Mysterious monolith appears in Seattle park

2001: An Open-Space Oddity

A mysterious black monolith has been erected in a Seattle park calling to mind a similar structure from Stanley Kubrick's seminal film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Like Kubrick's monolith no-one seems to know why the steel structure was place on a grassy knoll in Seattle's Magnuson Park - nor who erected it there. However on thing of note is that the dimension of the structure, nine foot by four foot by one foot, match the ratio of lengths of the monoliths featured in the Kubrick film and the Arthur C Clark book from which the movie is derived.

The Seattle Times reports there are few clues as to the origin of the structure. There's no commemorating plaque and the ground was carefully put back into place after the structure was erected. However the presence of several plastic bottle-cap rings littered the ground around the monolith, provide evidence it is the work of terrestrial pranksters rather than extraterrestrial intelligence.

Whether the monolith is the work of artists or a publicity stunt by locally based Monolith Software is also anybody's guess. Although Bill Gates favourite film is said to be Kubrick's masterwork, no-one seriously suspects the Beast of Redmond is behind the stunt. It's too imaginative and intelligent to be the work of Microsoft.

The most plausible suspects seem to be a group called Support the Monolith who paraded a wooden monolith through Seattle on New Year's Eve. Police confiscated this at the same time as the Magnuson Park monolith was erected.

Whoever put the monolith in the Park it's provoking a reaction from locals.

The Seattle Times reports local resident Denny Sargent was moved to hum the theme song of 2001 when he approached the monolith.

"I feel my intelligence increasing by the moment," he said. ®

External links:
Seattle Times' story featuring picture of the monolith