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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 26, 2016 22:38:58 GMT -5
Clown Sightings in Florida, Arrests in Georgia & KentuckyCreepy clown sightings happening around the eastern US have now spread to Florida. A video of a clown seen hiding in the woods near a road in Marion County has both deputies and residents on edge. The video was posted on Facebook last week and has since been viewed more than a million times. During another reported sighting in Florida, a Palm Bay (Brevard County) resident was walking her dog Sunday evening when she spotted two clowns staring at her and ran home as fast as she could.
Photos and videos of the creepy clown sightings are increasingly becoming popular and taking social media by storm. Florida deputies, as well as law enforcement agencies around the country, are issuing warnings to communities advising of the dangers behind what is believed to be a prank.
Sightings have now been reported in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina and there have been arrests of a man in clown costume, a man who turned in a false report and a child carrying weapon for protection against clowns. An 11-year-old girl in Athens, Georgia, was arrested earlier this month for bringing a knife to school that she said was to protect her family and herself from the clowns that were reportedly terrorizing the community.
Another arrest occurred in Middlesboro, Kentucky, Friday, Sept. 23, when Jonathan Martin (above), 20, was taken into custody and charged with wearing a mask in a public place and disorderly conduct. According to police, he was discovered in what was said to be “full clown costume” and mask crouching among trees by an apartment complex.
Recent reports of clowns attempting to lure children into the woods have sparked alarm and police have warned individuals against dressing in clown costumes, adding it could lead to criminal charges. “Dressing as a clown and driving, walking or standing in public can create a dangerous situation for you and others,” police in nearby Barbourville, Kentucky, said in a statement online. “While dressing up is not, in and of itself, against the law, doing so in public and thereby creating an unnecessary sense of alarm is illegal.”
Also in Kentucky, authorities in Glasgow and Bowling Green have received multiple complaints from residents about clowns scaring members of the public. The Glasgow Police Department received two complaints and both the Bowling Green Police Department and Warren County Sheriff’s Office responded to clown-related calls earlier this week. Sources: Jernell Pridgeon, WTVJ, Sept. 26, 2016; WCPO, Sept. 24, 2016; Deborah Highland, The Bowling Green Daily News, Sept. 23, 2016; and Meg Wagner, The New York Daily News, Sept. 24, 2016.
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Post by Sam on Sept 27, 2016 1:14:24 GMT -5
People aren't taking these sightings seriously enough in my opinion. Some of them are people who report them to get attention and some are people playing jokes, but those clown sightings back in the 80's were never solved and no one ever figured out what was going on.
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Post by Joanna on Sept 27, 2016 4:32:02 GMT -5
The Phantom Clown Scare of '81When we look back, 1981 was certainly a banner year for horror. Aside from some of the best horror movies of all time coming out, including An American Werewolf in London and Evil Dead, we had the nightmare inducing melting heads in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the true arrival of Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part II.
Outside our local cinemas and drive-ins, there was plenty of horror as well. Twenty-three IRA members, including Bobby Sands, went on a hunger strike to protest their treatment while imprisoned by the British. It would end with 10 of the men dying and riots across Northern Ireland. Multiple world leaders were victims of assassination attempts, including Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John Paul II, Anwar Sadat and Ziaur Rahman. Both Sadat and Rahman were killed and both Reagan and Pope John Paul II were badly injured. Queen Elizabeth II made it through her ordeal unscathed. Her attacker, a teenage boy, couldn’t get his hands on live ammunition and decided the threat of assassination would be enough. Peter Sutcliffe, who terrorized England as the Yorkshire Ripper, was captured after murdering 13 women. After his arrest, Sutcliffe would claim he was following orders given him by God. Shockingly, no one believed him. Possibly the most frightening part of 1981 was the first recognized cases of AIDS appearing in Los Angeles in June. It is believed the disease started in Haiti and made its way to the US as early as 1968, meaning that for more than a decade, an untold number of people died from a disease that went unnoticed.
These are the moments that history recorded. What is left out of almost all discussions of weird, terrible and creepy things that went down in 1981, what you won’t find on Wikipedia or in textbooks, is the strange story of the Phantom Clown Scare, even though the repercussions of it could be felt throughout the next 20 years.
Something important to remember is that before the 1980s, there wasn’t that much concern about children being kidnaped. It happened before the 1980s, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t something parents were all that concerned about. Then again, if you look back on the life of a child growing up in America before 1984, you’ll see a world filled with rusty monkey bars, metal lunch boxes that could cause serious wounds and no concept of bicycle safety. This isn’t to say that parents didn’t love their children, they just weren’t so obsessed and realized scraped knees and perhaps a few broken bones were part of life. But this all changed. At the tail end of April, things started happening that parents, principals and teachers couldn’t ignore. Daniel O’Connell, a counselor for the Boston Public School District, sent out a memo to all schools about men dressed as clowns bothering children. Teachers were told to actually watch kids between taking drags on their cigarettes and parents were warned to be aware of where their children were going after school.
On May 5, the local news took an interest in the clowns after police in Brookline were alerted to men dressed as clowns using candy to try to lure kids into a van. The next day, Boston police were called out to Franklin Park and Jamaica Plain when children were harassed by men in clown gear, including one clown who was reportedly naked from the waist down. Over the next few days, more calls came in, from East Boston to Cambridge and throughout other cities in the area – every call said the same thing; clowns in a van are trying to get children to go with them. Police started pulling over any car or van with a clown in it – there were apparently a lot of them in the Boston area in 1981, but all they found were birthday party clowns. By May 9, police were questioning the veracity of these reports. As reviewed the multitudes of accounts, officers realized that no adult ever saw these clowns, only children ages 5 to 7. At the same time, reports of creepy clowns in Boston dwindled.
