ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – A metal monolith that mysteriously appeared and disappeared in a field in southeastern Turkey turned out to be a publicity stunt ahead of a government event on Tuesday during which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a space program for the country.
The three-meter-high (approximately 10-foot-tall) metal slab that carried an ancient Turkish writing was found Friday by a farmer in Sanliurfa province. It was discovered near the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Gobekli Tepe, which houses megalithic structures dating back to the 10th millennium BC, thousands of years before Stonehenge.
However, it was reported that the shiny structure bearing the inscription “Look at the sky, you will see the moon” in the ancient Turkish alphabet Gokturk, disappeared on Tuesday morning, adding to the mystery.
An image of the monolith was later projected on a screen while Erdogan presented Turkey’s space program during a televised event.
“Now I present to you the vision, strategy and ten-year goals of Turkey and I say,‘ look at the sky, you will see the moon, ’” Erdogan said.
Earlier, state agency Anadolu quoted the owner of the camp as saying he was baffled by both his appearance and his disappearance.
“We don’t know if it was placed in my field for marketing purposes or as advertising,” Anatolu said, quoting Fuat Demirdil. “We saw that the metal block was no longer in place. Residents also can’t solve the mystery of the metal block. “
The agency also quoted local resident Hasan Yildiz as saying the block was still in the field on Monday evening, but that it had disappeared in the morning.
Other mysterious monoliths have appeared similarly and some have disappeared in numerous countries in recent months.
Gobekli Tepe was the setting for Netflix’s Turkish mystery series, “The Gift.”