CORRECTION 11/25/20: Arthur C. Clarke wrote the screenplay and the novel more or less simultaneously.
--------------
The Stanley Kubrick film 2001 (and the Arthur C. Clark novels on which it was based) has a scene in which early hominids encounter an alien artifact dubbed a monolith. This encounter induces a leap forward in human evolution.
We are now at the cusp of a similar revolution. The crew of a helicopter for the Utah Department of Public Safety spotted a metallic monolith in a rural area. They landed to investigate. KSL TV News reports:
“One of the biologists is the one who spotted it and we just happened to fly directly over the top of it,” said pilot Bret Hutchings. “He was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around!’ And I was like, ‘what.’ And he’s like, ‘There’s this thing back there – we’ve got to go look at it!’” [...]
“I’d say it’s probably between 10 and 12 feet-high,” Hutchings said. “We were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it.”
Hutchings said it didn’t look like it was dropped into the ground from above. It was firmly planted there.
The DPS employees took several photos and videos of this haunting encounter.
-via Gizmodo
The book was written concurrently with the screenplay..