A few weeks later, and a thousand miles away in Kansas City, Kansas, police were called to investigate something directly out of a horror movie. A group of children claimed they were chased by a clown carrying a sword. Similar reports were coming in from Kansas City, Missouri. This time, police found the frightening jester. On May 22, officers chased a clown in a yellow van who was seen at six different schools. Each school gave the same description: a man with a stark white wig, face painted black, bright round red nose, a black shirt with a devil on it, black pants with candy canes running down the sides, and big red shoes. The scariest part was what this freakish fool had with him – a large knife. The yellow van eluded police and the clown vanished from the area. Still, many parents in Kansas City kept their kids home from school. The fear was very real and these phantom clowns spread farther across the country with reports coming in from Omaha and Denver before heading back east to Pennsylvania.
School was out for the summer and the children of Pittsburgh were enjoying the days running about outdoors, riding their bikes and breaking arms or legs falling out of trees or jumping off swings. On a fun summer vacation day in June in the Hill District, things took a turn when reports came in of two men in clown garb were stalking kids. At the same time, in a different part of the city, police chased a man in a pink rabbit costume who was harassing children. The chase started with the rabbit in his van and continued when he hopped out of his vehicle and scampered away. Police chased the rabbit into a bar, where he vanished. A week later, the rabbit was spotted in Allegheny Cemetery. Shortly after the bunny incident, a boy in Arlington Heights claimed that Spider-Man, a gorilla and a clown tried to pull him into their van. The city was in a panic, leading police to search Terrace Village, going from house to house looking for signs of clowns, apes and web-slingers. Trailing police were more than a hundred children and parents – all of them carrying clubs. No costumed freaks were discovered.
Loren Coleman, a university professor who had a long-standing interest in cryptozoology, was the first to start putting all these sightings together, which he collected in his book, Mysterious America. In the time before the internet, stories like this lived and died on local news channels, and most wouldn’t notice the clown conspiracy happening across the country. Coleman, who looked for the strange in everything, caught it and concluded it may have started earlier, back in March. In Mineral Point, Wisconsin, during the last week of March, teens reported seeing and being chased by a vampire in Graceland Cemetery – in the 70s and 80s, it was common for teenagers to drink in cemeteries and I imagine this is what these kids were doing. Unlike the vast majority of clowns, this bloodsucker was spotted by local police, who described him as a large caped figure with a white face. Reminiscent of London’s Spring-Heeled Jack, Officer John Pepper claimed the suspect jumped over a six-foot barbed wire fence. This undead doof was the big story in Wisconsin for a short period – John Hinckley Jr’s shooting of Ronald Reagan soon eclipsed any interest people had in the Badger State Vampire.
As 1981 came to a close, the reports of phantom clowns faded away and everyone pretty much forgot about it. England would have a similar problem later on, but with phantom social workers instead of clowns. In those cases, the phantom social worker would show up at a home and attempt to take some parent’s baby. These phantom social workers always appeared in groups – usually a few women with a single man, who was their “supervisor.” In many reports, police would conclude the “examinations” these social workers performed of the babies before trying to take them were akin to sexual abuse. As with the phantom clowns, no one was ever arrested for these crimes.
The fear of our children’s being taken by strangers was huge in the 80s and 90s and it is possible the child abduction fears that possessed America started with the phantom clowns. Shows such as Diff’rent Strokes produced special episodes just to teach kids about what to do if a stranger tried to grab them. The fear of child abductions grew in tandem with parents’ worry over Satanic cults, and two were often intertwined – Satanists, some thought, were taking kids to sacrifice them to their evil lord. By the time Stephen King published It in 1986, the phantom clown scare of 1981 was all but forgotten.
In the years since the phantom clown sightings of the 80s, out-of-place clowns have been seen from time to time and usually turn out to be nothing more than people goofing around. In 2013, the clown terror started again, this time in Northampton, England, but turned out to be just some guy having a bit of fun. Still, it seems the Northampton Clown started a new wave of creepy clowns. In 2014, residents of Bakersfield and Wasco, California, reported a clown stalking the area at night, sometimes while carrying a machete. This turned out to be an art project. I can only guess the project was called “How to Make People Shit Their Pants.” If I had to guess, these clowns are people who grew up during the abduction scare of the 80s and 90s, and/or read or seeing Stephen King’s It, and playing off these fears. It is, after all, the way humans often overcome what frightens them – we pull the teeth out of the monster and make it harmless. Creepy clowns set themselves up in front of landmarks so people can snap photos of them on the way home from the bar – something to post on Facebook as a memory from an otherwise unremarkable night.
While the phantom clowns have been showing up again, so too has the Mineral Point Vampire. In 2004, Mineral Point police were called out on reports of a man leaping out of a tree onto people entering an apartment building. When the police arrived, a caped figure jumped from a tree and ran off. Police chased the man until he seemed to fly over a 10-foot concrete wall. Four years later, in 2008, Brandon Heinz and his girlfriend Jamie Marker were night-fishing at Ludden Lake when they heard scratching under the pier from which they were fishing. They said it sounded like an animal attempting to climb out of the water. Heintz stomped on the wood to scare off the animal, but instead it seemed the creature was coming toward the couple. He shone his flashlight between the boards of the jetty and both he and Marker saw a man clinging to the underside of the pier, his face white and his body covered by a cape. As the figure climbed onto the pier, Marker took off running. Heintz, too frightened to move, watched as the Mineral Point Vampire edged toward him. Finally getting his senses about him, he threw his flashlight the pale-faced freak and ran after his girlfriend. When he caught up with Marker, she was huddled in the car with the doors locked. Heintz jumped into the car, started the engine and in the headlights, both saw the vampire rushing in their direction. Heintz got the car into gear just in time and sped away before the monster reached them. By the time police arrived at the scene, there were no signs of the Mineral Point Vampire.
We live in a time of reboots and remakes, so I have to wonder, could the “clown scare” of today be a reboot of the clown scare of the 80s? It certainly has one similarity to most horror reboots, it isn’t nearly as scary as the original.Source: Derek Faraci, BlumHouse, January 4, 2016.
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Post by steve on Sept 27, 2016 9:19:56 GMT -5
The Mineral Point Vampire? That's a new one.
