A monolith that mysteriously appeared in Turkey before disappearing on Tuesday turned out to be a publicity stunt linked to the country’s newly announced space program.
The 3 meter high metal plate with the phrase “Look at the sky, you will see the moon” in ancient Turkish script was discovered by a farmer in Sanliurfa province on Friday.
By Tuesday morning, the glittering structure had disappeared, confusing the locals.
“We don’t know if it was placed for marketing purposes or as an advertisement on my field,” farmer Fuat Demirdil told the state-run Anadolu Agency.
“Residents cannot solve the mystery of the metal block,” he added.
But the conundrum was solved later in the day, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan projected an image of the monolith onto a screen as he announced the country’s new space program.
“I now present to you Turkey’s 10-year vision, strategy and goals and I say, look to the sky, you will see the moon,” Erdogan said at a televised event.
Erdogan’s use of the structure and phrase on it during his announcement made it clear that the monolith’s appearance was part of a gimmick.
It was only the latest in a series of recent incidents in which similar structures appeared and disappeared in numerous countries.
With pole wires