7 ms·

A reddit user [1] found its location [2] and another figured out it was installed sometime during 2015-2016 based on when the satellite imagery changed. [1] ht

• lultimouomo 6y ago
  This guy really is something: > I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak. https://old.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_find_this_obelisk_in_remote_utah/gdfbzee/ https://old.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f...
  • wpasc 6y ago
    You have to love the internet sometimes. Someone who works construction (as he stated) can develop a fun investigatory hobby just via the internet. The he can sign his work with a silly name like bear__f##ker (which I'm guessing is a reference to the movie super troopers).
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      On the other hand, it was people like this that once fingered the wrong person for the Boston Marathon bombing. It's all well and good as long as we remember not to put too much stock in it when it really matters.
      • bgravinz 6y ago
        Once an entire government worth of people led the US into war that cost millions of lives over fake reports of nukes. It would be interesting to compare the damage caused by open, crowd-sourced investigative efforts against the damage caused of closed "authoritative" investigative efforts.
        • dimitrios1 6y ago
          Ha, if only they had the guts to be so specific! They just hid behind the blanket statement of "WMD"s and deflected any questions of specifics. Could have been nerve gas, could have been a biological agent. Everyone played their role (media and government) in deflecting attention away from the core issue that we were being bullshitted.
          • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
            > Everyone played their role (media and government) in deflecting attention away from the core issue that we were being bullshitted. That would never happen today.
        • matthewdgreen 6y ago
          I think it’s amusing that the takeaway from this episode is “the intelligence agencies screwed up” and not “the intelligence agencies found no evidence, and then were directly pressured by their political masters to construct evidence to justify a desired military outcome.”
          • artificialLimbs 6y ago
  • TechBro8615 6y ago
    People like this make OpSec hopeless.
    • sp332 6y ago
      Maybe the surveillance planes made opsec hopeless.
    • dredmorbius 6y ago
      OpSec is (largely) a red herring. What you want is impunity.
      • eeZah7Ux 6y ago
        [citation needed]
        • dredmorbius 6y ago
          I don't have a citation, just inferences based on years of observation. I also didn't lay OpSec is mostly useless. I'm not convinced that's true, though it may be. OpSec alone is useful but brittle. If it's all you've got, you'll probably eventually have a bad day. Looking at entities considered "masterminds", what I often find is ... some intelligence, yes, but a lot of shielding from, or disregard of, risk. Impunity is actual or believed freedom from consequence. There are a few categories: - The proficient: extremely good at their game. Effective, so long as it works. Covert. - The well-protected -- friends in high places. State actors and their contractors, generally. Often under diplomatic covered. "Too big to jail" and politically-conneccted (Brock 'Stanford Rapist" Turner https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/us/brock-turner-release-jail/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/02/us/brock-turner-release-jail/...) The Mossad team assassinating Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Ma...) (though most of the team were effectively burnt). May include some non-state actors: warlords, terrorists, narcotics gangs, though most of these fall below. Covert, but can retreat quickly to safety, or are at low risk if caught. - The brazen. Operations with overwhelming force, whether shown or used. Military campaigns, many criminal organisations, warlords, militias. Overt. - The uncaring: those who have no care whether they live or die. Most suicide attacks, 9/11 bombers, the original "hashīshīn", etc. 2008 Mumbai attacks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks Overt or covert. - The ignorant: Simply unaware of the risks. Child soldiers, the Boxers (China), "wrong way 'round" Pan Am flight 18602 landing at Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, unknown to the pilot, in a heavily-mined harbour. https://medium.com/lapsed-historian/the-long-way-round-part-2-dff698a18a60?source=---------35------------------ https://medium.com/lapsed-historian/the-long-way-round-part-... - The expendable. Assets who need only be used once, whether burnt (retired) or killed afterwards. This includes a segment of the consulting or management workforce, who have a certain ablative funtion. Martin "Pharma Bro" Shkreli. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/17/857612249/pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-denied-release-from-prison-to-research-coronavirus-cur https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The relatively recently disclosed Crypto AG case, where the Swiss manufacturer of a widely-used manufacturer of communications encoding equipment was shown to be a CIA-owned front is a case in point. Signals intelligence relied not so much on exceptional decryption capabilities, but on the widespread use of a backdoored technology. The strong focus of US intelligence policy on similarly backdooring networking hardware (Cisco), telecoms switches (Greece), computing hardware, operating systems, and softwaare, speaks to the probable usefulness of this method. It's not OpSec but influence and immunity that enables this. Update: Parent's question, if brief, was entirely fair. Which is why I answered it.