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Post by Sam on Sept 28, 2016 2:31:17 GMT -5
The Mineral Point Vampire? That's a new one. I've read some things about the Mineral Point Vampire, but I don't remember anyone ever connected the sightings to the clown sightings.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 28, 2016 5:11:56 GMT -5
Clown Madness Spreads to Colorado and Virginia, Continues in Other StatesTyler Hill, spokesman for the Weld County district attorney’s office never thought he would pen a press release like the one he put out today. Complete with references to the ’80s B-movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Ronald McDonald, and even sewer drains and Pennywise, the iconic scary clown from the Stephen King novel It, Hill’s government release ran the gamut of American clown culture before careening into a serious alert involving local law enforcement. It turns out the so-called creepy clown phenomenon, in which people from state to state have dressed in Bozo attire and terrorized their neighbors, has officially hit Colorado. From the official Weld County District Attorney’s office release:
“Let’s face it, Hollywood has ruined the happy-go-lucky Clown for many: Poltergeist, Saw, Twisty ... even the 1980s horror comedy Killer Klowns from Outer Space. We see now why McDonald’s has slowly distanced itself from Ronald McDonald.
“But now it seems these scary clowns are horrifying more than just our dreams. They’re disrupting our normal lives. Sinister clowns are plaguing the country. In Greenville, S.C., clowns were attempting to lure children into the woods. In Alabama, seven clowns are now facing felony charges for making terroristic clown threats. In North Carolina, one clown wielded a machete while walking through the woods near an apartment complex. It’s no joke.
“All these instances lead us to Greeley, where school officials and law enforcement worked overnight to put clown threats to rest. It started on Facebook. Greeley Police say the post threatened a shooting on Halloween night. It quickly turned into a viral event, claiming clowns would carry out shootings at two Greeley schools. The case is still under investigation, but police think they’ve pinned it down to a 15-year-old student.”
Reached by phone this afternoon, spokesman Hill confirmed the release is real. “It’s legit,” he said. “I’d never written one like that before, but I was like ‘this is insane.’ Typically press releases are pretty cut and dried.” Hill said workers in the Weld County DA’s office had been paying attention to various creepy clown sightings from around the country and had discussed whether they might address it in a hypothetical here’s-what-to-look-out-for scenario. In fact, at least one of these publicized clown sightings has been a hoax. A South Carolina woman was arrested just last week after police say she made up reports of seeing clowns in her city.
But the red-nosed reality hadn’t yet hit the rural Colorado county north of Denver. But then, “sure enough it happened in Greeley schools,” Hill told The Colorado Independent.
To be clear, there have not been any actual sightings reported in Weld County of misbehaving men or women decked out in colorful wigs, big shoes or scary masks. So far it’s just the Facebook threat.
“All this started last night,” Hill says. Once local government officials noticed the Facebook post, word bounced around the inboxes of county workers.
In a separate release sent out this morning to families of District 6 students in Weld County, Hill wrote:
“A number of students potentially involved in this incident have been interviewed and the investigation is continuing. We are closely monitoring the situation and working with law enforcement. As you probably already realize, all schools are open today. We have extra vigilance and security in place. We will share updates with our families when we get more information.
“Please understand we take this threat and any threat seriously. There is no indication this is a credible threat at this time. This, unfortunately is part of a national trend of similar incidents across that nation. These posts are apparently being made to cause fear and disruption. But that doesn’t mean we take it any less seriously.”
He further stated he understood some parents chose to keep their kids out of school because of the news. “Those absences will be excused and your children will be allowed to make up any work they missed,” he wrote.
So it turns out clowns might make some kids happy after all.
Virginia. Sinister-looking clowns, scaring people up and down the East Coast, are now being spotted in Virginia. A viewer sent WWBT a picture of a clown in a grey car in Petersburg. One woman reports seeing the car with two clowns inside, riding around Petersburg. The lady didn’t want to be identified, but says the car was driving erratically and one of the clowns got out at a stop light, making his way toward her car. She sped off. In Hopewell, three juveniles reported seeing a car with clowns inside near Carter G. Woodson Middle School. Police in both Petersburg and Hopewell are investigating.
Early Tuesday morning in the Highland Springs area of Henrico, a trio of clowns was seen roaming around Knight Drive, lurking in backyards and even knocking on windows. Henrico police were called to the scene, but failed to encounter any clowns. Investigators say they’re upping patrols in the neighborhood. A worried mother near the block says children at her son’s bus stop spotted a clown standing near the kids while they waited for the bus. “It’s kind of freaking me out. I take my son back and forth to school, now,” declared the mother, who asked not to be identified. “I don’t want anything to happen to my son. It’s making me paranoid for even myself.”
The copycat clown craze even made its way to Chesterfield. An Instagram post of a clown, accompanied by a list of locations, caused an outcry at Tomahawk Creek Middle School. Police investigated and identified a 13-year-old boy as having created a social media account with a clown, and referencing a school shooting. No charges have been filed at this time.
In Virginia, it is a felony to for a person above the age of 16 to purposely conceal one’s face and a conviction could mean up to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine.
Pennsylvania. The phenomenon of sightings and reports to police across the country of clowns standing along wood-lined roads, near schools and in parking lots reached York County yesterday. Since the summer, police departments from North Carolina to Georgia to Pennsylvania have received calls of people spotting clowns, and in some cases, children being lured into woods by clowns.
For the last several days, students at York College have reported seeing people dressed as clowns, both on campus and off, sometimes standing on city street corners. The college sent out a safety alert to the campus notifying the school the campus safety department had responded to eight different clown reports since Sept. 24. One turned out to be a rumor; all have been unsubstantiated. “While it is important to understand that these reports involve mostly copycat thrill seekers, it is possible someone will use this as an opportunity to commit a crime in the future,” the alert states.
One anonymous tip reported on Monday that a carful of clowns were driving on the west end of York College’s campus. The clowns were possibly armed with weapons, according to the tip. Officers patrolling that side of the campus did not see any suspicious vehicles or anyone dressed as clowns.
