The story behind Pittsburgh's mysterious monolith in the Strip District

Chris Beers is no stranger to going viral. It’s exactly what he expected would happen after a mysterious monolith showed up in front of his Strip District candy shop last week.

The shiny, silver monolith first appeared at Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop early Thursday morning. Beers took a 32-minute Facebook live video commemorating the occasion.

“First Utah, then Romania! Now a giant Monolith just mysteriously appeared in Pittsburgh’s Strip District @ Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop,” the post says.

Within six hours, Beers was fielding calls from reporters asking about the monolith.

He fessed up right away: He built the 10-foot tall structure out of plywood wrapped in sheet metal.

“It was clearly a joke,” Beers said. “But I knew that it would go viral.”

Beers said the monolith was a surefire way to generate publicity for the candy shop because a series of them have been popping up — and disappearing — in random places around the world.

“I knew I could get a viral hit off of this. Yes, it’s fake. I built it myself,” Beers said. “But the message is: Support small business. I just wanted to make people laugh and have fun and get a good kick out of it.”

The candy shop monolith has since been featured in local, national and international news outlets such as Reuters, the Daily Mail and UNILAD. And hundreds of people have flocked to the candy shop to take selfies and pictures with it, even though Beers has admitted it’s fake.

“They’re amazed by this thing,” Beers said. “Some people are like, ‘It makes me happy.’ I don’t understand it. I still don’t understand most of it. I just knew I had something that would be fun and viral.”

Beers said he knew the idea would work because he also has gotten worldwide attention for his pickle creations.

“I made pickle juice soda famous. The following year, I was the inventor of pickle cotton candy. And then the following year, I created the pickle Oreo,” Beers said. “Each and every single time, it got worldwide attention. I kind of have the formula of what it takes to get the attention.”

The candy shop monolith was up for about a day before it disappeared. But it didn’t mysteriously vanish like the others — someone stole it.

Beers immediately constructed another monolith to replace the first. He said he built another one because people still want to come see and take pictures with it. And while they’re at the store, maybe they’ll buy some candy.

“I’m disappointed that somebody took it,” Beers said. “This one is much heavier and bolted into the ground. That’s not a challenge. That’s just a statement.”

Beers said he didn’t report the theft to police because they have more important things to deal with. He hopes people will leave the new monolith alone so it can be seen and enjoyed.

“That’s not the story,” Beers said of the theft. “The story is I built something fun and made people laugh and we put Pittsburgh on the map. I’m not worried about whoever took it.”

Beers said the new monolith will stay up for a couple a days before “it’ll mysteriously disappear just like all the others.”