For decades, we've been looking for a signal
from alien civilizations.
But what if their first message didn't
come as a radio transmission but was
instead delivered like a gift?
HOST (VOICEOVER): November 2020, the Red
Rock Desert of Southern Utah.
A helicopter crew and state biologist
are counting Bighorn sheep when something catches their eye.
They land and make this astounding discovery.
A large, shiny, silver object tucked into an almost
inaccessible canyon.
This is wild.
HOST (VOICEOVER): Look closer.
From every angle, it's clear this thing
does not belong here.
Utah keeps its location secret, but news
leaks out on social media.
And it's quickly labeled the Utah Monolith.
US Army vet David Surber takes all the secrecy as a challenge.
I'm like, OK, I'm going to find this place, right?
It was probably 11:00 PM, and I drove for six hours
straight through the night to try to get there.
HOST (VOICEOVER): David works his way deep into a canyon.
DAVID SURBER: I don't see anyone.
HOST (VOICEOVER): Just after daybreak, he rounds a corner.
DAVID SURBER: There she is.
Oh!
And it's just there, and I was like, oh, god!
Oh!
And, uh, it was just a really cool experience to have
a few minutes alone with it.
ERIC GRUNDHAUSER: There are a few things more
iconic than a monolith, whether we're
talking about the monolith that started "2001--
A Space Odyssey" or the obelisks of ancient Egypt.
So when this mysterious metal monument popped up,
it really sparked people's imagination.
The idea of being that possibly one of the ways that aliens
would contact us would be to leave an information-laden
monolith for us to investigate and discover.
HOST (VOICEOVER): One focus on the internet
was whether the monolith was constructed
with alien building materials.
MJ BANIAS: The belief was that they
are comprised of something called a meta-materials
or a meta-metal
HOST (VOICEOVER): Meta-materials are
engineered to have properties not found naturally on Earth.
Special composites of metal strands and ceramics
are created to absorb radar for stealth technology.
And there are reports from reputed UFO crash sites
that the craft contain alloys that
give them anti-gravity and cloaking characteristics.
Accounts of alien meta-materials went mainstream in 2017
with a "New York Times" article.
MJ BANIAS: According to the "New York Times" report,
Bigelow Aerospace was contracted by the government
to store possible materials from alien craft.
HOST (VOICEOVER): It's believed that the US government is
studying these alien materials to create
the next generation of weapons.
Could the Utah monolith be made of the same sort
of alien materials?
David tests it.
DAVID SURBER: I had a magnet with me,
mainly because we were trying to figure out,
you know, what type of metal is it.
Not sticking.
And also, was it a solid object or was it hollow?
Not solid.
HOST (VOICEOVER): So what's it made of and by whom?
Other mysterious monoliths have been discovered recently,
often in remote locations-- in Romania,
the Isle of Wight, and Sweden.
Are these objects some sort of alien calling card,
or could they be the product of a very creative and very human
mind?
TIM MCMILLAN: You know, when you first see this,
you can't help but think of some type
of extraterrestrial technology.
However, there's nothing about what we're seeing in this video
that leads me to believe it's manufactured from any kind
of exotic materials.
HOST (VOICEOVER): Unlike reports of UFO meta-materials,
the monolith doesn't defy gravity.
And it's definitely not cloaked.
In-person, David noticed fingerprint smudges
in ragged corners as well as other signs
of terrestrial construction.
TIM MCMILLAN: The telltale signs of those rivets
would make me believe this is man-made, no matter how kind
of anomalous its appearance is.
HOST (VOICEOVER): For McMillan, that's
the giveaway-- the signs of ordinary earthbound metalwork.
If it is human-made, Kathy Strain
has an idea why someone went through all the effort
to put it in the middle of nowhere.
KATHY STRAIN: I think it's a message of beauty, of artwork,
maybe makes you reflect more that, I wanted to come
here for the wilderness.
HOST (VOICEOVER): Some artists like Donald Judd
believe that wilderness is the ultimate art gallery
and use isolated locations for installation sites.
But who made this and what it's made from
is almost impossible to determine from a video.
TIM MCMILLAN: Ultimately, you're not
going to be able to determine exactly
what this object is until you get it into a lab
and under in-depth analysis.
But just as it appeared out of nowhere,
the Utah monolith vanished, literally overnight.
So until it's found and we can get
it into a lab, our verdict--
this is not an alien artifact.
It's either a human artwork or a hoax.
Either way, it's a compelling conversation piece.