How it got there is still unsolved.

“It remains unknown how the item got to its location or who might be responsible,” Las Vegas police said Friday in a series of posts on X announcing the removal of the glimmering, 6-foot-4 prism.

Its discovery over the weekend, and quick removal because of public safety and environmental concerns, revived a pandemic-era mystery that captured the public’s imagination when shiny monoliths evoking the object that appears in the Stanley Kubrick movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” began to appear around the globe.

Members of the Las Vegas police search and rescue team found the object near Gass Peak, part of the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises can be found roaming.

It was the latest discovery in a series of mysterious columns that have popped up since at least 2020.

In November of that year, a similar metal monolith was found deep in the Mars-like landscape of Utah’s red-rock desert. Then came sightings in Romania, central California, New Mexico and on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

All of them disappeared as quickly as they popped up, adding to the lore.

“This thing is not from another world,” Lt. Nick Street of Utah’s Department of Public Safety said at the time.

The Utah monolith, believed to be the first in the series, had been embedded in the rock in an area so remote that officials didn’t immediately reveal its location for fear of people getting lost or stranded while trying to find it. But internet sleuths quickly found the coordinates, and hordes of curious tourists eager to see and touch the otherworldly object arrived, flattening plants with their cars and leaving behind human waste in the bathroom-free backcountry.

Authorities said the same concerns led them to tear down the latest monolith on Thursday.

It was illegally installed on federal land established to protect bighorn sheep and is home to rare plants and desert tortoises. The Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the largest wildlife refuge outside of Alaska and can cover the state of Rhode Island twice.

Christa Weise, acting manager of the wildlife refuge, confirmed Friday that the monolith had been removed but said she couldn’t comment on whether federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation.

The police department said the object was being kept at a secret location while authorities try to figure out the best way to dispose or store the massive structure made out of a reflective sheet of metal that was molded into a prism and secured with rebar and concrete.

Photos accompanying the department’s social media posts showed the object on its side after its removal, which left a large indent in the ground because the rebar had been buried deep into the dirt and rocks.

The department said it “discourages anyone from venturing off marked trails or leaving objects and items behind.”

“This poses a danger to you and the environment,” Las Vegas police said.

In Utah, the removal of the monolith there also left behind a hole in the red rock. The Bureau of Land Management said Friday that it was still actively investigating the Utah case.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A proposed high-speed passenger train between Las Vegas and Southern California got another boost on Tuesday with Biden administration approval to issue $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds for the $12 billion project.

The announcement benefiting the Brightline West project followed a $3 billion U.S. Department of Transportation grant in December and government authorization in 2020 for the company to sell $1 billion in similar bonds.

“We appreciate the confidence placed in us by DOT and are ready to get to work,” Brightline founder and Chairman Wes Edens said in a statement. Florida-based Brightline Holdings LLC currently operates the only privately-owned intercity passenger railroad in the U.S., linking Miami and Orlando with trains reaching speeds up to 125 mph (200 kph).

The 218-mile (351-kilometer) Brightline West project aims to whisk passengers at 186 mph (300 kph) or more in electric trains on new tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor — cutting in half a four-hour freeway trip between Las Vegas and suburban San Bernardino County near Los Angeles.

Planners and politicians say the project has all the required right-of-way and environmental approvals, along with labor agreements, and should help alleviate weekend and end-of-holiday travel traffic jams that often stretch for 15 miles (25 kilometers) on I-15 near the Nevada-California line.

Nevada U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who has backed the project in Congress, said she expects the long-sought rail link will boost Nevada’s tourism economy and create thousands of jobs while reducing traffic and pollution.

No date has been announced for work to start, but officials have said it might be operational by the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

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Dan Zukowski | Smartcitiesdive.com

California could see its second high-speed rail project begin construction next year, according to news reports. Brightline West looks to build an $8 billion passenger rail corridor connecting Southern California and Las Vegas, mainly within the median of the Interstate 15 freeway. It would operate 180-mph electric trains. 

Unlike the publicly funded high-speed rail project from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Brightline West would be privately owned and operated. Brightline West and Brightline are owned by Fortress Investment Group, a global investment firm focusing on transportation, infrastructure and other investments.

In Florida, Brightline currently operates passenger train service from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach and is building an extension to Orlando, with plans to reach Tampa.  Both Brightline projects have or will make use of state-issued private activity bonds. These tax-exempt bonds are frequently used for transportation projects, significantly lowering the cost of capital for the private-sector company.

The user repays the bonds. A total of $1 billion in private activity bonds has been approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation for Brightline West, with the actual borrowing to be done by the states of California and Nevada. Brightline West may soon ask California to issue $200 million in private activity bonds, Bloomberg News reported this week. Brightline acquired a station site along Las Vegas Boulevard and reached an agreement with authorities in California to purchase a 5-acre site at the Rancho Cucamonga Station.

