What a wild situation!

Photos that went viral, allegedly capturing wild monkeys roaming freely in New Jersey, sparked a police frenzy this week. However, officials now believe the images were likely an AI-generated prank.

The seemingly authentic photos, depicting numerous monkeys causing havoc at the Georgia King Village apartment complex in Newark, led to urgent calls to local authorities. This prompted a hectic search by the police on Thursday morning, as reported by Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda to PIX11.

One of the images showed a pair of monkeys scavenging through a dumpster.

Despite thoroughly searching the vicinity and inspecting the apartment buildings, officers found no trace of the primates, Miranda confirmed.

“Officers have not located any monkeys,” he told the outlet, noting the city’s animal control officers also received a similar bogus report on Wednesday.

“Any photos or videos posted on social media regarding this incident are likely AI-generated.”

While the fake sightings are still being investigated, police labeled the incident “a hoax.”

Hariette Guity, who works in an office near where the monkeys were reported, told the outlet she received a call from an alarmed coworker who advised her to “be careful” due to the digital fakes.

“Use AI for the right things, not something like this,” she told News12 New Jersey.

“Because when something really does happen, officers are going to take their time coming out because it could possibly be AI, something that’s false.”

Local resident Richard Chapman also blasted the stunt for wasting police resources and time.

“Having the police come over here for something that’s not really real, it’s wasting their time when they could be doing other things with their time,” he said.

“I just think that we need to us AI the right way and not play around too much and make things bigger than what it is.”

The incident comes amid nationwide police warnings about a viral TikTok craze dubbed the “AI Homeless Man Prank” — a brazen stunt where people generate images of a homeless man inside their homes or outside their doorways and then report it to authorities.