Who Is Planting Antennas and Photo voltaic Panels Close to Salt Lake Metropolis?

Attempt to determine this one out: it could seem that someone is putting in antenna-equipped rigs everywhere in the foothills of Salt Lake Metropolis. Native authorities officers are stumped as to who’s accountable or what the rigs are for. In addition they appear to be fairly aggravated to must preserve taking the shit down.
“We simply don’t know sufficient at this level to invest what they’re,” Tyler Fonarow, town’s leisure trails supervisor, informed native information outlet KSL-5.
In accordance with Fonarow, the primary rigs confirmed up a couple of yr in the past, however a half dozen extra have popped up since then, and it’s believed there are extra that haven’t found but. From the footage shared by officers, the rigs seem like odd beaconing towers, sometimes consisting of a photo voltaic panel, an antenna, and a locked battery field. Fairly bizarrely, they are being left in mountainous areas which are troublesome to get to.
“These towers have been bolted into totally different peaks and summits and ridges across the foothills,” Fonarow informed the outlet. “It began with one or two, and now it is likely to be as a lot as a dozen,” he defined. Video shared by the native information outlet exhibits Fonarow and different officers dismantling one of many rigs that had been left on Twin Peaks, an space situated alongside the native Wasatch Vary.
Fonarow mentioned the method of dismantling and eradicating the rig took hours. “As soon as we stand up to the Twin Peaks, it will get actual steep, so we have been up there. There have been 5 of us, after which we took some youngsters’ sleds to deliver the gear all the way down to make it somewhat bit simpler on us,” he mentioned.
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Much more intriguingly, Fonarow commented throughout the identical interview that the weird setups “is likely to be associated to cryptocurrency.” He mentioned:
“It is likely to be associated to cryptocurrency and relaying networks and having the ability to earn money off that…in order that’s another excuse we need to cease it now earlier than it turns into a dumping floor for dozens and dozens of extra antennas.”
Huh? What? Are shitcoin schemers establishing a secret sun-pilfering system to mine Utah’s bountiful rays for crypto-mining energy?
Fonarow didn’t elaborate on the crypto angle in his interview, so we reached out to town’s trails division for extra info. The division’s group outreach supervisor, Luke Allen, mentioned that the crypto thought had really come from locals speaking on social media.
“Once we posted on our social media accounts asking if anybody locally had details about the towers, a number of commenters theorized that the towers may very well be set as much as mine cryptocurrency,” mentioned Allen, in an e mail. “Nonetheless, we don’t have the consultants on workers to confirm this, nor to we need to spend further workers time looking for out precisely what they’re for. Our most important precedence is to take away the gadgets from public property.”
What number of of these items has the federal government uprooted? “Our workers has eliminated two towers to date, and we’re conscious of 4 or 5 extra, a few of that are on adjoining jurisdictions,” Allen mentioned. He added that it could have been “a very good exercise to lug the gear as much as these distant areas, but it surely’s one thing that somebody who’s in fine condition might have simply finished.” It’s unclear simply how costly the gear is, he mentioned.
Truthfully, this one has us completely stumped, so be at liberty to spout off within the remark part as to what the hell you suppose is happening right here.