Mysterious monolith appears on Welsh hilltop

A mysterious monolith has suddenly appeared on a hilltop in Powys.

The gleaming, silver structure was spotted by walkers on Hay Bluff, near the town of Hay-on-Wye on the weekend.

Sprouting up out of the mud and measuring about 10ft (3m) tall, its discovery has led many to take to social media to question who put it there and why.

Some have pondered whether or not the object could be of extra-terrestrial origin.

Local builder Craig Muir said he was "taken aback" when he spotted what he assumed was "some sort of a UFO" while out hiking.

"It seemed like a very fine metallic almost like a surgical steel," he said, describing the monolith, a large single upright block usually made of stone.

"It looked perfectly levelled and steady, despite the weather being windy."

Since there is no way to drive up to the top of the hill, Mr Muir suggested it could have been taken there by a group of people or dropped into position from a helicopter.

"It didn't seem like it was chucked in there, instead it has been accurately put in the ground," he said.

"However, there were no obvious tracks around it and one would think that something like that would cause a lot of mess."

This is not the first sighting of a mystery monolith.

In November 2020, a monolith was spotted by people aboard a helicopter in the remote Utah desert in the USA, before disappearing days later.

Just days after its disappearance, another monolith appeared on the Isle of Wight.

Similar structures have been seen in Cornwall, and a few isolated parts of Europe.

One even popped up on top of Glastonbury Tor, an area steeped in Celtic mythology, inscribed with the words "Not Banksy" on the side.