纽约时报 犹他州发现神秘金属柱(3)

Internet sleuths pinpointed the site anyway - a remote patch near the Bears Ears National Monument - and tourists arrived to take Instagram photos.

网上的侦探们找到了这个地点——熊耳朵国家纪念地附近的一个偏僻的地方——游客们来到这里，将拍的照片传到Instagram上。

Four days later came another announcement: Some locals had taken it upon themselves to remove the monolith.

四天后又传来了另一则消息：一些当地人主动拆除了这块巨石。

A photographer, Ross Bernards, claimed to have witnessed the removal - accomplished under cover of darkness, he said, by a team of four men - and a friend posted blurry Instagram photos that appeared to confirm his story.

一位名叫罗斯·伯纳兹的摄影师声称，他亲眼目睹了这个由四个人组成的团队在黑夜的掩护下完成的移除过程，他的一个朋友在Instagram上发布了模糊的照片，似乎证实了他的说法。

The mystery of who created the monolith may never be solved.

是谁创造了这座巨石的谜团也许永远无法解开。

If we accept that it was a guerrilla art intervention, it was clearly successful, seizing public attention in ways a commissioned work never could.

如果我们承认这是一次游击式的艺术干预，那么它显然是成功的，以专门创作的作品无法达到的方式吸引了公众的注意力。

Weeks after the structure vanished, monolith fever has not abated, with copycats springing up across the U.S. and around the globe, from Romania to Morocco to Paraguay.

在这个构造消失数周后，巨石热仍未消退，美国各地和全球各地都出现了模仿品，包括罗马尼亚、摩洛哥和巴拉圭。

Their spread so captivated social media that many wondered whether the world was falling for a viral marketing campaign.

这一扩散现象吸引了社交媒体上的关注，以至于许多人都想知道世界是否充斥了这种病毒式营销活动。

But the appeal of the monolith touches deeper depths than the usual dopamine hits of the viral internet.

但是，与网上常见的多巴胺攻击相比，巨石的吸引力触及的深度更深。

In an age of GPS mapping and Google Earth, we may feel that the planet has been demystified, down to the centimeter - that there is no more unsurveilled terrain.

在一个GPS地图和谷歌地球流行的时代，我们可能会觉得这个星球的神秘面纱已经被揭开，一直到厘米——没有更多未被观测到的地形。

The appearance of a monolith in a hinterland is a satisfying reminder that the world remains very large.

腹地出现一块巨石满意地提醒我们，世界仍然很大。

It is still possible for an artist, or a prankster, or an artist-prankster, to slip undetected into the backcountry and leave something weird and alluring behind.

对于一个艺术家，或者一个恶作剧者，或者一个恶作剧艺术家来说，仍然有可能在未被察觉的情况下溜进荒郊野外，留下一些怪异而诱人的东西。

Online detectives studying Google Earth figure the pillar was installed around 2016, which would mean that it's possible for a weird, alluring thing to remain hidden for years, a secret shared only with passing bighorn sheep.

研究谷歌地球的网络侦探认为，这根柱子是在2016年左右放置的，这意味着一个奇怪、诱人的东西有可能隐藏多年，而这个秘密只有路过的大角羊才会知道。