Mysterious Seattle Monolith Reappears on Island

S E A T T L E, Jan. 5 -- A group of artists has come forward to claimresponsibility for the 9-foot-tall monolith that appeared with thedawn of 2001 at a city park.

But members of “Some People” say they have no idea whoschlepped the 350-pound metal rectangle to another city parkseveral miles away.

The steel slab, which recalled the ominously humming andoccasionally shrieking central icon in the 1968 movie 2001: ASpace Odyssey, had disappeared from Magnuson Park by daybreakWednesday.

It appeared at Duck Island in Green Lake on Thursday.

A Long Planning

Seattle artist Caleb Schaber, 27, said the 15 members of SomePeople spent several months planning the monolith project. Theyraised money, hired a builder they still won’t name and made plansto erect it on Kite Hill at Magnuson Park in north Seattle on NewYear’s Eve.

Schaber said the group actually put the sculpture’s concretebase in place a day early, leaving holes for four pieces of rebarprotruding from the monolith’s bottom edge.

He said he would like to reclaim the monolith but has no way toremove it from Duck Island, which is about 50 yards offshore atGreen Lake, a popular jogging and strolling site.

The slab measures about 9 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 1 footthick.