They were on a mission to count sheep when they found something they had not counted on.

As a Utah helicopter crew buzzed over the southeastern part of the state looking for big horn sheep last week, sitting beneath them in the middle of the desert was a bright shiny monolith, the stuff of sci-fi sagas.

Pilot Bret Hutchings of the state Department of Public Safety recalled someone on board spotting the gleaming metal object firmly implanted in a small clearing set against the redness of the rocks and sand below.

¡°He¡¯s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around,¡± Hutchings told KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. ¡°There¡¯s this thing, there¡¯s this thing back there. We¡¯ve got to go look at it.¡±

After Hutchings set their helicopter down in the remote area, which remains undisclosed to discourage a rush of gawkers, they got a closer look, but found ¡°no obvious indication¡± of how it got there, the public safety department said.

Images released by the department show the monolith coming up to the shoulders of a man standing on the shoulders of another after the discovery last Wednesday.

Hutchings joked about the object¡¯s possible other-worldly origins and the obvious parallel to the classic 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, but thought the answer was more down to Earth.

¡°I¡¯m assuming it is some new wave artist or something, or somebody who just is a big ¡®2001: A Space Odyssey¡¯ fan,¡± he said.

In the film, an alien monolith is a recurring symbol that appears to play a key role in man¡¯s evolution from the apes.

Whatever the Utah object¡¯s origins, it has fired up the minds of conspiracy theorists and sci-fi fans on social media. ¡°Finally someone gets it!¡± said Twitter user Dwight Jackson of Calgary, Alberta. ¡°This is the 2020 reset we¡¯ve been waiting for! Where is the mothership ...?¡±

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, declined to comment late on Tuesday on its investigation into the matter.

But it issued a reminder on Twitter that ¡°using, occupying, or developing the public lands or their resources without a required authorization is illegal, no matter what planet you are from.¡±