“When we posted on our social media accounts asking if anyone in the community had information about the towers, several commenters theorized that the towers could be set up to mine cryptocurrency,” said Allen, in an email. “However, we don’t have the experts on staff to verify this, nor to we want to spend additional staff time trying to find out exactly what they are for. Our main priority is to remove the items from public property.”

There's no confirmation Helium hotspots are the devices being found by officials, but speculation indeed points to that.