Folks, I found it.

Just kidding, I actually found it. It’s 9’7” tall. Made of thin stainless steel or aluminum sheets around a foam core. Base is cut into a custom hole in the rock with a saw and likely anchored to a bolt under the sculpture.

There were maybe 30 people out there over a few hours today. Very remote location. A helicopter landed yesterday with a ladder and the top is covered with fingerprint smudges.

You can tell a lot of care went into its placement: Aligned with a narrow pour over in an almost perfectly flat, smooth alcove. Not visible from any of the surrounding landscape outside of the canyon. Perfectly plumb.

The whole surface was pretty grubby already. “Better bring Windex if you want a great photo,” advised one local who traveled to the obelisk by ATV.

“Looks like it’s smeared with snot," said a 30-year-old man who was in the area for vacation when he saw the obelisk articles online. "And there’s some blood near the top, maybe from someone who tried to climb onto it."

Both statements were hard to dispute.

If anyone wants to take credit for this -- even in a Banksy-style interview with voice distortion -- call a local San Juan County reporter before you call The New York Times. DMs open. Email in profile.

(Take credit for installing the sculpture, that is. Not the snot.)

People have been speculating that this could be the artist, but style and material look different to me. https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/brendan-davis-the-hidden-treasures-series/

And yes, anyone who is thinking that it might be a good idea to cut into bedrock on federal land for an art project should probably read the BLM's official statement on the matter first: https://twitter.com/BLMUtah/status/1331371860697628672?s=20

Also, (editorializing here) don't fly a helicopter to it, even if you have 3M Instagram followers. He goes from claiming he "deduced" the location and could be the first visitor, to saying he's the first to "bring a ladder to the monolith." Just silly.