40 Monkeys Escape Research Facility

Submission 4,003

Part of a series on Monkeys / Apes. [View Related Entries]

Overview

40 Monkeys Escape Research Facility refers to an event that took place in South Carolina in early November 2024. News channels reported that 43 monkeys had broken out of a scientific research facility in Beaufort County and that the police told residents to keep their doors and windows locked. The news came soon after the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election was called, leading several QAnon adjacent conservative posters to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of trying to create another global pandemic.

Background

On November 6th, 2024, the Yemassee Police Department posted to Facebook^[1] about 43 primates escaping from an Alpha Genesis facility in Beaufort County, South Carolina after a caretaker failed to secure doors. The post gathered over 400 reactions, 800 comments and 3,000 shares in two days.

Several news outlets^[2] began reporting on a large-scale monkey escape from an Alpha Genesis facility in Beaufort County, South Carolina on November 7th. Authorities urged locals to keep their doors and windows closed as they tried to capture the monkeys, which they reported as mostly young females who had never been tested on.

The news was reposted to Reddit's^[4] /r/news by Redditor /u/MilmoWK on November 7th, 2024, where it gathered over 10,000 upvotes in a day. X^[3] user @rawsalerts posted about the incident to Twitter / X on November 7th as well, gathering over 22,000 likes in a day.

🚨#BREAKING: Officials are urgently searching for 40 Rhesus monkeys that escaped from bio-research lab📌#Yemassee | #SouthCarolina⁰Currently an urgent search is underway as authorities report that 40 to 43 rhesus monkeys escaped from a research bio-lab facility in the… pic.twitter.com/lSDmhnyIrm

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 7, 2024

Online Reactions

On November 7th, 2024, Twitter^[5] user @ExtremeBlitz__ posted an AI-generated video of YouTuber MoistCr1TiKal being attacked by a monkey, gathering over 58,000 likes in a day.

BREAKING: Youtuber MoistCr1TiKal was attacked by a wild Monkey last night.Doctors wish him a speedy recovery. pic.twitter.com/V0D8bpZHOB

— duck (@ExtremeBlitz__) November 7, 2024

Also on November 7th, Twitter^[6] user @FOMOCapitalLLC posted an image of Nancy Pelosi on the phone, writing, "release the monkeys," and gathering over 1,000 likes in a day.

Some conservative internet users were suspicious of the incident as it spread online, accusing the former chief medical advisor to the President Dr. Fauci of being involved. On November 7th, X^[7] user @realstewpeters posted one such tweet, writing, "40 disease-infested monkeys are on the loose in South Carolina after escaping a Fauci-funded bio-medical research lab," and gathering over 2,000 likes in a day.

X^[8] user @CryptidPolitics posted a similar tweet on November 7th, 2024, also gathering over 2,000 likes in a day.