Another day, a student reported seeing a clown standing on a street corner. A search of the area was conducted, but “no clowns were seen,” the college’s campus safety department indicated in the alert.
Some law enforcement officials in other states have dismissed the reports as pranks, York College indicates in its alert.
While calls such as these can be draining on police, it’s still important to report the sightings so officers can confirm if there is a threat, the college alert indicated, advising students to avoid anyone dressed like a clown in odd areas.
The alert is intended to control rumors on campus and let students know the safety department is tracking the reports, college spokeswoman Mary Dolheimer reveals. “It’s a safety concern.” As of Tuesday, York College campus safety confirmed no crimes have been committed by anyone dressed as a clown on or near the college campus.
These reports have spread across the country in recent months. In Pottsville, Penn., police investigated after clowns were seen yelling at children. A girl told a TV station that a clown had chased her and her friends and later threw a broken stick at them from the woods.
Maryland. During the early morning hours Sunday, Sept. 25, members of the Salisbury Police Department began investigations into two separate reported clown sightings. At approximately 12:09 a.m. and again at 3:31 a.m., officers responded to the 1000 block of Fairground Drive to investigate a report of a clown sighting. Officers met with the callers who said they observed people dressed as clowns hiding in bushes and jumping out to scare people. Investigation revealed the callers observed three different individuals dressed as clowns, wearing masks and orange and blue hair. One clown was wearing a black suit and the other two were wearing white suits. Officers immediately commenced a thorough search of the area on foot as well as in police vehicles, but were not able to locate the described clowns.
Salisbury police will continue frequent patrol checks of this area as well as the surrounding vicinity in an effort to locate and identify the clowns. While dressing like a clown in of itself is not necessarily illegal, hiding in bushes or wooded areas with the intent of scaring citizens is a dangerous situation and can lead to unintended consequences. Sources: Corey Hutchins, The Colorado Independent, Sept. 27, 2016; Allison Norlian and Kelly Avellino, WWBT, Sept. 27, 2016; Paul Tuthill, WAMC, Sept. 27, 2016; and Liz Holland, DelMarVaNow, Sept. 27, 2016.
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Post by chris on Sept 28, 2016 9:17:32 GMT -5
This just keeps spreading. I know some of it is just people playing tricks and hoaxes, but could there be something else going on, like there was with the Mad Gasser of Mattoon?
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Post by Sam on Sept 29, 2016 22:08:14 GMT -5
That's a good question. There were all kinds of theories about the Mad Gasser and now most people think that it was a case of mass hysteria, but there was another Mad Gasser figure in Georgia and no on ever figured that one out either. I think that something was going on. Some people do imagine things, but a lot of level headed people saw the Mad Gasser and got sick from the gas.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 1, 2016 17:09:10 GMT -5
Clown Reports in New York, New Jersey & OhioCreepy clown sightings are now being reported on Long Island. Police said they received a 911 call Wednesday night about a group of people dressed as clowns jumping in front of and chasing cars on Commack Road in Brentwood. Authorities also received a call about a person dressed as a scary clown in North Babylon.
Authorities have not confirmed any of the reports and officers have not personally witnessed any of the menacing clowns. There have been no reported assaults nor credible threats against public safety, Suffolk County police Chief Stu Cameron said. “We understand this may be a social media prank throughout the country, but we take quite seriously all calls that involve intentional harassment, trespassing, disturbing of the peace and reported activity that results in the citizens of our county feeling threatened,” he added.
Police are also closely monitoring social media channels and calls made to the department, Cameron indicated. Some people on Twitter claimed to have witnessed the clowns.
After one of the anonymous Long Island clowns threatened Lindenhurst Elementary School on Twitter, the school kept students inside for recess, CBS2’s Ali Bauman reported. And North Babylon schools were put on lockout Friday. “I think it’s out of hand,” said Nicholas, a North Babylon resident. “Got to put a stop to that. It’s not a joke really.”
Khalique Owens said his Wednesday night drive home along Commack Road in Brentwood was ominous, like a scene out of a horror movie. “I see a clown right in the middle of the street – full clown suit, clown mask, with a long object that looked like a bat in his hand, just standing there,” Owens told Bauman. Owens started to drive off – and then he saw another clown. “The second clown, I guess he was kneeling. [He] just stands up real slowly as I drove past,” Owens revealed.
The creepy clown sightings have been increasing across the country recently. A woman who works in Brentwood said it’s nothing to laugh about. “I think it’s dangerous,” she told WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall. “Enough! It’s not even Halloween yet. It’s not even funny.”
Creepy clowns have been scaring people across the nation since August, when reports started coming out of South Carolina of clowns running in the woods and attempting to lure kids in with candy. Since then, similar stories of strange sightings and encounters have come from almost a dozen states including Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
Ohio. On Friday, an Ohio school district closed all its schools after a woman said a man dressed as a clown grabbed her by the neck and made a threat against students. A woman told Reading police she was smoking a cigarette on her porch when someone wearing a clown costume appeared and grabbed her by the throat, telling her, “I should just kill you now” and “Some students and teachers would wish they were never born at the Jr. and Sr. High School today,” police reported. The district said it would supply extra security for a homecoming parade and football game Friday night. A school dance scheduled for Saturday is to go on as planned.
Also Friday, officials at a high school in Miami Township, north of Cincinnati, said a student was arrested and removed from campus for making a threat about clowns on social media. “The social media message was a copycat of the clown threats that have been becoming more frequent in our area and around the country. At no time were students and staff in any danger,” Milford High School principal Josh Kauffman said in a statement posted on Facebook. On Thursday night, a juvenile was arrested in Colerain Township in connection with a clown threat involving threatened harm to Colerain High School students.
New Jersey. Earlier this week, a New Jersey boy said he was walking home through an alleyway in Phillipsburg when he encountered a sword-wielding clown. The boy claimed he heard the clown say, “I’m gonna get cha,” and the boy immediately ran home. In another incident, three clowns reportedly jumped out of the woods and chased a different child in Phillipsburg. The reports have also prompted the Toms River Police Department to increase its presence at schools out of an abundance of caution.
