The now-famous "monolith" structure that was discovered last week by a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter crew during a count of bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah has been removed — but not by government officials.
Riccardo Marino posted on Instagram that he and Sierra Van Meter went to the spot, located south of Moab and just east of Canyonlands National Park, late Friday night to get some photos. But when they arrived, it was no longer there.
Marino said they saw a pickup truck with a large object in its bed driving in the opposite direction shortly before they got there.
Marino and Van Meter also saw that someone had written "Bye B****!" and appeared to have urinated at the spot where the piece, believed by most to be abstract art, formerly stood.
A Reddit user also found it was gone early Saturday morning.
A Bureau of Land Management spokesperson sent the following statement to KSTU:
“We have received credible reports that the illegally installed structure, referred to as the “monolith” has been removed from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) public lands by an unknown party. The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff’s office. The structure has received international and national attention and we received reports that a person or group removed it on the evening of Nov. 27.”
More visitors appeared to have stacked rocks around the site of the former structure, along with the top piece that was apparently left behind.
This story was originally published by Spencer Burt at KSTU.