Somehow, atomic scientists working in New Mexico in the ’50s or ’60s got their hands on an elephant, maybe a really, really old elephant, from a circus or an animal park. That “What If’ mad scientist thing kicks in. What if they shoot as much radioactive stuff into the elephant, how long would it take to die and what would the autopsy teach us?

They do it, the elephant dies and who knows what they learned. Oh, gee, maybe, even huge animals die of radioactive poisoning?

But what to do with the carcass? It’s big, and it’s full of dope. What did they do with everything else? Bury it!!! To this day, nobody knows where (they kept really lousy records back then), but since this radioactive stuff NEVER GOES AWAY, woe be to the poor contractor who digs it up with a backhoe.

The chimpanzee: Somebody at ITRI got some cheap primates, a few monkeys and a chimpanzee thrown in for good measure. Maybe they were getting tired of doin’ the beagles.

Anyway, chimps are smart. Very smart. And they have those pesky opposable thumbs, unlike beagles. First night in his new home, chimp figures out how to open his cage, then proceeds to open ALL of the monkey cages, a few dozen of them. An escape plot is hatched and everybody heads for the nearby Sandia Mountains.

It takes several days to track and trap the miscreants. Except the chimp. He manages to live for a few years on the lam through some pretty harsh New Mexico winters; a hunter stumbles across his body a few months after his death.

So, local lore, urban legend, truth, or??? Let me know what YOU know about the chimp and the elephant!