Isle of Wight locals are baffled by the arrival of a seaside monolith as the artist behind similar shiny statues popping up around the world has denied any involvement with the sculpture.
The three-sided metal object was found by beachgoers at Compton Bay on the island on Sunday.
The Most Famous Artist, also known as Matty Mo, is thought to have been behind some of the other monoliths that appeared in the US.
But the sculptor has denied creating the Isle of Wight structure, saying the piece was ‘out of his control’.
The island’s tourist board has welcomed the arrival, saying this morning: ‘We track all of our marketing efforts, but didn’t realise that our ‘discover the Isle of Wight’ message had got to a galaxy far far away’.’
A three-sided metal monolith has appeared on a beach on the Isle of Wight, following a month of similar structures being discovered and then disappearing across the US and in Romania
Memebers of the public having their photo taken in front of the monolith found on Compton beach
A closer inspection today revealed the monolith appears to be made of mirrors and stands on wooden supports buried in the sand.
Peter Hudd, a prisoner officer on the island who lives in Ryde, says he thinks the plinth – which was first spotted on Sunday – is some sort of publicity stunt by a local ‘Banksy-esque’ artist.
The 22 year old said: ‘Yesterday I went on Facebook and I saw someone had written a status about this so-called monolith, saying it had appeared on the beach.
‘I spoke to a friend and said we should check it out.
‘We saw it on the beach – this big, reflective thing, and I thought ‘wow, it’s real’.
Crowds of beach goers on the Isle of Wight were today astonished at finding something rather out of the ordinary on the sand – an alien like monolith
‘It looked like it had come through a rip through time, it was so well polished when I found it – like it was from the future, because it was so transparent.
‘Having followed all the ones people found in America, I think this one looks better.
‘I reckon it was put there by some sort of Banksy-esque local artist, because it’s quite anonymous. Nobody has claimed it, they sort of just left it there.’
Hundreds of locals flocked to Compton beach on the island to marvel at the mysterious construction, which stands at around 8 feet tall and was first spotted yesterday afternoon
Similar constructions have appeared over the past weeks in America and Romania, with the first appearing in a desert in the Utah desert in the United States
However, Peter’s friend Tara Seek, 19, thought the origin was something extra terrestrial.
Mr Hudd said: ‘My friend Tara thought it was aliens, and other people were saying the same, but I don’t think so.
‘I think someone has done it as a stunt. I believe in aliens too, but not to the extent that they would plonk this big mirror thing on a beach overnight.’
Will Myles, managing director for Visit Isle of Wight, said: ‘There’s no evidence of where it comes from. It could have come from anybody, anywhere.
‘We take all of our marketing messages, but we didn’t realise that our ‘Discover the Isle of Wight’ message had got to a galaxy far, far away.’
He added: ‘I think if it weren’t for covid it would be an even bigger attraction, though there are still a lot of people making the trip to come and see it.
‘People say it must be great for our island to be compared to massive tourist destinations like Utah, California and Romania, but the flip side is that they are on the same stage as the Isle of Wight.
‘Places like Utah and California should count themselves lucky to be considered alongside the Isle of Wight.’
Locals continued to arrive on the beach throughout the foggy morning to catch a glimpse of the attraction, which is just ten metres away from the crashing waves.
Darren Hallett had come on his lunch break to see the monolith.
Locals were quick to question whether images of the monolith posted on social media had been ‘photoshopped’
Peter James came across the monolith while walking along the beach on the Isle of Wight
The 44 year old builder and father of two said: ‘I reckon someone came down and stuck it there overnight without anyone knowing.
‘There are three or four around the world, so I think someone was just trying to copy them.
‘It’s still a great attraction for the island though. It’s not doing anyone any harm and it’s not ugly or anything.
‘I actually think it looks quite stylish. It’s very American, so it sort of brings that over here.’
Locals were quick to question whether images of the monolith posted on social media had been ‘photoshopped’.
But Wight photographer Alice Williams insisted it was real, sharing snaps of the eight-foot-tall structure at sunset in a local Facebook group.
The discovery comes after similar shiny metal structures were discovered and then swiftly removed in parts of the United States and Romania.
Elsewhere, tourists were flocking to the new metal monolith in California, after it showed up within days of others in Romania and Utah being removed.
Following the arrival of the Isle of Wight object, the New York Times approached Matty Mo for a comment.
He replied: ‘The monolith is out of my control at this point. Godspeed to all the aliens working hard around the globe to propagate the myth.’
Dozen of local hikers had been making the trek to the top of the mountain in Atascadero to snap a photo with the pillar, which mysteriously showed up on Wednesday.
