Black Monoliths Attract Internet Pilgrims in Hampton Bays
Hamptons Police Department officers responded to calls about a possible emotionally disturbed individual on Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays on Tuesday after Southampton resident Odysseus Hal was seen behaving in an odd manner while wearing a gorilla suit and crossing back and forth between a pair of gigantic black columns on either side of the road.
According to various reports from motorists who witnessed the incident, the man dressed as a gorilla was crawling on his feet and fists, jumping up and down, screaming and waving a large bone over his head. “But the strangest part was how he seemed to be praying to these black monoliths and trying to get people to pull over and join him in the ecstatic display,” Hamptons Police spokesman Larry Hirsch said. “It was an incredibly unsettling scene, yet it also felt like something pulling at the deepest recesses of my memory.”
The columns in question lay the groundwork for a controversial Shinnecock Indian Nation construction project—two 61-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide electronic billboards, each featuring a 30-foot digital advertising display set below a massive Shinnecock seal. The tribe’s filings have called the billboards “monuments” and, it seems, at least one man has made them a site of worship.
“We’d hoped the guy would see reason once we got him out of that gorilla suit and gave him some time to cool off, but he just never stopped,” Hirsch recalled. “He was talking about ‘firstborn’ aliens, tyco-something-something anomalies and ‘unseen forces’ all day in his jail cell. I really didn’t know what to say to him.”
Hal was eventually released, but police have issued a ticket enforcing a mandatory psychological evaluation within the next 72 hours, Hirsch said. The site has remained otherwise undisturbed, but he noted that HPD cyber units are catching some interesting internet chatter which seems to point toward more people like Hal arriving soon.
“Hal has captured their imaginations, or perhaps their desperation, and we count some 9,000 pilgrims who are buying into his theory that these columns are some sort of important alien conduit and religious site,” Hirsch continued. “And I have to say, for whatever reason, he’s pretty convincing. I mean, I visited the site last night after work and out of uniform, just to follow up and see what’s what, and it did carry a certain resonance. I also discovered both monoliths are carrying a strong magnetic field,” he said, noting that he left feeling more positive about some recent personal struggles.
“What’s the deal with that? It’s weird. I know everything hasn’t been right with me, but after that night, I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.”
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