Mysterious Monolith returns: See its holiday glow-up at San Francisco park
In the last few weeks of 2020, mysterious monoliths have been appearing in random places around the world. The latest one showed up in San Francisco’s Corona Heights Park on Christmas.
What made this monolith different from the others is the fact that it was built out of gingerbread. The seven-foot, three-sided tower was made of gingerbread sheets stacked together and held up by icing. It was also decorated with a few gumdrops.
Phil Ginsburg, the head of San Francisco’s Recreation & Parks Department, told KQED it “looks like a great spot to get baked” and the monument wouldn’t be removed from the site “until the cookie crumbles”. There still isn’t anything known about the monolith’s origins or who built it.
How the San Francisco park monolith collapsed
People found the aromatic monolith while taking walks on the California hilltop. Many were surprised to see something like that during a seemingly normal everyday routine. People took pictures & videos, so thanks to the internet, it didn’t take very long for the news to spread about the gingerbread figure.
The monolith ended up getting covered by local, national, and even international news. People who wouldn’t normally walk up the hill made the trek in the San Francisco park just to witness the monolith themselves.
By Saturday morning, the day after Christmas, the monolith collapsed and the cookie did crumble. That’s no surprise, though, since the material wasn’t made of anything that would last very long. Plus, there was a bit of rain which likely softened the cookie. Gingerbread isn’t very sturdy on its own (sorry, Gingerbread Man), but hopefully the San Francisco locals who wanted to visit it got a chance to.
Woke up to walk the dog on Christmas morning here in San Francisco and at Corona Heights park a mysterious GINGERBREAD MONOLITH has appeared! pic.twitter.com/ykcw1LqIqN
— Sixelå! (@alexisgallagher) December 25, 2020
A surprise to see
Seeing a gingerbread monolith isn’t something that happens every day. Many people who saw the monolith in the San Francisco park posted images of it on Twitter.
“Woke up to walk the dog on Christmas morning here in San Francisco and at Corona Heights park a mysterious GINGERBREAD MONOLITH has appeared,” wrote one Twitter user.
This Twitter user, like many others, were shocked at what they saw on their morning walks. Those people were some of the first to witness it before the monolith went viral.
Imagine this, you’re in San Francisco for the holidays so on Christmas morning you decide to walk to Corona Heights and all of a sudden a gingerbread monolith appears.
— Miss Cloud (@Miss_Kuraudo) December 27, 2020
All of a sudden
No one could have predicted or expected a gingerbread monolith appearing in a San Francisco park. Though many people saw the monolith through pictures on social media & the news, few got to see it in person.
“Imagine this, you’re in San Francisco for the holidays so on Christmas morning you decide to walk to Corona Heights and all of a sudden a gingerbread monolith appears,” said a Twitter user.
Even well past sunset, plenty of people made the hike up Corona Heights Park to get a glimpse of the spot where the Gingerbread Monolith stood. pic.twitter.com/xtqp8t1KxO
— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) December 27, 2020
One last chance to see it
Some people wanted to see the gingerbread monolith even after it collapsed. Even once it got dark outside, people were still walking up the San Francisco park hill to take pictures of it.
“Even well past sunset, plenty of people made the hike up Corona Heights Park to get a glimpse of the spot where the Gingerbread Monolith stood,” wrote a journalist on Twitter.
Other monolith sightings
The Christmas gingerbread monolith wasn’t the only recent spotting of the mysterious towers. The hype around monoliths started last month when a stainless steel one was discovered in southeastern Utah’s red-rock desert. The creator is still anonymous and didn’t have permission to set it up on public land.
After the Utah monolith gained popularity, another one was found in northern Romania. That one quickly disappeared and little is known about its origins, either.
A few days later, another monolith appeared on a trail in Atascadero, California. It was taken down by a group of men. Other locations monoliths have appeared in include Pennsylvania & the Netherlands. It’s unclear if or when another monolith will show up somewhere or what any of the monoliths mean.
