A U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory must replace up to 100,000 locks at a cost of more than $1.6 million, after staff lost several sets of master keys to the complex, then failed to notify superiors, it emerged Friday.

Scientists running the prestigious Lawrence Livermore National Lab and Nuclear Facility near Berkeley, California, not only lost the keys but also, embarrassingly, forgot where they parked the lab on a recent outing to a nearby mall.

"I'm sure we left it right here," said Dr. Bonwit Teller, cousin of the grandson of Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. "Man, we have to find it," he said to some fellow world-class nuclear weapons scientists. "My old man is really going to freak."

The Lab was last seen parked in section A-4 of the Stockton Valley Mall, near the Sauerbraten Cafe and the Nike Rubber Pavilion.

"Oh, man," said two-time Nobel prize winner Dr. Neil Fedora. "This really bites. I left a stash of killer high-grade plutonium in there."