First it was Utah, then California, Romania and the Netherlands.
Now, half a world away, Christchurch is the latest place around the world to become home to a mysterious metal monolith.
The three-metre object popped up overnight on Saturday at the Christchurch Adventure Park in the Port Hills.
It is similar to one found in the desert in San Juan County, Utah in November, which created headlines around the world.
The most likely theory is that they are the work of a shadowy art collective, but another is that they were put in place by aliens.
Cam Hill, events manager at the adventure park, insists the company did not erect the monolith and says staff are baffled as to how it got there, appearing some time between 5pm on Saturday and 8am the following day.
“We have no idea who put it there or why,” he said on Sunday. “The team discovered it this morning, it wasn’t there when they locked up on Saturday at 5.15pm.
“We have a boundary fence and none of the locks were damaged, so they would have had to carry it in.”
Christchurch's monolith is hollow, with the base buried in the ground. It is located about 750m from the nearest car park, Hill said.
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After news broke about the Utah monolith, similar objects were later spotted in Romania, California and the Netherlands.
It is now thought the objects were put there by copycat artists or pranksters.
The original Utah monolith has since been removed by authorities and in December a group called The Most Famous Artist posted clues and behind-the-scenes pictures of the construction of the monoliths on its Instagram account.
The group, which is based in Sante Fe in New Mexico in the US, offered to sell the monoliths for around $63,000 (US $45,000) to interested parties.
When asked directly by followers if it was “you” who were responsible for the monoliths’ appearance and subsequent disappearance, the Most Famous Artist replied “if by you, you mean us, yes.”
Hill said the Christchurch monolith has created a “real buzz”, with bikers and walkers stopping and taking photos of it.
“It seems secure, so we will leave it there for now, until we can figure out what to do with it.”
But anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of the object may have to be quick – other monoliths around the world have vanished within days of being erected, disappearing as silently as they appeared.
Assuming the monolith is not the work of aliens, it is not the first time that Christchurch has seen mysterious art appear dotted across its landscape.
Shortly before the Covid-19 lockdown a “rogue artist” installed a large metal sculpture in the shape of a paper plane protruding from the sacred Sumner beach rock Rapanui – also known as Shag Rock to Cantabrians.
The artist created it to symbolise the city’s ability to unite and overcome difficult times, but it drew so much criticism that the council took it down and the person responsible apologised.
A mysterious sculpture also appeared at the top of Christchurch's Mt Vernon Park last December, leaving the park’s owners wondering who was responsible.
Monoliths are famous in the world of science fiction through Arthur C Clarke’s Space Odyssey novels and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation, in which they are machines built by aliens.
It’s not the first time strange sightings around the world have prompted speculation about extraterrestrial life.
From the Nazca Lines in Peru – which are thought to have been drawn 2500 years ago – to modern day crop circles, a number of mysteries have been attributed to aliens.
