It has stood upright for nearly 6000 years and is viewed as a nationally important archaeological site.
But Dane's Stone, an ancient rock that lies in Moulin, Perthshire, has come crashing down to earth after the surrounding ground was pounded by incessant rain.
Marianne Carruthers was sitting at home 50 yards away when she heard the 7ft landmark - thought to date back to the neolithic era or Bronze Age - smash into the muddy ground.
She said: "I went to the window but couldn't see anything. It wasn't until half an hour later that I noticed something was amiss and the stone just didn't seem to be there anymore.
"I actually took off my spectacles and cleaned them because I thought I was seeing things. I couldn't believe it."
Luckily, the quartzite stone, which was once part of a stone circle before the other rocks were removed and buried underground, does not appear to be damaged.
A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland confirmed a team of experts had visited the scene and moves would be made to lift the stone back up.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article