A single video was all it took. By Tuesday night, Jackson Township police in New Jersey were fielding a wave of 911 calls about a tiger supposedly roaming near Six Flags Great Adventure, the theme park that keeps big cats as part of its Wild Safari drive-through zoo. There was just one problem: no tiger had gone anywhere.
"After a recent video going viral on social media regarding what is being reported as a possible loose tiger, it has been confirmed there is NOT a tiger on the loose within the township," the Jackson Police Department wrote on Facebook, adding that Six Flags Great Adventure confirmed all of its animals were "safe and accounted for inside their designated enclosures."
Officers also made an unusual plea to residents caught up in the panic:
Please do not call 911 and tie up emergency lines and telecommunicators regarding this.
Jackson Police Department
It is not hard to see why the clip traveled so fast. Jackson sits a few miles from a park that genuinely does house tigers, and the town has real history with the animals — in 1999, a big cat was spotted along Interstate 195 nearby and was later put down after tranquilizing attempts failed, an incident Shore News Network revisited as the new rumor spread. That history made this week's footage feel plausible enough to set off a genuine, if misplaced, scramble.
Local station NJ 101.5 reported that police leaned on social media rather than a formal press conference to kill the story quickly, a sign of how fast a single unverified clip can now outrun an official response. As of Wednesday, no source for the original video had been identified, and police did not say whether it was doctored, staged or simply misinterpreted footage of something else entirely.
For now, Six Flags Great Adventure remains open as usual, its actual tigers presumably unaware they briefly became the most-discussed animals in New Jersey. Police say the case is closed, though the video itself is still circulating.