Desert exploration - Tall rocks with red gates on top

[fatalen]

Do these serve any purpose? Is there any way to get on top of these rocks or bring the gates down?
I have a theory that the button behind the gate opens the next gate, or opens the gate around it, suggesting there would be a way up there, else it would be redundant.

[Lullatone]

sometime tornado spawn in map

you go in it

[AzureBlaze]

I wondered this for a long time too.
But, extremely rarely, as Lullatone said, there is such a thing as a weather effect Tornado that appears. In all my hours of play (a zillion) and all my runnings of the desert area (loads) CO's and FreeArea etc, I have seen literally only a single tornado.

It happened so quickly, that it appeared right on top of me. There was junk in the wind, and I was magically transported across like........the whole map....it wasn't even close, and landed right on top of the button that releases the fence on top of the rock. It literally throws you at the button so you cannot miss.

As far as I know, the crates up there are ordinary. They were for me. I took a photo of being up there because that's the only way to do it.

I'm not exactly sure why they would bother with something soooooo suuuuper rare like that. It's almost like an odd little easter egg. It's not particularly useful (or people would rage they never get up there) but it is also so rare, that why bother to code such a thing?

I do like it though. It creates an air of mystery without being harmful.

[gigawuts]

It was originally only in skylands, and originally much more common, but it isn't guaranteed to land you on the pillar and would regularly split MPA's up. They probably toned it down because of that. The crates you get, as far as I've seen, are always red.