What is this mysterious new monolith and who is behind it?

A strange and tall glimmering monolith, akin to the ones which mysteriously appeared in 2020, has popped up in Gass Peak, a hiking area in the Nevada desert just about an hour north of Las Vegas.

It looks like it’s from another world, with the glimmering rectangular prism's reflective surface imitating the vast desert landscape surrounding the mountain peak where it has been erected.

Where did the object come from?

Is it an art installation?

An elaborate prank?

Is Daft Punk preparing a comeback?

Or is someone just a really huge fan of Arthur C. Clark’s short story ‘The Sentinel’ and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?

The structure was spotted by the Las Vegas Police Department, who said they saw it during a search and rescue mission north of the Las Vegas Valley.

“We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water," the police department wrote. “But check this out!"

This is the latest in a series of mysterious shiny columns popping up around the globe since at least 2020. In November of that year, a similar metal monolith was found deep in the Mars-like landscape of Utah's red-rock desert. Then came sightings in Romania, the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, central California and on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

All of them disappeared as quickly as they popped up.

As you can imagine, speculation is brewing as to who may be behind the monolithic structures. No one has come forward to claim the structures, and there are conspiracy theories involving aliens.

As a reminder, Kubrick’s 1968 film presented one of the most striking and bizarre forms aliens have taken on screen as the enigmatic black block. Whether or not the mysterious monolith that suddenly appears is the actual form of the aliens is debatable; it might be a calling-card signalling that they are present. What we do know, however, is that the towering column in the sci-fi classic serves as a warning, a teacher facilitating evolutionary leaps, and a mysterious gateway that poses more questions than it answers.

Regarding his alien portrayal as a black slab, Kubrick stated: “It soon became apparent that you cannot imagine the unimaginable.”

The monolith represents this unimaginable, a bone-chilling unknown whose simple geometry innovates through paradoxically brushing aside wilder, more garish depictions of visitors from other worlds.

Whatever you choose to believe - we here at Euronews Culture are keeping our fingers crossed that it is an elaborate marketing ploy for the upcoming X Files reboot - the mystery remains.

As for the Las Vegas authorities, they made the most of their discovery to remind people hiking in the Nevada desert to be prepared for the hot weather and to stay safe.

So, stay hydrated. The truth is out there.