A baboon was sighted at several different locations in Jackson, N.J. Thursday and Friday, leading authorities to believe it may have escaped from a local amusement park.
Sam and Stacey Murphy spotted the baboon in the backyard of their Jackson Township home.
"I noticed that it had the red bottom and I knew it was a baboon," said Stacey. "I instantly went into panic mode."
Her husband Sam also saw the baboon walking on the side of their house.
"I was a little shocked and confused at first," said Sam. "I actually had to take a double take to make sure it wasn't a dog or anything along those lines but you could definitely tell it was a baboon."
Police say they received a call at about 2:10 p.m. Thursday, saying there was a monkey on the side of Interstate 195, near exit 16. Nancy Diorio spotted the animal while sitting in her car as authorities tried to corner it.
"It jumped into a little cluster of trees and it stayed there quite awhile until the police officer came," said Nancy. "When he was walking it jumped and went towards 195 and that's the last we've seen of it."
Not long after, police received another call from a woman saying that there was a baboon sitting on her back porch.
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The sightings continued Friday, as one resident called police about a baboon on the 600 block of Winterberry Boulevard at 10:12 a.m. A second call came into police at 10:50 a.m., saying the monkey was in a backyard on the 500 block of Buttonwood Drive.
One witness told NBC Philadelphia that the baboon ran up to him and grabbed his lawn mower handle while he was mowing his lawn Friday. At about 4 p.m. people spotted the baboon on a golf course in Jackson, but it took off before officials could catch up.
Because of the close proximity to Six Flags Great Adventure, police believe the Old World monkey ran off from the amusement park’s Monkey Jungle.
Park officials say they are not positive one of theirs is missing because the animals are not counted daily. The Great Adventure baboons are fenced in and implanted with microchips.
In the same spirit of the Bronx Zoo's cobra that went missing in March and got its own Twitter page, three Twitter pages for the baboon popped up by Friday morning.
"RT @NewJerseyBaboon: Actually, @NBCPhiladelphia, @JerseyBaboon and @BaboonOnTheRun are just decoys so I can make Hoboken by nightfall," one of the "baboons" tweeted.
Police and Six Flags officials searched for the primate, but still have not found it.
Baboons are ground dwellers, that are omnivorous but mostly vegetarian, according to Wikipedia.
They have been known to raid human dwellings, states the collaborative encyclopedia.
Officials say anyone who spots the roaming baboon should call police -- and not approach the animal, even though baboons are not typically aggressive.
