Long tall sallies by aliens, smartphone company, or work of an artist?

Is there something stupid about man’s search for intelligent life? Considering it’s getting rare to find it on Earth each passing day, humans have allowed themselves to be left stupefied by mysterious metallic monoliths popping up — and then disappearing — first at a Utah desert, and then at the Romanian city of Piatra Neamt since last month.

The gleaming structures sparked media frenzy, while igniting conspiracy theories about them being works of a Banksy-type artist, or pranksters inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s '2001: A Space Odyssey' where black monoliths on the Moon and around Jupiter act as transmitters upon contact for aliens. Or the monoliths could be picnic litter left behind by aliens.

The chances of this being a subtle campaign by BlackBerry, once the intelligent human’s smartphone, are not ruled out. After all, perfectly non-extraterrestrials announced in August that a new BB model would resurrect the ‘black monolith for the palm’ sometime in the first half of 2021.


Intelligent aliens, smart smartphone company or artists for art’s sake, with the silly season descending upon us despite the stupid virus, we, Earthlings, will find comfort, at least for a little while, to try and figure out whether this ‘Unidentified Phallic Object’ is a Sign. The answer to ‘Of what?’ should keep us warm at least till Christmas.