Kathy Snow Guillermo writes in '' Monkey Business '' that the first ALF action was the removal on September 22 , 1981 , of the Silver Spring monkeys , 17 lab monkeys in the legal custody of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ( PETA ) , after a researcher who had been experimenting on them was arrested for alleged violations of cruelty legislation . When the court ruled that the monkeys be returned to the researcher , they mysteriously disappeared , only to reappear five days later when PETA learned that legal action against the researcher could not proceed without the monkeys as evidence . < ! -- Deleted image removed : Ingrid Newkirk , the president of PETA , writes that the first ALF cell was set up in late 1982 , after a police officer she calls " Valerie " responded to the publicity triggered by the Silver Spring monkeys case , and flew to England to be trained by the ALF . Posing as a reporter , Valerie was put in touch with Ronnie Lee by Kim Stallwood , who at the time was working for the BUAV . Lee directed her to a training camp , where she was taught how to break into laboratories . Newkirk writes that Valerie returned to Maryland and set up an ALF cell , with the first raid taking place on December 24 , 1982 , against Howard University , where 24 cats were removed , some of whose back legs had been crippled . Jo Shoesmith , an American attorney and animal rights activist , says Newkirk 's account of " Valerie " is not only fictionalized , as Newkirk acknowledges , but totally fictitious
Silver Spring monkeys
Silver Spring monkeys
Animal Liberation Front