page, and it truly does look like a fascinating place. Scholars now believe that Stonehenge is older than the Giza pyramids and even older than the very existence of the Egyptian civilization. The theory is that it was meant to serve as an astronomical observatory and calendar that helped the ancient inhabitants track time and seasons, and a popular belief is that it was meant to serve as an astronomical observatory and calendar that helped the ancient inhabitants track time and seasons, and a popular belief is that the Druids erected it, although that has not been verified through any historical evidence.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was first erected around 5,000 years ago, about 3,000 BC, and it's thought to have been a burial ground at first, and this is what they explain to you when you go visit it there and they have this very large screen where they lay out the entire history of it and the large stones were put in place sometime after that and over the course of thousands of years. You know, others have added, you know so to make it into the timekeeping observatory that it eventually became. And if you look at the stones now, there's certain areas where it's like open and you can see wood that you know we have put in there to. You know, try and keep the stones upright, to try and keep the stones upright.
Speaker 5:But the new theory is now is how the stones got there? Is that they were transported by the sea, and the thing is the sea coast is like 180 miles away and it's like a two-hour car ride going at 75 miles per hour. So imagine quarreling stones, some of which were as heavy as a bus, and placed onto what boats made of reeds or even out of wood Weren't metal ships back then? The smallest stone, which are known as the blue stones, are as heavy as a sedan or a pickup truck and as soon as you walk through the visitor center you see a stone laying on its side, on these wooden logs as rollers, and the whole plains there are like hills and stuff for as far as the eye can see and it would have taken a tremendous workforce to accomplish, you know, getting those stones all the way over those hilly plains. So the question is why did they pick that spot, that particular spot, and why were those rocks from almost 200 miles away?
Speaker 1:Like many other wonders from the ancient past, it does make you wonder about the idea of maybe lost technology well, yeah, I mean, just the idea of moving something that big, even 10 feet, uh, it sounds monumental tasking of itself. I mean, uh, can you imagine just trying to move something like that across your backyard using log rollers, wood rollers? So here we have this thing being rolled on wood logs from your house all the way up to Phoenix. Definitely not an easy undertaking, and you'd have to wonder what would motivate somebody to do that. It wouldn't take a lot to motivate me to move it just a few feet to my backyard.
Speaker 1:And some, may many, people not know this, but there is an age-old myth, an age-old tale about how Merlin the magician used some sort of power to move those stones in the place. Of course, that story usually gets brushed aside, but indeed the lore about the place has crossed its path with the Arthurian legends. So it seems that even the ancient people way back then wondered, just as we do, how those stones got there. There seems to be no record in the history of the Britons and the Celts as to how and when Stonehenge was built, as to how and when Stonehenge was built, as opposed to, say, egypt and Mesoamerica, where at least we have names associated with the pyramids there, such as Khufu and Quetzalcoatl.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and we find that in Egypt there is an example of a magical narrative. There actually is a record of that. It was discovered in 2013 on a papyrus dating to about the 5th century BC near Saqqara. That tells how priests of the god Thoth had moved the stones of the Great Pyramid of Khufu into place by using some of the supernatural magic.
Speaker 1:Exactly and we can easily assume that anything believed to have been done by magic back then was most likely obtained from the application of misunderstood technology, whatever that may be Magnetic fields, acoustics, quantum gravity. That is all debatable and, of course, unsubstantiated at this point in time. Well, that's great that you guys got to go there. It's too bad you weren't able to meet up with our good friend Aaron Long. I know he lives in that part of England not far from Stonehenge.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was very disappointing. Aaron and I really wanted to meet up with one another. We were texting back and forth, emailing, and he was just too far away at the time and he couldn't make the arrangements to get there. So that's one of the drawbacks about cruises too is that you only have a short window of time when doing excursions and such before you have to head back to your ship and they won't wait for you. The ship will leave without you. But hopefully, you know we both can meet up with him someday in the near future here and anyway you know. But we were all bummed that we couldn't meet up.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So this story about appearing and disappearing monoliths has come about within the last few years and started making the news right around the time of the pandemic. We know, of course, that large monoliths are found all over the world, going back thousands of years, and they serve architectural purposes that are both functional and symbolic. Functional and symbolic we just mentioned Stonehenge. Other well-known places are Baalbek in Lebanon, temple Mount in Israel, karnak in Egypt and Pumapunku in Bolivia, and indeed there are dozens upon dozens of places where ancient monoliths are found, and in many cases, the way they were put into place, as well as the reason why, isn't exactly understood. So the modern-day ones to which we're referring are not very tall they're only about 10 to 12 feet and they're not too, too heavy Heavy enough, but not hundreds of tons and they're made of metal, hollow metal.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and there are, I believe, about 80 to 90 of them that have been found, usually in pretty remote spots where there isn't a whole lot of people traffic, and I mean they started popping up in late 2020, with the first one being reported in Utah on November, the 18th, and somewhere to the southeast of Salt Lake City, and it was observed by a helicopter crew with the Utah Department of Public Safety and it was in a part of the desert that was really only accessible by helicopter and they actually landed to inspect it up close.
