A mysterious monolith that baffled police in Las Vegas has been taken down over “environmental concerns”.

Police said members of a volunteer search and rescue team found it near Gass Peak in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada.

It was unclear where it had come from, and officers were hoping for help on social media.

In an update on Friday, they revealed they had “assisted” in removing the item “due to public safety and environmental concerns”.

The mirrored object is six feet five inches tall and just over a foot wide, they added.

“It was made out of reflective sheet metal folded into a triangle and secured with rebar and concrete,” police said.

It is being kept at an “undisclosed location” while officers decide how to store it or dispose of it.

“It remains unknown how the item got to its location or who might be responsible.

“At this time there is no LVMPD (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department) investigation into the object or the circumstances surrounding its existence.”

It was removed quickly after being illegally installed on federal land managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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The sighting follows a series of instances of mysterious shiny columns popping up around the world since at least 2020.

In November of that year, a roughly 12ft metal monolith similar to the one seen in Las Vegas was discovered deep in the desert in Utah.

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It was in an area so remote that officials did not immediately reveal its location for fear of people getting lost or stranded while trying to find it.

It was followed by sightings in Romania, central California, and on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

In March this year, a 10ft monolith appeared on a hillside in southeast Wales.

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