  • numpad0 6y ago
    What I figured from the Internet is technical proficiency in random fields isn’t rare, but a stable, provable, predictable proficiency, on top of passable level of social acceptability, coexisting in a single consistent humanframe, is what is rare.
    • dmix 6y ago
      > but a stable, provable, predictable proficiency, on top of passable level of social acceptability, coexisting in a single consistent humanframe, is what is rare. Seems like every 'weird job' or skill gets you an American reality TV contract these days. Either that or some Youtube followers.
  • discreditable 6y ago
    You may also find 4chan users' tracking of Shia Labeouf's flag interesting. https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good-thing-pulls-off-the-heist-of-the-century1 https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good...
    • laverya 6y ago
      I wish the video there included the post-capture flagpole. Did the guy actually replace it with an American flag? Don't leave us hanging!
      • late_groomer 6y ago
        "Down went Shia's white flag of defiance, up went a red Trump hat..."
        • laverya 6y ago
          Which is remarkably unclear. Did someone just toss a Trump hat into the air after pulling down the flag? Was the stream stopped before morning returned, and so the only shots are in the dark? Is it an important set of questions? No. But still a better ending than the "oh yeah they stole the flag, now here's a shot of the flag flying during the day again".
          • csunbird 6y ago
            No, I remember the footage, they actually put a MAGA hat and a MAGA shirt on the pole and it was on live stream. Edit: The footage is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rbA3ouyPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rbA3ouyPw
            • laverya 6y ago
              That is a much better ending, thank you! Not entirely sure why it wasn't included in the article's video. (Also really not sure what the idea behind using a shirt as a flag was) And of course there's a couple of Internet Historian videos: https://youtu.be/_p4h3jwJob0 https://youtu.be/_p4h3jwJob0 (warning - very /pol/, exactly as should be expected)
  • CPLX 6y ago
    I believe the term of art for this, self-described by its adherents, is "weaponized autism"
    • beamatronic 6y ago
      Like the Focused in the novel "A Deepness In The Sky" by Vernor Vinge.
      • _1100 6y ago
        I can’t get into Deepness after reading Fire. Too different and my expectations for the scale he set up are too big...
        • duskwuff 6y ago
          You'd be even more frustrated by Children of the Sky. Not only is it limited in scope (to Tines' World), but it leaves a bunch of plot threads unresolved, presumably for a sequel. :/
          • generalizations 6y ago
            I liked the other two, but I stopped reading Children for exactly the reason you described.
        • johncalvinyoung 6y ago
          I like all three of the novels in the series, but for dramatically different reasons and feelings.
  • wp381640 6y ago
    If this guy live streamed himself playing GeoGuessr I’d watch the hell out of it
    • raunakdag 6y ago
      Watch GeoWizard. He’s pretty much the same.
      • wp381640 6y ago
        He introduced me to the site! He’s a great content creator
      • pwinnski 6y ago
        Thanks for the tip, I've now subscribed!
  • ogre_codes 6y ago
    The internet sleuthing might just be smoke and mirrors. It's possible this guy already knew where the monolith because he knew the installer or is the installer. Either way, he's comes out looking good. Not sure which is more likely.
    • lovegoblin 6y ago
      Eh there are whole communities of people who do stuff like this as a hobby. There's no particular reason not to believe it.
      • ogre_codes 6y ago
        Wasn't trying to suggest it's unbelievable or discredit the guy's ability to chase things down. Merely raising the possibility that he could have gotten his information another way. People who put up things like this often want them to get found.
      • ce4 6y ago
        Yep. I sometimes do this with ads for the housing market here in the 30k inhabitants town. Track down a house where the ad shows some exterior but doesnt tell the exact address, only the town or district. It helps a lot having done some OSM Mapping in the past and it is actually fun.
    • Ataraxy 6y ago
      Considering the post is on /r/geoguesser it's much more likely they're just really good at stuff like this. Some people are just insane at that game.
  • bregma 6y ago
    Zoom. Enhance. There it is.