Speaker 5:The story was carried by a local news TV station, in which they explained that it was just a hollow rectangular shaft that was deliberately planted in the ground and that it was made of very shiny metal that did not appear to serve any purpose Nothing like electronic modules or antennas as part of it. It did nothing, it was just there. And after they left that day, the same crew flew over the area on November 27th and the monolith was gone, and there's plenty of footage available of this monolith on the internet, as well as most of the others, but they really do look like something out of the movie 2001, a Space Odyssey, except those ones were like black color and not reflective, like the one that you know had been popping up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, they do. In that movie Stanley Kubrick, at the beginning was trying to convey the idea of some evolutionary shift and with that dynamic musical piece, strauss's Thus Spoke, zarathustra is resembled by that dark slab monolith with the apes around it. It is supposed to illustrate the start of mankind, and in the novel by Arthur C Clarke the black monolith is supposed to represent technological progress, as it is a tool created by some alien race that assists lesser advanced species to evolve. And it was very controversial when the film came out in 1968, and I guess you can say that it still is. It came out during the height of the Cold War and depicted, perhaps subtly, the danger that has come about through humans' use of technology, in that it brings about complete destruction. This is seen with the primate's first use of a bone as a weapon and then, after hundreds of thousands of years, manifests in the way of us becoming the highly advanced Homo sapiens that we are now, with technology that actually threatens the very existence of our entire species.
Speaker 5:Well, the movie and the book do have several messages that a lot of people have interpreted to mean that we as a species are continuing to evolve into a higher level in which, you know, much like the alien intelligence that is portrayed. We too are moving into an existence that is more in the way of consciousness, something more like energy, and we've discussed that subject here on the show quite a few times. But anyway, there are, of course, some folks who are saying that that is where whoever is responsible for placing these monoliths got the whole idea from, none other than 2001, the Space Odyssey, and I can definitely see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure I, I can too. And after that one in utah was seen and then unseen, another one very similar in appearance was reported on the outskirts of pietra nimat in romania, all the way on the other side of the world, uh, and this was on november 27th, the same day as the one that disappeared on in. But unlike that one, it also vanished a few days later, in a similar way, this time on December 2nd 2020. And it was also composed of an aluminum or steel alloy shaped as a triangular prism, as opposed to the rectangular one that had in Utah, had marks. This one had marks on it as though it was scored by some kind of grinder. It was also welded together, while the one in Utah had fasteners on it, you know, like rivets.
Speaker 5:Oddly enough, the one in Romania appeared the same day that the one in Utah was claimed to have disappeared, and that one disappeared the same date when the one in Estacadero Park, california, appeared, and that was on December 2nd. Then on December 7th, a fourth one appeared in Albuquerque, new Mexico. Now the most recent one has appeared in the desert landscape of Nevada, near Las Vegas, just this past June, and that one was taken down by the authorities and taken as evidence in hope of, you know, finding out who put it there. I guess, and you know it was placed on federal land, which is illegal. That's probably why they took it. And you know this one was made of sheet metal and rebar which was borrowed deep into the hard desert landscape. So the police, however, aren't you know they're not saying anything about it.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they're investigating to see if there are any clues that come available to try to locate who put it there. Like you said, it's illegal to erect these things on federal land. That's environmentally sensitive that area, for many reasons. Also, the military function is very close to a lot of military installations. But then there's also the Bureau of Land Management that looks at migrations of blocks of animals and the thing is, as we both know, it's difficult to lift latent prints, like fingerprints, of something that has been collecting dust, especially in a desert.
Speaker 1:Now there is a video recording by a photographer named Ross Bernard that shows a few young guys dismantling the Utah monolith back in December of 2020. And it was aired on a local news TV station in Salt Lake City. The identities of those guys were not given and we can't confirm that. The reporting of it was in the same place and it was, that it was the exact same monolith. Um, there's no way to reference the original monolith that was seen by those helicopter helicopter crew.
Speaker 1:So it looks like it, but can we say for sure it's the exact same one? We really can't, because it's dark and, you know, somewhere in the desert. There's no way to identify that that is the same one in? We really can't, because it's dark and somewhere in the desert. There's no way to identify that that is the same one in the same place and, according to Business Insider magazine dated in December 20th 2020, there are about 87 of these that are all over the world and if they're seen taken down, there's no way to say for sure that's the one that they're claiming to have taken down, because they're not showing the surroundings that would indicate that it's the same one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm not sure if that was the Utah monolith that they were showing. I think that was the Northern California one. I think I'm not sure. I think it was in Northern California it was one that they took down in California as well. Yeah, is that the one where they put the cross up in its place, or something?
