A three-meter-tall (9.8-foot-tall) mysterious metal monolith reappeared in Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakır province, just a few months after it was discovered in Turkey’s Şanlıurfa province for the first time and was later revealed to be part of the unveiling of the country's National Space Program.
The metal slab has words carved on it in the Göktürk alphabet, the Old Turkic script, with the words "Look at the sky if you want to see the Moon."
The monolith, which was placed near Zerzevan Castle for the promotion of an event set to be held in September in Diyarbakır, was met with astonishment by the local people.
The 2021 International Diyarbakır Zerzevan Sky Observation Event will be held between Sept. 2-4 at the 3,000-year-old Zerzevan Castle, which is on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The monolith, which is considered a symbolic reflection of Turkey's vision for space, will remain in the region during the event.
The sky observation event, which has been held by TÜBITAK National Observatory (TUG) in southern Antalya province for 22 years, will be held in Diyarbakır this year.
It will be attended by professional and amateur astronomers and will bring together hundreds of enthusiasts from Turkey and around the world.
Many seminars, competitions and workshops related to astronomy will be held during the event as part of Turkey’s National Space Program aimed at increasing the interest of young people in space.
Monolith first found in Göbeklitepe
The three-meter-tall metal slab was found on Feb. 5 in the middle of an empty field in Göbeklitepe, home to the world’s oldest temple site, in Şanlıurfa province.
Many curious people visited the site to view the metal slab and wondered about its meaning.
It attracted international media coverage before disappearing on the morning of Feb. 9 as part of planned publicity for Turkey's new space program.
On Feb. 9, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed that the mysterious monolith was part of the unveiling of the country's National Space Program.
The monolith craze began in November 2020 when the first monolith, which was strikingly similar to the one in the sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey," appeared in a desert in the U.S. state of Utah. Similar objects turned up in unlikely places, from Romania to Canada.
Theories about who made and installed mysterious monoliths often point to extraterrestrial beings, but more often than not, the monoliths have been found to be the work of local artists paying tribute to the sci-fi film. The origin of other monoliths remains unknown, while rumors on social media claim they might be part of a marketing campaign for a show on a streaming service.