In Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novelization of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (screenplay co-written with Stanley Kubrick), the dimensions of TMA-1 (the Mars monolith) were given in this passage:
"One curious, and perhaps quite unimportant, feature of the block had led to endless argument. The monolith was 11 feet high, and 1 1/4 by 5 feet in cross-section. When its dimensions were checked with great care, they were found to be in the exact ratio 1 to 4 to 9 -- the squares of the first three integers. no one could suggest any plausible explanation for this, but it could hardly be a coincidence, for the proportions held to the limits of measurable accuracy..."
However, those dimensions don't QUITE match the 1:4:9 ratio! And I always found it amazing that the monolith builders could so precisely predict the English measuring system three million years ago. ;-)