SALT LAKE CITY (NewsNation Now) — A Utah helicopter crew made a strange discovery in the middle of Red Rock Country: an unexplained metal monolith.

They spotted the mysterious structure while assisting the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in a count of bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah.

The Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau crew immediately landed nearby to investigate.

Crew members said there was no evidence indicating who or what could have placed the monolith in such a challenging area to access, NewsNation affiliate KTVX said.

According to the Department of Public Safety, “It is illegal to install structures or art without authorization on federally managed lands, no matter what planet you’re from.”

Officials did not reveal the exact location of the monolith because it is in a very remote area and if people try to visit, they said “there is a significant possibility they may become stranded and require rescue.”

Mysterious findings and intrigue are not uncommon in Utah. For as long as humans have lived in the Uintah Basin, they’ve been seeing strange things in the sky. In the 1970s, Utah State professor Frank Salisbury wrote a well-documented book about hundreds of UFO sightings in the basin.

But the strangeness goes way beyond mystery aircraft. For 15 generations, indigenous tribes, including the Utes, have referred to this sandstone ridge as being “in the path of the skinwalker.” They consider the skinwalker a malevolent spirit and a shapeshifter.