50 baboons escaped the Paris Zoo today. No one's quite sure how they did it.

This sounds decidedly less fun than a barrel of monkeys.

On Friday, visitors at the Paris Zoological Park were forced to flee after 50-odd baboons escaped their enclosures, prompting an evacuation of the zoo, The Telegraph reports. The mechanics of the mass escape remain a mystery: "It's not known how they got out," a source told the Daily Mail.

The primate jailbreak was reported after a zoo worker found a small congregation of baboons lingering by what AFP describes as "a service corridor." While evacuating, zoo visitors reportedly did not come face to face with any fearsome packs of baboons drunk on their newfound freedom, thankfully averting any potential Planet of the Apes-style confrontations.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Zoo officials, however, did not mess around when it came to putting down the insurrection. The Guardian writes: "The emergency services were called, and keepers, vets and a team carrying tranquilizer darts were on the scene in minutes and surrounded the animals."

At the time of writing, four baboons reportedly remain on the loose. Be careful out there, Paris.