“Nobody knows how to defend against it because we don’t know if it’s a prank or they’ll harm people,” Owens declared. Source: WCBS, September 30, 2016, and UPI.
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Post by pat on Oct 1, 2016 18:51:11 GMT -5
If clowns are going up on people's porches and grabbing them and making threats, then there's more going on than mass hysteria.
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Post by Joanna on Oct 3, 2016 13:53:56 GMT -5
Clown Mischief Spreads to North TexasDALLAS-FORT WORTH, Tex. – Reports of creepy clowns have unsettled people across the country and now there have been several reports, at least one confirmed, of potentially dangerous people dressed as clowns in North Texas.
Monday morning there were reports of a “clown threat” targeting Skyline High School (above), however, officials have been unable to confirm if the threat is credible. Police were also at Spruce High School on Monday morning for unknown reasons. It was later revealed to be unrelated to “clown threats.”
In Tarrant County, officials with the Fort Worth Police Department say they received an unusual call around 11:30 Sunday night. The caller told officers that someone dressed up as a clown was running and screaming down Melanie Lane in north Fort Worth. Nobody was hurt or distressed because of the clown sighting. Police say an official report was not taken because there was no evidence a crime was committed. This is the first clown sighting in North Texas confirmed by police.
Reports of clowns began surfacing across the country in August when children in South Carolina reported seeing eerie clowns in the woods. In Ohio, clown-related threats on social media resulted in a lock-down at one school and an entire school district’s canceling classes for a day.
Nationwide, police are examining each threat. but say many of them appear to be nothing more than hoaxes. Source: KRLD, October 3, 2016.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 6, 2016 22:10:17 GMT -5
Clown Reports in 28 States and CanadaThe clownpocalypse has arrived in Canada. This is the word spreading on social media this week, after individuals dressed as creepy clowns were spotted in several Canadian cities including Edmonton, Alberta; Toronto, Ontario; and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The sightings appear to be part of a growing trend that’s already spread throughout the United States, where clowns have been reportedly terrorizing children, stalking pedestrians, triggering lockdowns at schools and brandishing weapons in the streets. A handful of arrests have been made, revealing the offenders to be mostly teenagers or in their 20s. No distinct cause has been identified, but the incidents have received widespread attention in the news and on social media.
In Toronto, two 15-year-olds were detained in connection with an incident at a school on Wednesday. One of the teens allegedly dressed up as a clown and chased other students around the grounds, while another teen filmed the incident for a YouTube video, police said. A 24-year-old was arrested in Clark’s Harbour, N.S., Tuesday after witnesses reported that a clown had grabbed a boy’s clothing. Elsewhere in the province, two police departments confirmed they were investigating social media posts involving clowns. One suspicious Instagram post under the name Halifax Clowns read: “We stalking you so keep your eyes open. We ain’t killing, we just creeping.” The image appeared to show a clown standing on the sidewalk outside Halifax West High School. “If people feel they have been threatened or intimidated, then they need to reach out to their local police,” Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, of Nova Scotia RCMP, told The Canadian Press.
Nova Scotia’s education minister, Karen Casey, has called on the Department of Justice and RCMP to investigate. “Children are becoming very frightened. I’m hearing from parents who say their children are afraid to walk to school,” Casey said at a press conference Thursday.
The Halifax Regional School Board said it has been made aware of the incident and is taking extra precautions. “Schools in HRSB are aware of these threats and taking them into account as they go through their daily routines, including monitoring access to their sites,” the school board said in an online statement.
Social media users are documenting the clown sightings under the hashtag #Clownsightings. Some of the videos under the hashtag appear to have been staged as a way to participate in the viral trend
In the United States, The Boston Globe and other sources indicate residents in at least 38 states have reported “unsettling encounters” with people dressed as clowns. The reasons behind the clown sightings and threats, which started in South Carolina in August, are unclear. The affected states so far are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Following are the states most recently plagued by clowns:
Arizona. Schools in Mesa were on high alert after threatening messages from a clown on a social media account named “Ain’t Clowning Around.” The account threatened to appear at high schools on Friday, September 30, and kidnap students or kill teachers, ABC 15 reported. This was almost identical to an “Ain’t No Clowning Around” social media page that threatened the same thing in Missouri. To make the whole thing in Arizona even creepier, according to ABC 15, some students received threatening text messages asking if they were ready to play and threatened to kill them. Police in Phoenix arrested three teenagers for making similar threats, AZCentral reported. Two teens were also arrested in Phoenix after robbing a Taco Bell and Domino’s while wearing clown masks.
Arkansas. According to ArkansasOnline, authorities in Wynn received an unverified report that four people dressed as clowns were traveling near West Merriman Avenue. Sheriff J. R. Smith said his office had zero tolerance for anyone dressing up as a clown to scare other people. Other unverified sightings were reported in Pine Bluff, where a school resources officer is being investigated for posing in a clown costume in an online photo. The nature of the photo was unclear. A man wearing a clown mask was arrested for harassing a store clerk in Poinsett County, NWA Online reported.
Meanwhile in White Hall, a police officer was suspended for two days without pay after dressing in a clown suit for a party at his parent’s home and posting the photo on social media, KATV reported. The photo was posted a couple days after clown sightings were reported to the department. He wasn’t linked to sightings in the White Hall area.
California. There have been some clown sightings in California, too. On October 4, clowns threatened the Sacramento, Vallejo and Fairfield public schools. A clown was also accused of trying to kidnap a one-year-old girl, but no arrests were made, ABC 7 News reported. The mother of the child said a clown approached them at Denny’s on Willow Pass Road near Water World Parkway in Concord and tugged on the baby’s girl’s arm. On October 5, residents in Los Angeles County reported seeing people wearing clown masks and possibly carrying kitchen knives. And in San Pedro, two clowns were reported by Taper Avenue Elementary School employees.
