# Monkey from Mars on Display in Georgia Crime Lab **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 31, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380 "2008-07-31T17:13:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/1 "2008-07-31T17:13:50Z")
Story [here](http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D927RANG1&show_article=1&catnum=-1). This is great! Three guys, presumably rednecks, in Georgia made world headlines with their “Martian monkey” 55 years ago. Excerpt: “At the height of UFO hysteria then sweeping the nation, two young barbers and a butcher took a dead monkey in 1953, lopped off its tail and applied a liberal dose of hair remover and some green coloring to the carcass. Then they left the primate on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car.” ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/2 "2008-07-31T18:02:37Z")
Could the same kind of hoax be pulled off today? Something that couldn’t be figured out in a matter of seconds (minutes, hours). Is it possible? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/3 "2008-07-31T18:07:24Z")
I’d like to think we’re more sophisticated today, at last so much so that no one’s going to believe a dyed monkey is from Mars. I’ll bet the average person’s knowledge today of space in general and Mars in paricular is more than the average person’s back then. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/4 "2008-07-31T18:16:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Where the men got the monkey is not clear. Yeah, I’m guessing there’s a whole other story here between the lines. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/5 "2008-07-31T18:23:02Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Could the same kind of hoax be pulled off today? Something that couldn’t be figured out in a matter of seconds (minutes, hours). Is it possible? [/QUOTE] Even this hoax didn’t last very long: > [@](#): > > But within hours the monkey business unraveled. > > Dr. Herman D. Jones, the founder and director of the GBI lab, and Dr. Marion Hines, an anatomy professor at Emory University, examined the creature that evening and proclaimed it to be a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![CateAyo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@CateAyo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CateAyo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/6 "2008-07-31T22:20:26Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Story [here](http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D927RANG1&show_article=1&catnum=-1). This is great! Three guys, presumably rednecks, in Georgia made world headlines with their “Martian monkey” 55 years ago. [/QUOTE] Presumably rednecks? Upon what do you base this? I see nothing in the article to support this. Perhaps you are under the impression, as some are, that only rednecks inhabit Georgia. In other news, I apologize for the digression. Hawk ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/7 "2008-07-31T22:39:06Z")
[QUOTE=CateAyo] Presumably rednecks? Upon what do you base this? I see nothing in the article to support this. [/QUOTE] These guys claimed that they ran over a space alien with their pickup truck. Their idea of a practical joke involved a blowtorch and a dead animal. This one story is practically a Jeff Foxworthy HBO Special. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/8 "2008-08-01T04:17:56Z")
[QUOTE=CateAyo] Presumably rednecks? Upon what do you base this? I see nothing in the article to support this. Perhaps you are under the impression, as some are, that only rednecks inhabit Georgia. In other news, I apologize for the digression. Hawk [/QUOTE] Oh, just a hunch. 😉 (Full disclsore: I actually know an engineer in Atlanta who works for the state, and he’s not a redneck.) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/9 "2008-08-01T12:57:11Z")
Hartleypool Georgia? ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkey-from-mars-on-display-in-georgia-crime-lab/458380/10 "2008-08-01T13:03:00Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] Yeah, I’m guessing there’s a whole other story here between the lines. [/QUOTE] I dread to think about that one! We know there’s no happy ending for the chimp though.