Pictured: The wooden planks coming out the bottom of the monolith
The art collective behind other monoliths say the silver structure has gotten ‘out of control’
A moveable monolith has popped up at Pine Mountain in Atascadero, California, on Wednesday
The monolith at Pine Mountain is not attached to the ground, different from the one in Utah. It is estimated to weigh 200lbs, making it easy to push over
But, just hours after it was found by hikers, a group of Trump-supporters chanting ‘Christ is King’ and ‘America first’ demolished it in the night.
In a video posted to the streaming website DLive, a group of four men dressed in a medley of military fatigues and Make America Great Again merchandise were seen pushing over the monument and replacing it with a wooden cross.
The obelisk appeared to be made out of stainless steel, welded together at each of its three corners and using rivets that are attached to the side panels. It stands at 10ft tall and 18inches wide, the Atascadero News reports.
In a video posted to the streaming website DLive, a group of four men dressed in a medley of military fatigues and Make America Great Again merchandise are seen pushing over the monument atop Pine Mountain in Atascadero
The group took a selfie after toppling the statue and replacing it with a wooden cross. The host of the stream, dubbed CultureWarCriminal, is seen right
The monolith at Pine Mountain was not attached to the ground, different from the one in Utah. It was estimated to weigh 200lbs, making it easy to push over.
The monoliths in Romania and a Utah desert were also removed after their brief stints of notoriety.
On Tuesday, images emerged of four men working in the dead of night to remove the strange, triangular pillar from the desert in Utah.
The City of Atascadero is aware of the object’s existence but it is unknown what will come of it
The mysterious triangular metal monolith that appeared in the remote Utah desert on November 18 and captured the attention of the nation vanished on Friday
The shiny pillar, which protruded some 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah, was first spotted on November 18 by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air.
Photographer Ross Bernards, who visited the monolith Friday, described in an Instagram post accompanying the photos how four men suddenly appeared that night, pushed the object over and dismantled it before carrying it off in a wheelbarrow.
‘One of them looked back at us all and said ‘Leave no trace.’ That was at 8:48,’ wrote Bernards.
PICTURED: Three of the four culprits responsible for toppling and removing the mysterious Utah monolith on Friday night
The monolith on November 27 just moments before it would be taken down by the group of four
Sylvan Christensen has identified himself on Instagram as one of the four men responsible for removing the shiny 12-foot pillar on Friday, which was first spotted near to Canyonlands National Park on November 18 by officials from the Utah Department of Public Safety.
In a video posted to his personal page on Tuesday, Christensen and three others are seen strapping the structure to a wheelbarrow and taking it away from the canyon.
‘The safe word is run,’ one of the men is heard joking in the video as the group cart the monolith away.
The short clip, which has already been viewed over 100,000 times on TikTok, was captioned: ‘Don’t abandon your personal property on public land if you don’t want it to be taken out #utahmonolith #leavenotrace,’ accompanied with a shrugging emoji.
News of the Utah pillar’s initial discovery quickly went viral around the world, with many noting the object’s similarity with strange alien monoliths that trigger huge leaps in human progress in Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’
Some observers pointed out the object’s resemblance to the avant-garde work of John McCracken, a US artist who lived for a time in nearby New Mexico and died in 2011.
But McCracken’s representatives have given ambiguous and at times conflicting responses to this theory, prolonging an international guessing game that intensified further with the monolith’s sudden removal Friday.
In northern Romania, the shiny triangular pillar was found on Batca Doamnei Hill in the city of Piatra Neamt last Thursday
A shiny monolith vanished on Tuesday from Romania’s mountainous Neamt county, four days after its sudden appearance close to an ancient Dacian fortress.
‘The 2.8 meter (9ft) tall structure disappeared overnight as quietly as it was erected last week,’ journalist Robert Iosub of the Ziar Piatra Neamt local newspaper, who had seen the structure, told Reuters.
‘An unidentified person, apparently a bad local welder, made it … now all that remains is just a small hole covered by rocky soil,’ local reporters had discovered, he said.
The sheet metal structure had a badly-welded join, he added.
A spokeswoman for Piatra Neamt police, Georgiana Mosu, said officers are conducting an inquiry into the illegally-installed structure, which was positioned in a protected archaeological area from November 27.
The latest monolith appeared outside a sweet shop in Pittsburgh earlier this week.
However, owner of the Pittsburgh candy store, Christopher Beers, has revealed he commissioned the 10-foot tall, 24-in wide triangle of plywood covered in sheet metal to capitalise on the recent interest in the mystery structures.
The most recent monolith appeared on the street outside Grandpa Joe’s candy shop in Pittsburgh, but it was later revealed the store’s owner has commissioned it to capitalise on interest in the structures