However, California has dealt with creepy clowns in the past. According to CNN, two years ago, Bakersfield police dealt with 20 clown calls, including one allegedly carrying a weapon. The Daily Mail even wrote an article entitled “Mystery clowns that are terrorizing California towns at night have started carrying guns.” But thus far, the clowns haven’t returned.
Connecticut. Creepy clown sightings have also spread to Connecticut. On Monday night, October 3, hundreds of students at the University of Connecticut armed themselves with hockey sticks and golf clubs as they went on a “clown hunt,” Patch.com reported. (This is similar to what happened the same night at Penn State when the police received up to 30 911 calls about clown sightings on campus.) The majority of the Connecticut calls were from people who said they heard about clowns on campus, not that they had seen any themselves. But a few were very specific about where they had seen the clowns, insisting the clowns were sighted at Storrs Cemetery (above), which is located on the UC campus, and the Husky Village and Towers housing complexes. Police were unable to find any clowns. A rumor spread that the school was under lockdown, along with Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac. But police said these rumors were false, Patch reported. The New Haven public school board in Connecticut announced earlier this week it has banned all clown costumes and “any symbols of terror” during the Halloween season.
Idaho. There have been so many creepy clown reports in Idaho that the Nampa Police Department posted on Facebook that “the large number of Nampa residents who are out looking for clowns is making this more difficult to deal with.” The Idaho Statesman reported that several residents called the police about people dressed as clowns, including one supposedly carrying a machete. But by the time police arrived at the location, the clown suspects were gone. The sightings included a brightly-colored van that had several clowns inside.
In Wendell, a teen said he received an anonymous text that a clown was coming to the school he attended. The Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office issued a press release concerning several students being harassed similarly on Facebook. Officers said these cases was identical to those students across the country were receiving.
Illinois. The first known clown threat was posted on Instagram at 8 p.m. Monday (Oct. 3) against Lincoln-Way Central High School in Will County, according to a statement from the Will County sheriff’s office. The threat was later discovered to be a hoax by a 14-year-old boy enrolled at the school. Also on Monday, a clown was also sighted near 111th and Harlem Avenue in Worth, according to a Facebook post by the Chicago Ridge Neighborhood Watch. A clown was also seen walking along 79th Street in Burbank. At 10:43 p.m., someone posted a Twitter threat against all Chicago Heights schools, according to police. An investigation has been launched into who created the Twitter handle.
Around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, a group of parents were walking their children to school in the 6000 block of South Damen in West Englewood when someone dressed as a clown ran toward them, according. The group ran into a nearby school and reported the incident to police. At 9:25 a.m., an electronic threat was made at a school in the 900 block of South Homan in North Lawndale, police said. CPS is currently investigating the threat. Another threat made on social media against a Portage Park school Tuesday was later determined to be fake. “There are no credible threats to any school right now,” the 25th District Chicago CAPS Tweeted Tuesday morning. “The Killer Clowns are internet fantasy, nothing more.” Yet Another clown sighting was reported later on Tuesday at the University of Illinois at Chicago, according to the UIC’s Twitter feed. The “malevolent clown was a student doing a performance-art project. No arrest, says UIC police.”
About 1:50 p.m Tuesday in Waukegan, three people dressed in clown masks stood at the edge of Greenwood Elementary School’s property taunting students, according to a statement from Waukegan police. Students reported one of the clowns had a knife, one a briefcase and the other had a gun “in his pocket,” police said. It is unknown if the knife was real or if one of the clowns was armed with a handgun. The children who saw the clowns also reported they had threatened to return Friday to, “kill them”, police said. It’s possible the three clowns fled in a black SUV. The gender and race of the suspects was also unknown Tuesday night. Greenwood was briefly placed on lockdown until officers were able to check the nearby area. Police are currently providing extra watches during patrol shifts at all local schools.
Threats by people representing themselves as clowns have also been made against Hammond High, Eggers, Gavit, Scott and Morton in Hammond, according to a statement from Hammond Police Lt. Richard Hoyda. “So far there have been no reports of confirmed clown sightings in the City of Hammond and at this time the information appears to be solely based on Facebook,” she said.
According to The Haverhill Gazette, a man dressed in a clown costume approached a resident’s daughter and friend while they were sitting on their porch in Effingham one night and shined a flashlight on them. She said they saw the clown again a few days later at a vacant home nearby.
Indiana. Steve Stewart, chief of police in Muncie, commented on numerous Facebook rumors concerning clowns in the area. One post said police were recommending people stay inside and keep their doors locked. However, police claimed it was possible people were starting rumors for the purpose of scaring others. “The thing I want the public to know,” Stewart emphasized, “is we know who some of these people [behind the rumors] are and we will be watching them closely.” The Star-Press opined that some of those starting the rumors might also be dressing up as clowns.
In late September, a bus driver called police after finding out a clown was scaring kids at a Fort Wayne bus stop, WANE reported. Clown sightings have also been reported at a number of universities, including Purdue, Indiana University and Indiana State University.
However, reports that someone in Fort Wayne shot and killed a clown are incorrect, The Journal Gazette reported. The story was attributed to WANE-TV and quoted a police officer, but WANE had not reported any such incidents. “They’re posing as us, using our logo,” WANE’s digital director accused.
Kansas. KSHB reported that a child saw a clown in the bushes near 85th and Parallel Parkway in Kansas City. There were other reports too, but police have not been able to confirm any of the sightings. This prompted police to post on Facebook that there were no “actual” sightings. “It’s probably just a hoax,” Tom Tomasic of the Kansas City Police said.
Louisiana. Clowns were also seen in south Louisiana, KPLC 7 News reported in late September. Two people entered Matherne’s Supermarket in Paulina while wearing clown masks. They left when the manager asked them to leave. Unlike the clowns in some reports, these didn’t seem to be aggressive.
Maine. WCSH reported a person wearing a clown mask was said to be hanging out near an apartment complex in Orono for hours. Orono police responded on Facebook: “According to WCYY, more sightings popped up after that, including in Kennebunk, Standish at Saint Joseph’s College and Wells.