  • dredmorbius 6y ago
    44 bits. It's relatively well known that 33 distinct bits is enough to uniquely identify any individual person now alive on Earth.[1] Geospatially, assuming 10m resolution, 44 bits is enough to identify any unique location on Earth's land surface (46 bits buys you the oceans). Searching for a ~1m^2 monolith visually within a 10m^2 square is reasonable. GNU units: You have: ln((.3 * 4 * (earthradius^2) * pi)/10m^2)/ln(2) You want: Definition: 43.798784 You have: ln((1 * 4 * (earthradius^2) * pi)/10m^2)/ln(2) You want: Definition: 45.535749 49 bits buys 1m accuracy, 63 1cm, 69 1mm. Land or sea. For comparison, cellphone positioning accuracy is typically 8--600m: - 3G iPhone w/ A-GPS ~ 8 meters - 3G iPhone w/ wifi ~ 74 meters - 3G iPhone w/ Cellular positioning ~ 600 meters https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/07/07/how-accurate-is-the-gps-on-my-smart-phone-part-2/ https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/07/07/how-accur... https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/ https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/ ________________________________ Notes: 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304012305/33bits.org/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160304012305/33bits.org/about/
    • raihansaputra 6y ago
      64 bits definitely buys <1cm^2 accuracy using S2 Cells/S2id. I'm always wondering why S2 doesn't see wider use for encoding location/area data. https://s2geometry.io/resources/s2cell_statistics.html https://s2geometry.io/resources/s2cell_statistics.html https://s2geometry.io/devguide/s2cell_hierarchy https://s2geometry.io/devguide/s2cell_hierarchy
      • dredmorbius 6y ago
        Interesting, thanks. Relevant xkcds: Coordinate Precision https://xkcd.com/2170/ https://xkcd.com/2170/ Map of the Internet: https://xkcd.com/195/ https://xkcd.com/195/ xkcd'Splained: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2170:_Coordinate_Precision https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2170:_Coordinate_... https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/195:_Map_of_the_Internet https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/195:_Map_of_the_I...
    • joppy 6y ago
  • olodus 6y ago
    Holy shit. I would not want to play geoguesser against that person.
  • 14 6y ago
    You have also heard about capture the flag reddit has done? It is amazing what they can do with limited information. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/614zy7/what_is_the_deal_with_shia_lebouff_and_capture/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/614zy7/what_i...
  • lqet 6y ago
    As someone who is house-hunting at the moment, this is exactly what I do all evening for houses without an explicit address in the online exposé. Most of the time, the combination of solar panels and the positions of rooftop windows and the chimney is a collision free hash value.
  • jjtheblunt 6y ago
    that's got to be one of the happiest things i've seen online in quite a while
  • ogisan 6y ago
    This reminds me of #SmashTheStone from a few years back when the 4chan community came together track down and prevent 9gag from burying a meme-carved rock. Video from the internet historian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFykQv6Q08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFykQv6Q08
  • nobrains 6y ago
    Then, incase you have not seen this, you will be amazed by it: https://youtu.be/3s54_MF2XPk https://youtu.be/3s54_MF2XPk (reconstitution of the Beirut blast).
  • Symmetry 6y ago
    Information wants to be free, in the sense of leaking out via unexpected sidechannels. But this strongly reminds me of "Entangled Truths, Contagious Lies" which uses a fairly similar example. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wyyfFfaRar2jEdeQK/entangled-truths-contagious-lies https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wyyfFfaRar2jEdeQK/entangled-...
• Phenomenit 6y ago
  How someone found it: "I looked at rock type (Sandstone), color (red and white - no black streaks like found on higher cliffs in Utah), shape (more rounded indicating a more exposed area and erosion), the texture of the canyon floor (flat rock vs sloped indicating higher up in a watershed with infrequent water), and the larger cliff/mesa in the upper background of one of the photos. I took all that and lined it up with the flight time and flight path of the helicopter - earlier in the morning taking off from Monticello, UT and flying almost directly north before going off radar (usually indicating it dropped below radar scan altitude. From there, I know I am looking for a south/east facing canyon with rounded red/white rock, most likely close to the base of a larger cliff/mesa, most likely closer to the top of a watershed, and with a suitable flat area for an AS350 helicopter to land. Took about 30 minutes of random checks around the Green River/Colorado River junction before finding similar terrain. From there it took another 15 minutes to find the exact canyon. Yes... I'm a freak." u/Bear__Fucker
  • skunkworker 6y ago
    Source for those interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_find_this_obelisk_in_remote_utah/gdfbzee/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geoguessr/comments/jzw628/help_me_f... I'm still gobsmacked about the specific geological knowledge and application here turning into a very precise and relatively small search area.
    • fireattack 6y ago
      With the risk of sounding like downplaying it, I think the crucial part here is the potential range of the helicopter, which is fairly limited with the information given (start location, time etc.), and the fact they can walk in from somewhere flat enough to land the helicopter. The geological part is nice but not necessary (you just need to be able to tell the colors of rocks).
    • RoutinePlayer 6y ago
      this type of knowledge is quite expected from certain analysts in certain agencies [this comment will self-destruct in 5 minutes]
• irrational 6y ago
  I see some dotted lines nearby on the Google map. Hiking trails? Jeep trails? I’m wondering how much that thing weighs and how they got it there. Maybe drive it there with a large off-road pickup truck and then got a bunch of guys to carry it down the wash behind it?