Speaker 1:It was one of them, but there was also another one that they took down and they never give the names of those people. I mean, they're just a bunch of guys who are taking it down in the dark and that's it. And, like you said, yeah, they did a wreck, one with a frost.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but if this is done by humans, and of course we believe they are, then it would have taken a significant amount of planning and resources to complete it. These things are beginning to be like the next crop circle phenomenon.
Speaker 1:They do pop up overnight and some of them are unexplained as to how they got there, and you know know, they are also believed to be elaborate oaks or done by aliens yeah, and you know with this I'm going to kind of defer to the maxim of occam's razor that you know the simplest explanation isn't all probability to correct one, and that would be academically irresponsible, especially from what we know about the object themselves, the objects themselves and how they were made, and for us to suggest that they are paranormal or extraterrestrial in any way. These things are almost certainly built and assembled by people. That's what we're seeing in the evidence that we have, and that they were put in place by people, even if we don't fully understand precisely how that would have been accomplished.
Speaker 5:But the thing is we know that these monoliths are made from Earth material. Now, could an alien still have made it? I mean, I guess they could. I mean it wouldn't be impossible, right, if you believed in aliens, if you think about it, I mean I can see it being done by some, you know, elaborate jokesters and you know, due to the relatively cheap materials and all. However, the puzzling thing is how it got put in those remote places, because there's no vehicle tracks that were located in and or around the areas of the location. You know, were they flown in by an helicopter? I mean, if that was the case, that's going to take some, you know, financial blessings. But who would go through all that trouble and why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean franksters and jokesters, let's be frank, and maybe some that have a lot of money. We don't. People can and will do crazy things. Sometimes they even, you know, defy explanation. But yes, you're right, it is hard to figure out.
Speaker 1:The one in Utah is in a place that was virtually inaccessible without a helicopter, according to boxcom dated June 18th 2024. You know, Utah's Division of Wildlife Services told the New York Times it's a tough place to get to on vehicle and on foot, and a spokesperson said officials for the Department of Public Safety went on to add that they had no idea how long that monolith had even been there. Although Reddit sleuths use Google Earth, they must have had a lot of time on their hands to do this as well, To work out that it was possibly installed around the time between August 2015 and October 2016, so quite a few years ago. We really don't know for sure. And, with that said, as difficult as it may be to get to that area, it is not impossible. It can be done, just not with ease.
Speaker 1:So if these are, in fact, a work of art, the stunt itself may be considered as part of the creative form that goes into things like that. Just look at things like living sculpture as an example. A lot of work and creativity and kind of oddity goes into that. So if it is art, the question is why the plain, shiny metal shafts? What is the theme behind it? What is it supposed to symbolize and what emotions is it supposed to evoke?
Speaker 5:Yeah, and a couple of people claim to have made it, you know. Others also came out afterwards and you know, claim being behind it and it was offering the monoliths for sale for, like I don't know, forty, five thousand dollars or something like that. And, uh, the names of of those who took down the california one that we were talking about earlier, you know, uh, were mentioned in the la times, since they, you know, they went ahead and replaced the uh, that's what we're talking about with the metal monolith with a metal cross of the same size. So it was all a religious thing and whatnot. And so I believe no one really knows who is really doing all of this. Maybe some of it, but not all of it. So the mere fact that when one goes up and is taken, you know, is taken down and another erects, you know, across the world, it seems very coordinated to me. And there are also no reports of aircraft being witnessed in the areas, so I mean, and no reports of vehicle tracks being found either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also you know there's nothing about any strange lights as we find with the stories that involve, you know, crop circles and animal mutilations and, if you recall, a lot of reports about cattle and goats being found dead as though they were dissected. And you also have this claim about UFOs being witnessed at or near the time of the mutilation being discovered, as well as in the very same vicinity. And the same is true with the crop circles. We don't seem to have that with the appearing and disappearing monoliths. They seem to pop up and someone notices and actually some places are starting to capitalize on the whole thing as being a gimmick. There is an old-fashioned candy store in the strip district of Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, my hometown, that had put up one out on the front sidewalk again as an avant-garde kind of attraction to lore and customers. You know, kind of capitalized on the whole gimmick and the hype with the monoliths. But the question is still why a monolith? What about that? Why not something else?
Speaker 5:Right, like why not a wheel or a stick, like a stick figure or something. But you know, we have to wonder if a plain shaft of stone or metal means something in the mythological tradition. Does it symbolize something on a deeper level in our subconscious minds? The answer is yes, it does indeed. Conscious minds the answer is yes, it does indeed. It just says seen in 2001, a space odyssey. The monolith represents a connection to something higher, almost like it is a doorway to a different dimension or something. And think of the Tower of Babel from the book of Genesis. Right, I mean, not much is given in terms of a description, but certainly it would have been made so as to improve and move higher, higher in our evolution and higher in our consciousness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very well put. And we also have to ask, laurie, if the appearance and subsequent disappearance we'll just call it movement of monoliths has happened before in human history. Well, the answer is yes. We see how obelisks have been found throughout the world. They are rectangular or triangular, prisms, shafts that stand tall like any monolith, only with a pointed top.
