Is the video of a chimpanzee firing a machine gun at African soldiers true?

For more than ten years, a video has been circulating on the Internet in which a monkey is given an AK-47, after which the primate begins to shoot in different directions, scaring people. We have verified the authenticity of this entry.

In RuNet, this viral video is very popular on VKontakte. So, in 2024 in public “Come in, let's treat you" And "Such a planet” with the caption “Nobody Expected” and the caption “Taught the Leathermen a Lesson,” it received 3.1 million and 247,000 views at the time of this writing, respectively. Over the years, the same video received many views in other public pages and on users’ personal pages: for example, 121,000 in 2017, 100,000 — in 2018, 31,000 — in 2020 and 255,000 - in 2022. In addition, there are several Russian-language channels on YouTube, where this video has received more than 1 million views in 2011, 2012 And 2017 year. “The military in one of the African countries is making fun of a tame monkey. They give her a Kalashnikov assault rifle to hold. The monkey feels absolutely confident with the AK-47,” reads one of the descriptions.

In the comments under the video, in addition to many racist remarks in which Russian-speaking Internet users compare Africans to monkeys, some joke that this is what Planet of the Apes would look like in real life.

You can find many different versions of this video on the Internet. Their duration may vary: from approx. 20 up to more 40 sec. The entry can also be cropped or rewired with added music.

The fullest version of the video lasts 42 seconds. In this version, at the beginning the inscriptions appear on a black background: “R. Wyatt, November 8, 2009. Primate behavior reference 21 of 27. Monkey with AK-47. Record from a West African soldier." In the lower right corner there is a time counter, and on the left is the signature “20th Century Fox Research Library”.

The earliest appearance of the “Verified” video was found on the YouTube channel apeswillrise (“the monkeys will rise”), where the video was published back on July 6, 2011. There the recording received more than 84 million views.

This account was dedicated to advertising the blockbuster "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" from the studio 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios), whose worldwide distribution started at the beginning of August 2011. The call to buy tickets for this film is also in the description of the viral video. In addition, on July 8, 2011, this video was posted by one of the official accounts 20th Century Studios. The film's synopsis reads: “A young scientist is testing a new cure for Alzheimer's disease on monkeys. The drug has an amazing side effect: it increases the intelligence of primates several times.” The plot centers on the chimpanzee Caesar, who has learned to speak.

Consequently, the viral video of a monkey with a machine gun was part of an advertising campaign to promote a feature film. Back in 2011, specialized websites dedicated to cinema reportedthat Fox studio created series video of primates doing unusual things. For example, in one clip The chimpanzee cuts the carcass into pieces with a machete. But could filmmakers use real footage of a monkey with an AK-47 for marketing?

At the beginning of the video, the name of director Rupert Wyatt appears, and some publications, for example Delfi, back in the summer of 2011, they announced that in the film “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” there is an episode with the military from West Africa giving a machine gun to a chimpanzee. However, there was no such scene in the film itself. In 2011, the video Ape With AK-47 received nomination for the Viral Video Award, and on the voting page there were indicated the authors of the video are director Tommy Means (also a second cameraman), producer Steph Smith, editor Lasse Järvi and cameraman Paul Atkins, which means the recording was definitely not made by a soldier from an unnamed African country.

Although the video is staged, experts declarethat apes can indeed be trained to use a diverse arsenal of weapons. “I have no doubt that chimpanzees can be trained to use weapons in the manner shown there,” he said John Mitani, a primatologist at the University of Michigan who specializes in chimpanzee behavior. Steve Ross, a primatologist at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, also agreed that chimpanzees are cognitively and physically capable of handling weapons, adding that they even use them in the wild. “Chimpanzees have been observed using rudimentary weapons (such as projectiles, clubs and spears), so they are able to understand that the tool can be used to cause harm or damage,” Ross said. “Whether they will understand what a gun is is harder to say.” Any shooting performed by chimpanzees will most likely be limited to imitation. Mitani believes that chimpanzee actors would learn to use a machine gun to please their trainers and receive a reward, but he is not sure that apes are capable of using firearms to intentionally cause harm: “I don’t think that when a chimpanzee fires a weapon, he can be aware of [the consequences of what] he is doing.”

Thus, the video, stylized as documentary footage from Africa, was actually filmed specifically to promote a Hollywood film.

Cover photo: screenshot from video @apeswillrise (YouTube)

Not true

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