If you’ve not scrolled past countless stories of strange monoliths appearing in random places this week – WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

In all seriousness, the enigmatic objects have flooded social media over the last few days, so it would have been pretty hard to miss them, but on the off chance that you don’t have a clue what I’m going on about, I’ll enlighten you.

The tall, metal structure was discovered in Utah last week and has since sparked a wry of speculation about its origins from a PR stunt, to art to aliens…I mean, if there was ever a year that aliens were to commandeer the planet – this is it right?

Stranger still, just a few days after the mystical object was originally sighted, it disappeared without a trace.

Commenting on the obelisks disappearance, local officials said:

“[We] did not remove the structure which is considered private property,” a Bureau of Land Management spokesperson said in a statement. “The structure has received international and national attention and we received reports that a person or group removed it on the evening of 27 Nov”.

Hold on, the plot thickens…

It’s back, but this time it’s popped up in Romania’s north-eastern Neamt County, just a few metres away from the well-known archaeological landmark the Petrodava Dacian Fortress, a fort built by the ancient Dacian people between 82 BC and AD 106.

The enigmatic triangular pillar stands about 13-foot tall and bears a striking resemblance to the one found in the Utah desert. But, the Romanian authorities urged people to remain calm and in a statement on Facebook, the local mayor of Piatra Neamt wrote:

There is no reason to panic for those who think there is still life in the universe. My guess is that some alien, cheeky and terrible teenagers left home with their parents’ UFO and started planting metal monoliths around the world. First in Utah and then at Piatra Neamt. I am honoured that they chose our city. Beyond the conspiracy theories that can be tempting, I’d like to see this randomness as further proof that our city is special. For the earthlings and (maybe) not only.

News of the discoveries has quickly spread around the world, with many pointing out the objects’ similarity to the strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ 

Very strange indeed. What do you think they are?

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