We Planked on the Utah Monolith Before It Disappeared

Mark and another visitor at the Monolith. All photos provided by Mark Santamaria

This week, a mysterious Monolith was discovered in the Utah desert. Its remote location and extraterrestrial-seeming origin immediately garnered worldwide headlines.

Mark Santamaria and his buddy Holden were the first outsiders to visit the Monolith. They were road tripping in Utah when they learned a biological surveyor team had spotted the mysterious object. After the Utah Department of Public Safety released videos of the Monolith on Monday, November 23, a group of internet sleuths pinpointed the coordinates quickly. Mark and his buddy Holden were there the very next morning—the first ones to arrive on scene.

After Mark arrived, a helicopter full of YouTubers touched down. Federal agents showed up. And yes, his buddy Holden planked on the Monolith. Mark gave Countere the full, wild rundown of the first day the public visited the Utah Monolith.

Thanks for speaking to Countere, Mark. Let’s start at the beginning.

So I’m doing a road trip with my buddy Holden right now. We were camping out in Moab, Utah—riding around in a dune buggy—and then the news dropped about the Monolith appearing in Utah.

So I did some digging online. And I found the actual latitude and longitude coordinates on Reddit. I punched them into Google Maps and it was only 2 hours away.

It was about 10 pm on Monday. So I said to my buddy Holden—‘Do you want to see this thing? We’ll probably be one of the first people there.’ We left Moab first thing next morning. 

The Monolith is definitely not the most accessible. It’s in BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. You have to go off a highway onto a dirt road with lots of rocks, very treacherous. We have trucks with 4x4 but it was my first time doing serious off-roading and I didn’t know if my truck was going to make it…but the call of the Monolith had us.

When we got close to the Monolith, we lost service. It was a complete dead zone. We were in two trucks but we had walkie-talkies. We got closer and closer and I could see these giant red rocks to our left. I had studied Google Maps and I knew the Monolith was behind those rocks. I spoke into the walkie-talkie: “The Monolith is right there.”

We parked my buddy Holden’s car about a half-mile from the Monolith. We hopped out and started walking through this terrain—a couple gullies and gorges where you had to go down sheer rock. I started noticing there’s sand all around. I looked and didn’t see any other footprints and I was like ‘Cool, we’re the first ones here.”

We finally climb over this one set of rocks. I look below into the gully and down at the very end I see it. This little sliver of silver sticking directly out of the ground. I got very excited and started to run. ‘I found it! We did it!’

We reached the Monolith at about 1:30 pm on Tuesday, November 24th. We just took it in for a while—observing its architecture and how it was built—in silence before snapping pictures.

The Monolith from a distance.

How was it built?

The monolith is triangular. You could see these cuts in the rock that were made with a concrete saw to set it into the ground. I don’t know how deep the structure goes beneath the surface of the rock, but it was in there there pretty well. It was about 12 feet tall, 3-sided. The surface was some kind of brushed—not very shiny—sheet metal. Each corner was lined with what my buddy called ‘cherry rivets,’ little rivets. 

Is it hollow inside?

I think so. We tapped on it. A guy who arrived later—a YouTuber who arrived on helicopter—thinks it was supported by gussets on the inside.

Did it seem like anyone had been at the Monolith before you?

I have to wonder if this thing had to have been known to a select group of people for years. There are a lot of theories about where it came from—some artist put it up, an artist put it up in commemoration of another artist. If you look on Google Maps, it seems to have appeared between 2015 and 2016. But the BLM put out a statement that for all we know, this thing could have been here for 60 years.

What’s the energy of the Monolith in-person?

It’s certainly out of place. From a distance, it had an eerie kind of feel to it—almost imposing. When you see this shard of sliver sticking out of the rock in a gully, you’re like ‘What the hell is this? Is this alien? From another world’?

When you get closer and observe it, you can see how manmade it is. Someone planned this out. They very obviously chose the place very specifically, and I came to appreciate the Monolith as a fascinating and mysterious piece of artwork. 

Did other people start showing up? 

Yeah. We chilled for about an hour, climbing on rock and looking at it from different angles. It’s really quiet out there. 

I went back to my car to get some water. Up the road come two other vehicles, a white Jeep and a big truck that says BLM. They stop and I ask them ‘You here to see the Monolith?’ They say ‘Yeah. We’re with the government.’ And I start to hear a helicopter overhead.

This shit is getting serious. As I walk back up to the Monolith, the helicopter lands on the red rocks just above it. And out hops 4-5 guys in their thirties, all with their phones out, recording themselves and talking into their phones. I was like, ‘What the hell.’ One of the guys comes up and asks me ‘Were you the first ones here?’ I said ‘Yeah, I think so.’ So he started asking me questions for YouTube.

Then the people from the BLM walk up. There were about 6 of them: a ranger, a land manager, an archeologist, a soil scientist, and so forth. They came to evaluate this thing. It was their first time laying eyes on it.

The various groups at the Monolith.

What did the government think of it?

They were prodding at it, trying to understand its build and architecture. They were saying ‘We don’t know what to do with this thing, we’ve never had something like this happen before. We have to make a decision whether to keep or remove it.’ 

There were lots of things to take into consideration. This is a treacherous stretch of land to drive or hike on, and leaving the Monolith might set up an open invitation for other people to erect art on public lands. At the same time, it’s very fascinating, maybe it could get more people hiking. They said they would think about it. 

So people started climbing on the Monolith?

Yeah, the YouTubers set up their ladder and people began sitting on The Monolith. I was the second person to do it. And my buddy Holden did a fucking plank on it. How else could you further degrade The Monolith?

Holden planking on the Monolith.

It sounds like with just a few more groups there, it went from respectful to people being silly.

Exactly. Another group of people walked up and they began sitting on it and taking selfies.

To be fair though, as soon as I saw it, I wanted to sit on it.

What happened next?

Everybody left. The guys flew out in their helicopter, me and Holden got back to camp and cooked dinner. That night, we were like ‘Let’s go back again. It probably has a different feel at night.’ It was cold, 30 degrees. So we bundled up and walked back without flashlights.

How was the Monolith in that environment?

Dude, it was wild. When you see it at night, it’s totally black. This black rectangle in the shadows. It was far creepier and more ominous at night. I set a lantern behind the Monolith to highlight it and we took our headlamps and drew lights in the air for pictures.

The Monolith at night.

Wow. That sounds amazing. It’s too bad you’ll only be one of the few to ever experience it without other people around.

For sure. Another thing to note that is that when it was still day, after everyone had looked at it, the monolith was covered with handprints and smudges from people’s oily skin. So it was disappointing to see it pristine, and within 2 hours of finding it, the scene turned into a circus.

I had posted a few photos on Instagram and hashtagged #UtahMonolith and this woman from Italy commented: ‘“Oh, so you guys are the ones who destroyed it.” She said the rivets were beginning to pop out from people sitting on it. I don’t know how she learned that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing falls apart as people climbed on top of it to seek their selfies. I almost feel a little regretful that we joined in.

Editor’s Note: Shortly after this interview was published, the Utah Monolith disappeared. It was apparently destroyed by a group of men incensed incensed at the juvenile behavior described in this article and elsewhere online. If you have any more information about the Utah Monolith or other strange phenomena, contact us.

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