Massachusetts. Among the sightings was one in New Bedford in which the resident was able to take a photo (above). If you look closely, you can see a second clown in the next to the one clearly visible. In the comments section of a news site, some readers attempted to lighten the photo and said it looks like one clown is carrying a machete. Merrimack College in North Andover went on lockdown Monday because of a clown scare, Fox 25 of Boston reported. Students were instructed to remain in place after a reported sighting of a clown that might be armed. Police later announced the all clear, indicating the sighting was “unfounded.”
Michigan. TV 9&10 News reported that a clown was “prowling a neighborhood” in Big Rapids late Tuesday night. A caller said the clown was wearing a blue costume, had red-pink hair and was just staring at people before running into a wooded area. Meanwhile, Port Huron police said they haven’t received any legitimate clown claims as of September 30, The Times Herald reported. An internet commenter claimed there were clowns spotted in Lapeer and this has been confirmed by ABC12. Last month, it was reported an 18-year-old called police to report three clowns near the woods by Walmart carrying what might have been a hammer or baseball bat. Police searched using thermal imaging and police dogs, but couldn’t find the clowns. Another sighting was reported in Clinton Township where a clown was seen waving outside a car wash. Police said the clown wasn’t committing criminal acts, just waving. Two days later, two clown attacks were reported in Sterling Heights. A 7-year-old said his arm was scratched by a clown with red hair and a red nose who was carrying a sharp object. Later than night, two women said three males wearing clown masks yelled profanity at them, hit a bat against a fence and then ran away.
Mississippi. A man dressed in a multi-colored wig, mask and overalls was seen carrying a machete. He ran away from a police patrol vehicle, USA Today reported. A driver in Rankin County said a clown sighting caused a wreck on Highway 469, Facebook photos show a clown lurking about McComb.
Missouri. Some of the clown sightings were determined to be hoaxes, but not all. In Cole County, multiple people have reported seeing clowns, but law enforcement hasn’t been able to locate any of them. A Facebook post on Friday, September 30 in Howard County threatened that clowns were going to kidnap students and kill teachers in mid-Missouri schools, which subsequently went on lockdown, including the California R-1 School District, ABC17 News reported. The Sheriff’s Department said there was no immediate threat: “A series of clown sightings were reported in Jefferson County, Ozarks First reported. An anonymous caller said he saw a clown with a knife near Pevely Pointe Apartments. They could not find anyone to verify the claim at the location. Social media claims said clowns were seen southwest of Hillsboro, but Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department said it didn’t get any calls about that. Granite City police told KMOV they had gotten about 10 calls about people dressed as clowns, but they also couldn’t verify the claims.
Nevada. Sparks is experiencing clown sightings, KTVN reported. Alex Ruelas said he and his friends saw a clown in the Shadow Mountain parking lot holding what looked like a machete. A recorded video on Snapchat shows the clown running toward them. Sparks police have received additional reports since this incident. There were also threats on Facebook regarding El Dorado, Canyon Springs, Legacy, and Las Vegas high schools.
Oklahoma. KTUL reported that Oklahoma State University students called campus police after seeing a clown walking around the dorms. Officers couldn’t find the clown and students searched in groups, but also failed to locate the clown.
Oregon. According to KTVZ, an employee of Central Oregon Eyecare reported seeing someone dressed as a clown around 10:30 p.m. near Southwest Indian Avenue and 11th street in Redmond. The employee said the person was wearing a clown mask and blue pants. She asked for a police escort to her car because she was scared, but police couldn’t find the suspect. Another clown was reported in Portland. A woman shopping near O’Bryant Square around noon Friday (Sept. 30) said a man wearing a silver clown mask and black clothes came up to her car and started banging on the driver’s side window. He attempted to open all the doors and she sped away.
Rhode Island. First, the clowns started getting dangerously close to Rhode Island, which started making people nervous. Then The Providence Journal reported a social media threat was made against two Pawtucket, schools. But it turns out clowns were already in Rhode Island when they reportedly chased someone out of Slater Park three different times last week. Although police haven’t seen the clowns, they’re taking the concerns of residents seriously.
Tennessee. On September 28, two men – one dressed in a clown mask – robbed a Memphis bank after carrying explosives inside, USA Today reported. In a separate incident, a social media threat led to the lockdown of two Nashville, however, police later said the clown threat wasn’t credible.
Utah. Two Ogden, schools had lockdowns because of clown sightings, but police officers say the rumors were unsubstantiated. Gramercy Elementary and Mount Fort Junior High went on lockdown after reports that someone was on campus dressed as a clown. Police officers weren’t able to confirm the sighting as legitimate, Fox 13 reported. The reports came after a Facebook user, using a profile photo of a clown, threatened the schools. In Orem, following numerous calls from concerned parents, police confirmed there had been no reports of clowns in the city.
Vermont. In Williston, a 15-year-old was arrested after banging on classroom windows while wearing a clown mask. Officers indicated this was the only verified report of clown violence or scares.
Washington. Clown sightings outside Rogers High School Puyallup and text-messaged threats from a purported clown placed the campus on modified lockdown during lunch Tuesday (Oct. 4). Pierce County sheriff’s deputies were called to the campus after multiple students reported seeing scary clowns in the woods. One claimed a clown had a knife. “We went out and found some clown masks,” sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said, adding two masks were seized as evidence. Extra security was provided on campus and students were restricted to the high school Tuesday, according to a letter sent to parents.
A “clown hunt” in a wooded area of the city was planned on social media. Someone reported a clown had been stabbed in the leg. Several students received text messages around midnight that a clown planned to kill students. “We believe this is all socially engineered,” Troyer said. “There was no stabbing. Rumors got going. It sounds like this all got ramped up.” Deputies have been unable to verify reports that 40 to 60 students went searching for clowns Monday night in a wooded area known as Chapman Trail. However, they were investigating threatening text messages sent to several female students.
