Baboons' Bizarre Behaviour Baffles Dutch Zoo

Well, there is that worldwide Al Qaeda threat.

I'd love to really know what causes this behavior. It could have been something as simple as a smell.

Could some jackass have intentionally spooked them at night or something? Maybe some punk janitor trying to impress a friend? Maybe some drunk tourists with fireworks? Someone tampering with their food? Some sick individual showed them a picture of Rosie O'Donnell?

Originally posted by Lady_Tuatha

Zoologists are baffled by the strange behaviour of a troop of baboons at a Dutch zoo which have become inexplicably withdrawn, apparently fearful of an unseen threat. ....

Unseen threat? Perhaps something "cloaked" or camouflaged? Perhaps high tech "toys" that the bad boys play with?

Originally posted by Domo1
Some sick individual showed them a picture of Rosie O'Donnell?

Impossible, the article said they were beginning to relax now.

Maybe this is a bit obvious, but Marijuana is legal in the Netherlands...so...
Think about it, 4 times in 20 years.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


I was going to say they learned how to speak, and understand completely the World around them now.





This is ATS by the way.

Originally posted by juspassinthru

Originally posted by Lady_Tuatha

Zoologists are baffled by the strange behaviour of a troop of baboons at a Dutch zoo which have become inexplicably withdrawn, apparently fearful of an unseen threat. ....

Unseen threat? Perhaps something "cloaked" or camouflaged? Perhaps high tech "toys" that the bad boys play with?

edit on 2-8-2013 by juspassinthru because: (no reason given)

When your saying cloaked you mean like those UFO or ships which are cloaked above the skylines?

Maybe they went on "Strike"?

It seems like I've read similar accounts before, in multiple species, and it had to do with a geomagnetic anomaly, and/or sound frequency, infrasound, subsonics, somethin in that area...
The animals behavior became almost trance-like.
Maybe try correlating EQ or solar or similar activity (worldwide) to the behavior time frame?
Just found this, sounds plausible...
"Is it possible the baboons in
the Emmen zoo heard the 'mysterious
Groningen hum'? Emmen is only 37 miles
from Groningen."
www.examiner.com...

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


What if it has something to do with the mental state of one or a few of the leaders? I suspect the baboons are like humans... when humans are told something or warned of something by their leadership their natural instinct is to panic or become paranoid. Imagine how all the baboons would react if they had neurotic leaders..

last time this happend with the same group of baboons was 6 years ago

Interesting story and sad that animal behaviourists haven't yet been able to determine the problem even though they have the animals in a confined space, and could have their activity recorded 24/7 if they wanted to.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


I think there are so many possibilities here it's not likely to be resolved without some considerable testing, which then risks the health of the animals and could cause more stress for them.

Has anyone considered that it could have been the result of a low flying plane or helicopter? Surely that's not a common thing, but could be an occasional event and an obvious cause of fear and confusion for them.

Of course, it could be an internal community problem. Perhaps there was an argument or a fight within the group that causes this state of mind?

It could just be that an animal they rarely experience occasionally appears in their habitat. It doesn't have to be rational or expected, even Humans with our supposedly superior logical thought have irrational fears and respond to those fears as a community.

It's certainly interesting to speculate, but I don't think we'll ever find the cause of it, and the cause is probably something we would consider strange or quite banal too.

Cool! A local story made it to ATS! I live near the zoo and my sister works there. Here's the latest:

The zoo has been flooded with responses from the public, psychics and animal interpreters, all offering help and theories. What we know is this: the last three times were in 1994, 1997 and 2007. In 94 and 97 the bizarre behavior lasted about 4 days, in 2007 it lasted 6 days. In '07 (late March-early April) the entire group kept staring in the direction of the African Savanna, which has giraffes, rhinos, hippos and zebras. Here is a map of the zoo, the baboons are at 31, the Savanna is number 25.

Those are the facts, now the theories: the zoo keepers looked at weather, local earthquakes, anomalies of the sun and moon at those times but can't find an answer. In 2007 reports came that UFOs had been sighted over the zoo and a local ufologist claimed that similar sightings had been made in 94 and 97.

An animal interpreter visited the zoo yesterday and claims to have made contact with the troop's leader. She has learned that an invisible and unknown enemy caused one of the baboons to be in mortal fear and this spooked the rest of the troop. In nature the troop would flee the area, but since they're in a zoo they're effectively trapped. This is why the behavior of this particular troop isn't seen in nature. She further claims the threat has something to do with "three fingers". Whether the baboons spotted a visitor with 3 fingers or thought one of the caretakers had only 3 fingers, she couldn't say.

Great stuff. All we need now is another bona fide baboon whisperer and we can get a second opinion.

We're discussing this thread on ATS Live Show #172 - 3rd August 2013

reply to post by Symer


Great info, thank you very much!

Would it be possible to get the exact dates from your sister of when the baboons last acted this way? so we can do some research ourselves

The animal interpreters theory is interesting.

reply to post by gemdog


The Groningen hum has been reported for at least a decade now and is probably a result from extraction and processing of natural gas from the large gas fields there. It would seem weird if the baboons are spooked by this roughly once every 5 years. Besides, the baboons aren't looking north. On the map I posted it looks like the Savanna is to the north of the baboons, but the map is turned. Here's an aerial view of the zoo, you can see the baboon rock to the left and the Savanna to the right. They're looking east, toward Germany.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

Poor baboons,I don't like baboons at all,I don't mind admitting that I am afraid of them(but here in Africa we've seen how aggressive they can be,there was even a case here a few years ago where a baboon snatched a baby from a hut+killed it,an aquaintance had a run-in with a baboon in her yard just a while ago+the Cape baboons can be like streetgangs) but I don't like the thought of any animal in distress,even a species I don't like one little bit.

My cat went through some weird experience a few weeks ago,she was distressed+panicky like that,terrified of an inseen presence,really freaked out-we were so upset+and worried for her,luckily it only lasted for one day.She was missing the whole morning which was odd enough_she sleeps on my bed,actually ON me,so I was surprised when she was nowhere inside-i cannot wipe the sleep from my eyes without her in my face,demanding breakfast.There's a woman who I let stay in my outside room connected to the garage+when she came in later to make herself coffee she said she heard a cat miaowing in the garage all night long,sounding very distressed.

We went to look-and found her wedged in as far as she could get into the corner,having backed herself into a tiny hole behind steel plates+lotsa junk-she was backed up as far as she could+still terrified.The whole day she was in terror like that,it was awful.Like she was having a "bad trip" or terrified by something invisible.Thing is-the garage was closed up,there was no way for her to get inside-we don't know how she got in,to back herself up into the smallest cranny in fear.Just one of those inexplicable things,I guess.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


She thinks 94 and 97 were probably during the summer. Don't know if it's related, but both summers were very warm. With an average temperature for both seasons of 64 degrees Fahrenheit, they hold the shared 6th place for hottest summers since recording began in 1901. The last few weeks have been very warm as well. However, early April in 2007 was quite cold, around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

We've had a massive lighting storm here last Saturday and intense rain that flooded a few building where the sewage system couldn't handle the water, including some buildings in the zoo. However, the baboons weren't spooked till the following Monday, so I'm not sure that's the answer either.