A reddit user [1] found its location [2] and another figured out it was installed sometime during 2015-2016 based on when the satellite imagery changed.
> I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak.
You have to love the internet sometimes. Someone who works construction (as he stated) can develop a fun investigatory hobby just via the internet. The he can sign his work with a silly name like bear__f##ker (which I'm guessing is a reference to the movie super troopers).
As someone who is house-hunting at the moment, this is exactly what I do all evening for houses without an explicit address in the online exposé. Most of the time, the combination of solar panels and the positions of rooftop windows and the chimney is a collision free hash value.
What I figured from the Internet is technical proficiency in random fields isn’t rare, but a stable, provable, predictable proficiency, on top of passable level of social acceptability, coexisting in a single consistent humanframe, is what is rare.
This reminds me of #SmashTheStone from a few years back when the 4chan community came together track down and prevent 9gag from burying a meme-carved rock.
Video from the internet historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFykQv6Q08
The internet sleuthing might just be smoke and mirrors. It's possible this guy already knew where the monolith because he knew the installer or is the installer. Either way, he's comes out looking good.
Information wants to be free, in the sense of leaking out via unexpected sidechannels. But this strongly reminds me of "Entangled Truths, Contagious Lies" which uses a fairly similar example.
"I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak."
At least some of it was filmed by Lake Powell, closer to the southwest corner of Utah. It was really weird to see a bunch of troops coming ashore where I was hanging out on the beach a year earlier, against a very recognizable backdrop. Definitely broke the suspension of disbelief.
The location is only 15 miles from Moab as the crow flies.
My bet is someone living in Moab wanted to do a desert art project and chose this location that was reasonably close, but still fairly remote.
People do all kinds of stuff out in the desert around Moab.
Just about 10-20 miles northwest of this monolith there's a small slacklining festival called GGBY held in a similarly remote location. Look up Fruit Bowl Highline Area on google maps and check out youtube to see some of the wild stuff people do!
Unless the artist practiced very good OpSec or was so disciplined that he never checked for satellite imagery of his monument, someone with the right credentials -- like the government with a subpeona or a Google insider -- could identify the artist based on his IP address.
Murderers have been identified and convicted by looking up a unique map coordinate on Google Maps, even going back as far Yahoo Maps.
That's how they found the boyfriend of Olivia Newton-John, who had faked his own death. He was the most frequent visitor to the website set up to help find him(that's literally true - the website was a trap they had hoped he would visit)
You can be convicted for looking at a map where the only thing was tracked is your ip? This is all kinds of insane. No wonder the US incarcerates so many innocent people.
I see some dotted lines nearby on the Google map. Hiking trails? Jeep trails? I’m wondering how much that thing weighs and how they got it there. Maybe drive it there with a large off-road pickup truck and then got a bunch of guys to carry it down the wash behind it?
It's pretty near Moab, UT - which is an adult kid's playground. The area is abundant with trails. Much of that land is regularly explored with various 4x4s for sport, even (and especially) off the trails. And Moab would also be a place enriched for people with the skill and desire to make a giant metal slab and find a place to stash it.
The 'monolith' is just a bit SE of the "Dead Horse Point" (SW of Moab), just on the east side of the river on this map [1].
I see a small dirt road immediately to the north. Given that dirt road intersects with hwy 211 I assume it was driven there in a large ATV. Most likely a 4wd truck and a large ATV went out there with the sculpture in the truck, and then the ATV and a few people with shovels drove it down to the gully to the site to install it.
So looking at the instragram post it looks like steel plates just screwed together. The screw holes are visible too so definitely a hollow shell. Makes it a lot less cool to me :(
I'm not quite sure about the satellite imagery comparisons. The angle of the sunlight is obviously different looking at the shadows of the surrounding geology.
lultimouomo|5 years ago
> I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak.
https://old.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f...
wpasc|5 years ago
dredmorbius|5 years ago
It's relatively well known that 33 distinct bits is enough to uniquely identify any individual person now alive on Earth.[1]
Geospatially, assuming 10m resolution, 44 bits is enough to identify any unique location on Earth's land surface (46 bits buys you the oceans).
Searching for a ~1m^2 monolith visually within a 10m^2 square is reasonable.
GNU units:
49 bits buys 1m accuracy, 63 1cm, 69 1mm. Land or sea.For comparison, cellphone positioning accuracy is typically 8--600m:
- 3G iPhone w/ A-GPS ~ 8 meters
- 3G iPhone w/ wifi ~ 74 meters
- 3G iPhone w/ Cellular positioning ~ 600 meters
https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/07/07/how-accur...
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/
________________________________
Notes:
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304012305/33bits.org/about/
discreditable|5 years ago
https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good...
lqet|5 years ago
numpad0|5 years ago
ogisan|5 years ago
ogre_codes|5 years ago
Not sure which is more likely.
TechBro8615|5 years ago
CPLX|5 years ago
olodus|5 years ago
14|5 years ago
wp381640|5 years ago
nobrains|5 years ago
Symmetry|5 years ago
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wyyfFfaRar2jEdeQK/entangled-...
jjtheblunt|5 years ago
bregma|5 years ago
Enhance.
There it is.
Phenomenit|5 years ago
"I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak."
u/Bear__Fucker
skunkworker|5 years ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f...
I'm still gobsmacked about the specific geological knowledge and application here turning into a very precise and relatively small search area.
fbn79|5 years ago
nitrogen|5 years ago
reportingsjr|5 years ago
My bet is someone living in Moab wanted to do a desert art project and chose this location that was reasonably close, but still fairly remote.
People do all kinds of stuff out in the desert around Moab.
Just about 10-20 miles northwest of this monolith there's a small slacklining festival called GGBY held in a similarly remote location. Look up Fruit Bowl Highline Area on google maps and check out youtube to see some of the wild stuff people do!
sschueller|5 years ago
cantrevealname|5 years ago
Unless the artist practiced very good OpSec or was so disciplined that he never checked for satellite imagery of his monument, someone with the right credentials -- like the government with a subpeona or a Google insider -- could identify the artist based on his IP address.
Murderers have been identified and convicted by looking up a unique map coordinate on Google Maps, even going back as far Yahoo Maps.
oh_sigh|5 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_McDermott
lima|5 years ago
rowanG077|5 years ago
irrational|5 years ago
toufka|5 years ago
The 'monolith' is just a bit SE of the "Dead Horse Point" (SW of Moab), just on the east side of the river on this map [1].
[1] https://www.discovermoab.com/4-wheeling/
subsubzero|5 years ago
trianglem|5 years ago
trianglem|5 years ago
grenoire|5 years ago
iso1631|5 years ago
"Discover food deliveries nearby"
Fairly sure that's going to be a tough challenge at that location!
SubiculumCode|5 years ago
908087|5 years ago
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