The rumors and threatening text messages come a week after reports of terrorizing clowns increased in Pierce County. Last week, at least three people reported seeing scary clowns hiding under bridges and peeking out of wooded areas near South Hill and Graham. Seventeen clown sightings have been reported in Pierce County since Sept. 1. Eleven were within the past two days.
West Virginia. Some sightings have cropped up, but it’s unclear how accurate or authentic they are. A photo said to have been taken of a clown standing on the side of the road in the Montcalm/Duhring area was also claimed to depict a clown seen in Mercer, Penn.
Wisconsin. One sighting ended up being a hoax. However, one mother kept her son out school because she had heard so many rumors of people wearing clown masks roaming around the Universal Academy for the College Bound, The Journal-Sentinel reported. There have been similar rumors at other schools. Meanwhile, a 7th-grade girl faces possible charges for sending messages to six students wherein she pretended to be a clown in West Bend. In Beloit, police need help finding who owns the Facebook page “Twist the Clown.” An incident in Wisconsin last November adds an interesting perspective to the whole thing: A boy in Waukesha often dressed as a clown even into late November. His mother insisted he did it for laughs and smiles and didn’t intend to upset anyone. But many people were disturbed to see a random clown wandering around. Some of the sightings, the boy’s mother said, could not have been her son, but may have been someone else dressing in a similar clown costume.
Sources: Josh Elliott, CTV News, October 6, 2016; Stephanie Dube Dwilson, Heavy, October 6, 2016; Daniel Brown, The Chicago Sun-Times, October 4, 2016; and Stacia Glenn, The Tacoma News Tribune, October 4, 2016.
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Post by Kate on Jun 6, 2017 20:01:53 GMT -5
Clown sightings were all the rage last fall, then they just stopped. Does anyone have any ideas why?
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Post by Sam on Oct 14, 2017 23:59:31 GMT -5
Clown sightings were all the rage last fall, then they just stopped. Does anyone have any ideas why?
The same thing happened in the clown sightings of 1981, that Joanna posted about above. It began in May around Boston, then spread to other states and then suddenly stopped. I find it interesting that in both 1981 and last year, that the sightings just stopped. If it was people seeing things or making false reports, why did they just stop? It could be that the clowns stopped appearing, which would mean that something organized was happening.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 15, 2017 14:40:09 GMT -5
Clown Sightings in Cornwall: Has the ‘Clown Madness’ Returned?
Shocked residents in a Cornish town have spoken of people being chased and shouted at by a man wearing a clown mask. The sighting has raised fears that the “killer clown” craze, which started almost exactly one year ago, is set to begin again.
The individual was spotted in Liskeard on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 7. Several people reported the incident on social media and urged other residents to be careful, reports Cornwall Live.
“Has anyone else near Lanchard Road seen a man in a clown mask chasing cars down the road and shouting at people,” Liskeard resident Claire Graves asked on Facebook. “Just had this happen to me. While I wasn’t intimidated and just thought he was a bit of an idiot, others (the elderly or young kids) may be scared.” A local commented and said she saw the scary man in town “looking into people’s car windows” and another, Emma Hollister, reported a scary man walking around town scared her 6-year-old child. A spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall police indicated the individual has not been reported to the force.
Last October, people wearing clown costumes terrorized inhabitants of many countries – particularly the United States – and included a large number of incidents across Cornwall.
The producers of the movie It, an adaptation of Stephen King’s famous novel, were blamed for the craze, with people suggesting it was part of the marketing strategy. King himself tried to put a brake on the phenomenon by asking people to stop the “hysteria.”
In Cornwall, the killer clown fever resulted in more than 100 calls to police in just a few days. According to police logs, frightened residents dialed 999 after seeing clowns wielding knives, begging, throwing eggs at houses or simply sitting in chairs. According to Devon and Cornwall Police, the killer clown phase peaked in the region around October 10 and 11, 2016, when there were a total of 39 calls to the force. Overall, between October 7 and 13, police fielded around 100 calls over clown-related incidents that included:
• A clown armed with a knife in Falmouth. • A group of youths in Falmouth leaping out of the bushes dressed as clowns. • A Truro resident reporting being chased by a clown. • A clown armed with a knife reported to police in Camborne. • A clown seen lurking around the woods at St Austell. • Children dressed as clowns “scaring people” in Falmouth. They were later tracked down and spoken to by police. • A clown seen in a field in Penzance. • A van seen parked in Newquay with several “killer clowns” getting in and out. • A clown in a playground in St Ives. • A clown who appeared at the back window of a house in Bodmin. • A clown scaring children in Newquay. • A clown seen at a window at Helston. • Two “killer clowns” chasing after a car in St Austell. • Three men walking through Hayle, two of which were wearing clown masks.
During last year’s ‘Killer Clown’ craze – inspired by the clown sighting craze that swept the United States in the early Autumn of 2016 – police warned those celebrating Hallowe’en that if they dressed as a clown, they could be arrested.
Police forces throughout the U.K. reported numerous call-outs as increasing numbers of people dressed as clowns with the intention of scaring others. Schools were a particular target. After the Thames Valley Police were called out to 14 clown-related incidents in 24 hours, Chief Superintendent Andy Boyd addressed the issue. “Cearly we are concerned as to the nature of the behavior of some individuals involved in this,” he said. “They are putting others in fear and making people anxious. Some of the behavior that is reported would lead to arrest. We don’t want to spoil the Hallowe’en fun, but we do want people to feel comfortable and safe. You need to consider the ramifications of your actions and how you are making people feel. You may be arrested if you are putting people in fear.”
Still, the incidents continued, with clowns “running at” and jumping onto cars in Manchester, a masked man with a knife chasing children in County Durham, groups of clowns chasing youngsters in Suffolk, and a hatchet-wielding clown in West Sussex.
Now, it seems, the “Killer Clowns” have returned.
Sources: Charlotte Becquart and Rom Preston-Ellis, DevonLive, October 10, 2017, Ellie Cambridge, The Sun, October 11, 2016.
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