Roadside curiosity Starship Pegasus on I-35 demolished

The Starship Pegasus, a popular roadside curiosity along I-35E south of Dallas, has apparently been vaporized. Well, demolished, anyway.

The roadside spaceship that began life in 2005 as a restaurant in Italy, about 45 miles south of Dallas, was bought by the McDonald’s across the highway around this time a year ago, according to the Starship Pegasus Facebook page.

The most recent post on the page on Tuesday mentioned the oddity’s imminent demise: “Dear Starship Pegasus fans. We were informed the McDonalds will try to tear down the Starship starting today. Could anyone please post or send a photo.”

Fans dropped by to check it out, and sure enough, there was an excavator digging away at the structure. Video ensued:

Fans were not happy:

Owner Andy Gee told monolithic.org in 2014 that its origins are tied to Greek mythology — Pegasus is the winged horse of Zeus — astronomy (the constellation), science fiction (“Star Trek”) and UFOs (from the Pegasus constellation, of course).

Here’s longer drone footage of the demolition Tuesday posted on YouTube:

You might have also noticed the giant caterpillar structure nearby off I-35 made of a series of 76-foot interconnected domes. That’s still there, along with the headquarters of Monolithic, which makes and promotes monolithic domes.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 4:19 PM with the headline "Roadside curiosity Starship Pegasus on I-35 demolished."