Virginians Panic After Gorilla Broke Out of a Zoo—With No Gorillas

The news broke out and went on a rampage through social media: a gorilla had escaped from the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk.

People were scared. Was it safe to leave the house? Could they go do groceries, or would the gorilla be attracted to the banana smell? People were in a low-level panic, but for no reason: it was fake.

There was no gorilla on the loose. The Virginia Zoo doesn’t even have a gorilla.

In our modern digital age, an age of wonders and miracles, it’s still way easier to spread a lie than it is to debunk one. A Norfolk gorilla is a good example. It all started because of a power outage. On Tuesday evening, March 11, a crash involving a tractor-trailer knocked out power for over 3,000 Norfolk residents.

Rumors quickly began to swirl as a few residents took to Facebook to claim that not only was there a power outage, but a gorilla had escaped from the zoo and had been roaming around town.

‘We Don’t Have Those’

It was, of course, a bunch of bullshit. Someone either bored out of their mind invented an escaped wild animal for the drama or it was the work of one of Facebook’s many mentally deranged users who have one foot in reality and 10 feet in a cosmic realm the rest of us have not suffered enough brain injuries to access.

Either way, it was a lie that was easily disproven by the simple fact that the Virginia Zoo didn’t lose a gorilla because they didn’t have a gorilla to lose.

The zoo took to Facebook to address the rumors of an escaped gorilla that may or may not have caused a big electrical outage. It said, “Just a friendly reminder, while these hoaxes can be silly, you can rest assured that the Virginia Zoo has extensive safety measures and protocols in place to keep our animals and community safe.”

The zoo then took the time to address how it would respond if there were an escaped animal, reassuring followers that an official formal statement would be issued by a zoo spokesperson and given to all local media, and it would be posted on all of the zoo’s social media pages, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and the official zoo website.

They would not, for instance, allow some nobody on a completely different Facebook thread to announce it on its behalf.