The station is adjacent to a Metrolink commuter rail station and bus lines. Brightline expects that travel time from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas would be two and a quarter hours. Planning began as early as 2009 for high-speed rail connecting Southern California with Las Vegas when the Federal Railroad Administration completed a draft environmental plan for a project then known as DesertXpress.

Brightline acquired the project in 2018. An environmental review is now underway for the additional 49 miles to Rancho Cucamonga. According to Brightline, the high-speed rail line would eliminate 3 million cars annually from the travel corridor and create 1,000 permanent jobs.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday that they dismantled a key international cocaine and money-laundering hub in an ongoing investigation that began six years ago in Las Vegas and has involved more than 30 other countries.

The top federal prosecutor and the FBI chief in Las Vegas told reporters that the probe became public after the recent arrests of six people in Nevada, Arizona, California and Washington state on conspiracy, drug and money-laundering charges.

Acting U.S. Attorney Christopher Chiou and Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office, were flanked by representatives of law enforcement agencies in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Israel, Romania and United Kingdom.

Rouse said the case did not arise from a casino-related investigation.

The FBI chief said millions of dollars were involved, but he wouldn’t specify an amount.

He characterized the conspiracy as a “cog” in a drugs-and-money operation supporting “trans-national” criminal organizations that he said will be crippled by the six arrests and “dozens” of others in other places in the six-year operation dubbed “Operation Money Maker.” Rouse declined to provide exact numbers, places or details of those cases.

“Take the cog out, the spokes fall,” he said. “Their hub is gone.”

Chiou said two of the six people named in separate indictments being unsealed are Las Vegas residents. Others are from Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix and San Jose, California.

The five men and one woman range in age from 31 to 51. Each will be prosecuted in Las Vegas, Chiou said. Each is a U.S. citizen and faces a conspiracy charge.

Three face additional drug distribution charges and four of the six are accused of money laundering. Each could face decades in prison if convicted.

Records of five cases were not immediately accessible in the U.S. District Court public record.

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Federal and local health officials are warning people not to drink a Las Vegas-based bottled water brand, Real Water, after linking it to liver illness in five hospitalized children.

Company President Brent Jones on Wednesday called for stores to stop selling the product “throughout the United States until the issue is resolved.”

“Our goal is to diligently work with the FDA to achieve a swift resolution,” a statement from Jones said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers, restaurants and retailers not to drink, cook with, sell or serve the product, the Southern Nevada Health District said in a statement posted Tuesday.

“Real Water is asking that all retailers pull the product from the shelf, effective immediately, and hold it in the back rooms or return it to the distributors,” Jones’ statement said. “Any customer who has purchased Real Water from a retailer is asked to return the product.”

Jones did not address a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Nevada state court on behalf of a father, mother and their young son who say they became sick from the water.

Real Water is marketed in boxy blue plastic bottles as mineral-rich and “alkalized” and “infused with negative ions.”

Will Kemp, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, said it is sold throughout the Southwest — including Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and the Los Angeles area — at stores including Sprouts, Whole Foods and Costco. It is also delivered to homes in large bottles.

“They represent this as the best water available, and it was the worst,” Kemp said Wednesday.

Jones’ statement traced “the potential health issue” to the company’s “Las Vegas home delivery operation.”

The health district, based in Las Vegas, said it began investigating five cases of acute non-viral hepatitis in November 2020 and notified the FDA.

It said it also investigated the illness of six other people — three children and three adults — who reported less severe symptoms including vomiting, nausea, appetite loss and fatigue.

Five children required hospitalization but recovered, the health district said. The patients lived in four different households.

“To date, the consumption of ‘Real Water’ brand alkaline water was found to be the only common link identified between all the cases,” the district said.

Acute non-viral hepatitis is a liver inflammation that can be caused by exposure to toxins, autoimmune disease or drinking too much alcohol, the district said. Symptoms can include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-colored stools, joint pain and yellow skin or eyes.

The district advised people experiencing symptoms to contact their health care provider.

Affinitylifestyles.com has been in Las Vegas since 1998 and is headed by Brent Jones, a former one-term Republican Nevada state Assembly member from 2016 to 2018. It markets the water as “infused with negative ions” and “the healthiest drinking water available.”

The label says the water is a beneficial pH average of 8.0, although the lawsuit notes it is drawn from the Las Vegas public tap water supply, which has an average pH of 7.8.

The civil lawsuit seeks monetary damages based on several legal claims including false advertising, negligence and deceptive trade practices.

Kemp said his clients, parents Emely and Christopher Wren and their 2-year-old son, each became ill after drinking the water. A daughter did not drink the water and did not become ill.

The boy was flown in November to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City and put on a liver transplant list. But Kemp said his condition improved and he has not undergone surgery.

Emely Wren experienced nausea and fatigue but was not hospitalized, Kemp said.

Christopher Wren was hospitalized in Las Vegas for several days after showing extremely high levels of a blood enzyme indicating liver damage, Kemp said. He is continuing treatment.

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