  • toufka 6y ago
    It's pretty near Moab, UT - which is an adult kid's playground. The area is abundant with trails. Much of that land is regularly explored with various 4x4s for sport, even (and especially) off the trails. And Moab would also be a place enriched for people with the skill and desire to make a giant metal slab and find a place to stash it. The 'monolith' is just a bit SE of the "Dead Horse Point" (SW of Moab), just on the east side of the river on this map [1]. [1] https://www.discovermoab.com/4-wheeling/ https://www.discovermoab.com/4-wheeling/
  • subsubzero 6y ago
    I see a small dirt road immediately to the north. Given that dirt road intersects with hwy 211 I assume it was driven there in a large ATV. Most likely a 4wd truck and a large ATV went out there with the sculpture in the truck, and then the ATV and a few people with shovels drove it down to the gully to the site to install it.
• fbn79 6y ago
  Not a follower of the show but I see on IMDB that WestWorld was filmed near that location in 2016. Maybe something left off during filming?
  • nitrogen 6y ago
    At least some of it was filmed by Lake Powell, closer to the southwest corner of Utah. It was really weird to see a bunch of troops coming ashore where I was hanging out on the beach a year earlier, against a very recognizable backdrop. Definitely broke the suspension of disbelief.
    • jdmichal 6y ago
      I had something similar happen on a show, I believe this one titled Drive: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/ They had a scene that was "outside Gainesville, FL". That's where I went to university and from the highway it's basically flat forests. The scene instead looked semi-arid with mountains in the background... Ah, looks like my exact story is documented exactly on IMDB! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/goofs?item=gf0809526 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/goofs?item=gf0809526 The show only lasted 6 episodes, so...
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • angst_ridden 6y ago
      Try living in Los Angeles. Every other movie has some local detail pretending to be somewhere else. And if you're ever going up the highway east of the Sierra Nevada, be sure to stop in at Lone Pine's film history museum. The Alabama Hills just west of town have been stand-ins for every western state, as well as Mars, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East ... It's disconcerting to be watching a movie and seeing known landmarks pop up on alien planets, or see Mt. Whitney in the background of a shot in the "Himalaya."
      • 6y ago
• cantrevealname 6y ago
  > installed 2015-2016 based on satellite imagery Unless the artist practiced very good OpSec or was so disciplined that he never checked for satellite imagery of his monument, someone with the right credentials -- like the government with a subpeona or a Google insider -- could identify the artist based on his IP address. Murderers have been identified and convicted by looking up a unique map coordinate on Google Maps, even going back as far Yahoo Maps.
  • rowanG077 6y ago
    You can be convicted for looking at a map where the only thing was tracked is your ip? This is all kinds of insane. No wonder the US incarcerates so many innocent people.
    • Cactus2018 6y ago
      2001 Expedia map https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/us/internet-used-to-find-man-who-is-charged-in-2-of-10-killings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/11/us/internet-used-to-find-... > The federal complaint says ... the newspaper received a letter that said ''nice sob story,'' with a computer-generated map showing an intersection in West Alton in St. Charles County, along with a handwritten X. > ... searchers found human skeletal remains within 50 yards of the location shown by the map's X, about 300 yards from where the decomposed bodies of Ms. Wilson and another victim, Verona Thompson, had been found. > A search by Illinois State Police of Internet mapping companies led to an exact match between features on a map sent to the Post-Dispatch and one found on Expedia.com. > On June 3, the Microsoft Corporation, which tracks access to that Web site, showed the F.B.I. that only someone with the Internet Provider address 65.227.106.78 visited the Expedia.com site and searched the West Alton area within days of the map's mailing to the Post-Dispatch. The user name of that IP address was ''MSN/maurytravis.''
      • rowanG077 6y ago
        Well there was also a video which showed him killing a woman. So he was only found via looking at a map but not convicted.
• 908087 6y ago
  Anyone want to take bets on the number of days until we see the first "died in the desert trying to take a selfie with the metal monolith" story?
• SubiculumCode 6y ago
  I'm so disappointed it isn't Oumuamua.
• iso1631 6y ago
  Went to that google map link. They had a popup advert "Discover food deliveries nearby" Fairly sure that's going to be a tough challenge at that location!
• grenoire 6y ago
  I'm not quite sure about the satellite imagery comparisons. The angle of the sunlight is obviously different looking at the shadows of the surrounding geology.
• trianglem 6y ago
  What I really want to know is if that is a solid piece of metal or just a metal “shell”?
  • trianglem 6y ago
    So looking at the instragram post it looks like steel plates just screwed together. The screw holes are visible too so definitely a hollow shell. Makes it a lot less cool to me :(