A big story around El Paso, Texas, recently has been a “mysterious monolith” that popped up in El Paso’s Upper Valley on Monday, and how as quickly as it appeared it disappeared.

Its disappearance wasn’t much of a mystery. Cell phone video shot by Hugo Gandarilla and posted on the Instagram account FitFam El Paso showed a group of people removing the structure and hauling it away in the back of a pickup. I’m not saying they stole it, but as far as we have been able to determine the group did not have permission to take it.

But let’s put a pin on that for now.

El Pasoans want to know how the tall, shiny object got there to begin with. Like I wrote at the top of the page, it wasn’t the work of beings from another planet, or a marketing campaign, or a renegade art installation as the El Paso internet theorized.

According to a local news station, the structure was created by Rick Guerrero and placed at The Substation with the property owner’s consent because he thought the public would get a kick out of it. Guerrero said he made it out of stainless-steel panels and only spent about $25 in supplies, but that he was still disappointed with how “destructive” people were.

“Everybody preaches El Paso Strong and uplift and support but just on the brief scanning I did on your page and some of the other outlets, you know, people were talking about graffiting it,” he told another local news station.

As for the fate of the alleged monolith thieves, footage posted on the internet shows they were pulled over by police, but allowed to go on with their lives (and the monolith) because a police report had not been filed. Rick said he doesn’t plan to seek justice.

So now the only mystery left is who the group is who took it, why did they take it, and what did they do with it? Get it KFOX-TV, I know how much you guys are all about this.

So that's the story in El Paso. Do you feel there are similar explanations for other mystery monoliths?

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