The tall object is said to bear an uncanny resemblance to the monument in director Stanley Kubrick’s famous 1968 A Space Odyssey film, where a monolith arrives from an unseen alien civilisation.
Reddit users pointed out how lines at the monolith’s base suggested a rock saw had been used to put it in the ground and that it appeared to be held together with screws, adding yet more doubt about the alien conspiracy theories.
But there is a far more prosaic explanation for the structure, with many observers quick to compare the piece work by minimalist sculptors.
A spokesperson for late artist John McCracken gallerist, David Zwirner, confirmed although the structure was not one of his works, he suspects “it is a work by a fellow artist paying homage to McCracken”.