A good scare can be fun this time of year—at least if you’re the one volunteering yourself for it.

However, for many animals—including the monkeys who are tormented in Elisabeth Murray’s twisted terror experiments at a government laboratory—every day is a nightmare that never ends. Read on, if you dare, to learn more about some of history’s most notorious terror tests—and how you can help PETA stop those that are still being conducted today.

Harry Harlow’s House of Horrors

Three words: “pit of despair.” That’s what the infamous experimenter Harry Harlow called the dark metal box inside which he locked monkeys in total isolation, as part of his so-called psychological experiments in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. It didn’t take long for the monkeys to go insane, tearing and biting their own skin and ripping out their hair. When they were finally removed from isolation, they were too traumatized to interact with other monkeys—some were so shocked and depressed that they starved themselves to death. Although Harlow’s terror tests began before PETA was established in 1980, we’ve never let up on the experimenters who’ve followed in his footsteps.

Stephen Suomi’s Scary Sequel

Harlow’s minion, Stephen Suomi, continued his ghastly legacy. For more than 30 years, Suomi tore newborn monkeys away from their mothers, terrorized them with loud sounds and fake snakes, addicted them to alcohol, and forced them to live alone inside cramped cages at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The physical and psychological trauma inflicted on these babies crippled many of them for life. It took an intensive years-long PETA campaign, but NIH finally relented—it ended Suomi’s cruel experiments and closed his laboratory in 2015.

Melinda Novak’s ‘Terror Trap’

Melinda Novak, another Harlow protégé, coauthored a book chapter with him explaining how they had invented a device called “the terror trap,” which they used “to produce turmoil and terror” in monkeys. She described putting infant monkeys into this device, causing them to scream and cry “until they became hoarse from the violence of their vocalization.” Novak continued her monkey-tormenting career at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, where she studied how monkeys used in experiments mutilate themselves. She abruptly retired after PETA filed a lawsuit to compel the release of 40 hours of damning video footage showing deeply distressed monkeys pacing endlessly, tearing out their hair, and even poking their thumbs into their own eye sockets.

And You Thought Chucky Was Scary?

At the Oregon National Primate Research Center, experimenter Elinor Sullivan has spent over $5 million in taxpayer funds to terrorize baby monkeys with things like Mr. Potato Head dolls. Yes, you read that right. First, she feeds pregnant monkeys unhealthy high-fat diets. After the babies are born, she tears them away from their mothers (many babies would desperately fling themselves around the cage because of the trauma of this sudden separation) and attempts to scare the wits out of them. If that doesn’t do the trick, she engages the baby monkeys in staring contests, which makes them naturally feel threatened and in danger. PETA filed a lawsuit against the university, after it denied our open-records request for videos of Sullivan’s cruel experiments, and won! In April 2020, a court ruled that OHSU must give us 74 videos of taxpayer-funded experiments on monkeys, which we released to the public, a huge step toward ending these fright tests for good.

Why the Caged Bird Screams

Monkeys aren’t the only victims of terror tests. At Louisiana State University (LSU), serial bird killer Christine Lattin’s newest torment will involve capturing house sparrows and fitting them with digital ID transmitters. Then she will release and terrify them with the sounds of a predator, such as a hawk. Eventually, she will recapture all the birds and their babies, cut off their heads, and examine their brains. In earlier experiments, she fed birds crude oil, wounded their legs, tore out their feathers, and intentionally terrorized them by confining them to cloth bags, rattling their cages, and rolling cages on a cart so that they couldn’t perch. PETA’s campaign calling on LSU to end Lattin’s hideous experiments is growing ever louder.

Elisabeth Murray: Menace to Monkeys

NIH experimenter Elisabeth Murray saws open monkeys’ skulls and injects toxins or suctions out parts of the brain, causing permanent and traumatic damage. Then, she confines the monkeys to a small cage and purposely terrifies them with fake spiders and snakes. When she’s done, she kills them. Her experiments have raked in more than $36 million in taxpayer funds over the past 13 years alone—but not one treatment or cure for humans has ever come out of her fake-science experiments in 30 years. Please join PETA in telling NIH that you don’t want your tax dollars used to torment monkeys.