Speaker 1:And the word first comes from the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, who mentioned them as being found throughout Egypt as monuments not only to the greatness of the pharaohs but also as a means to divert man's attention to the sun disk, which is Ra, and the Egyptian theology, which is also God. So we do see that there is well within the spiritual and mythological fabric of our cultures that the significance of not only rectangular monoliths but also all polygonal shapes in the formation of archetypes in the unconscious mind. They represent both understanding of mystery as well as intuitive knowledge of the self, like pathways to a transcendence within our thought processes. Friedrich Nietzsche explained that the reflection of life through art is equally well as scientific discovery in the quest for defining our existence and will to power. Interestingly, his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the title that composer Richard Strauss gave to his symphonic piece that is now iconic to 2001 A Space Odyssey. When, when the black monolith is shown on the movie screen with all the apes, so, again, the $64,000 question is why?
Speaker 5:Why are these things being erected Like we discussed? They seem to be well-coordinated and well-financed, which leads me to believe that someone is wanting to send a message. Financed, which leads me to believe that someone is wanting to send a message. And the one in Utah was put in place in well, what did we say? 2016, 2015, 2016? Long before the pandemic hit. However, it was discovered during the height of COVID and by government officials. So is there a connection to how it was located? Was it meant to be found during the pandemic? I mean, think about it as soon as it was discovered. Another one goes up after it was removed, all the way over in Romania. I mean, that is planned on a massive scale. Could this be the coordinated work of an elite group of people like, say, the Illuminati and like we discussed in a previous episode about them, even though they may think they're in control of humanity? Is there, say, some higher extraterrestrial force controlling them?
Speaker 1:Well, that's what we don't know. I mean, like we said, we believe that people and we have good reason to believe that people are the ones responsible for this. As far as the reason and the motivation, I want to call it the drive, the thing that is compelling them, that could be something else, that could be something of a higher force, it could be something from beyond our world. We don't know. Know, you know what inspires people to seek any kind of discovery or to make any kind of, you know, elaborate statement using something like art.
Speaker 1:Those are questions that you know, we have to wonder about, you know yeah, um, I mean, well said, and with that, you know, we will conclude today's episode yeah, and we like to say we, we discuss all things about aliens and ufos, but that doesn't mean that we accept all things as true about aliens and ufos. Um, and I think we can safely presume that these appearing and disappearing monoliths are the result of human effort. There's really nothing too genuinely about it to make us believe that they are, say, extraterrestrial artifacts or some kind of evidence of psychic abnormality. They are probably just bizarre works of art. But again, what is the driving force behind making people want to do this? So, even so, there could be a symbolic significance that sort of permeates this collective subconscious, and it is apparent in such a way for us to suppose that the drive to place these monoliths may stem from an underlying desire, a conscious desire, perhaps one might even say an obsession, to connect with the extraterrestrial, even if only in the form of artwork.
Speaker 5:Agreed and but anyway, so I think that's that's it for us tonight, and we're we hope you all enjoyed it. This is, this was one that some of you have been asking us to do, so we hope it was what you wished for and, uh, let us know if, uh, you know if, uh, if you did like it.
Speaker 1:Right, hey, just I mean we're joining us. On our next episode, we have a special interview lined up with Dr Bruce Rapuano Uh. He is a neurobiologist, among other specialties, with extraordinary credentials and who has done medical research on cellular physiology and endocrinology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Both are in New York City as it is. He has also been a guest on the popular radio show Coast to Coast AM within just the last couple of years, so we will have the distinct honor of having him join us for a discussion on the abduction theory and his views on it as a scientist.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm looking forward to that one and hopefully we can learn some real insight into the topic of alien abductions and you know, that's coming from an actual biomedical researcher, right? And by the way, folks, if you like what we do here and the time it takes for us to put these episodes together, feel free to show us your support by continuing to follow us on our website and social media pages. Social media pages, you know, and if you can and if we would like you know, we would appreciate anything you do to support us, you know, whether it's by purchasing any of our books or whatnot. So, but we appreciate you all as our faithful listeners and that's why you know there are no fees, no extra fees for you to sign up for in order to read our newsletters that we, you know, send out sometimes, and that sort of thing. It's all free for you to access on our sites.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we are here to show you what information we obtain from our own investigations and then present it to you, our audience, in the way that we uniquely do. So thank you all and until next time, as always, stay safe out there and stay curious.
