Mystery of the monoliths: if only it were aliens

Someone had to spoil it. That could be the motto of the social media age when things that begin as wonders become mere memes. Now our inability to let well alone is turning the most mysterious art happening of 2020 into another tedious prank.

Strange metal monoliths are materialising everywhere, in California, Romania, the Isle of Wight and, according to the latest reports, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. Their rate of appearance is quickening: barely 24 hours separate photos of the lone sentinel on the Isle of Wight’s Compton Beach and the new European manifestations. As these silent messengers follow those seen at wider intervals in Utah, California and Romania it seems that their message is becoming more urgent, the time of their revelation imminent.

Except no one believes that. They are certainly a great global diversion at the end of a wretched year. But as with a brilliant stunt by Banksy, we are all in on the joke. There’s even speculation Banksy is behind them, naturellement. And he might as well be, for all the apocalyptic terror the monoliths arouse. The social media chat is about “aliens”, not aliens.

It would be ironic if these structures really are the work of highly intelligent extraterrestrials trying to make first contact – but we’re so jaded by art pranks and sci-fi cliches that we’re taking it for an elaborate stunt. “Earthlings, we wished to impart the secret of the universe, but you are too cynical,” they’ll lament as they obliterate us.

Everyone recognises the monuments’ similarity to the Sentinels in Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke’s 2001. If they really were like those slender black plinths that change the course of human history, they might be our much-needed salvation.

The similarity between the new “sentinels” and the ones from 2001 is sadly the most damning evidence that these are made by mere human artists. As they crop up all over the place, it’s also becoming clear their construction is all too earthly – no unrecognised metals or inexplicable manufacture. The National Trust said the object on its land on the Isle of Wight seemed “secure on a wooden plinth” and that it was made from “mirrored sections of plastic or Perspex material”. That’s a bit ordinary. And to add another banal twist an organisation called The Most Famous Artist claims authorship of the columns in Utah and California, offering replicas for $45,000 (£34,000) .