For the past couple of weeks, clowns have been spotted in wooded areas luring children and adults into the woods.  They have also been walking down random sidewalks and standing outside the windows of homes.  This can’t be a coincidence because in 1981 a similar event occurred and it was called the “Phantom Clown Scare”.

During this time, people would dress up as clowns and try to abduct children.  They would do this by driving a van and often times offering candy to children.

I feel that the threats are worse now however because schools around the country are shutting down.  This includes schools in Ohio. The closest was The Reading City School District. It was closed down because of a woman claiming she was attacked by a clown and he was threatening students.

Also, Mount Notre Dame High School was closed because Reading is right by MND and some of the students park in Reading’s parking lot.   I interviewed senior Sabine Worthoff about her thoughts on these clown threats.  Sabine said, “I don’t really think we are in any danger, but if I see a clown I am running in the other direction.”

It truly is difficult to comprehend why these people are walking around in clown masks scaring people like it is some kind of real life Purge movie.  There is even a “Clown Clan” twitter account that is tweeting what school or location they will come for next.

Recent videos on social media showing clowns chasing people or just staring back at the camera have stirred up quite a bit of conversation.  Anyone who owns a twitter account has tweeted what they will do to a clown if they see one.  So I decided to ask students and faculty members what they would do if they came home to see a clown on their front porch.

Mr. Grimm, an English teacher at Elder High School, said “I see 100 clowns a day”.  I can only assume that he is referring to his students.  However, if Mr. Grimm ever sees a real clown, he said he is going to ask his wife to scare the clown off.

Frau Kraeling, a German teacher at Elder, says that she has not seen a clown yet.  She said, “I hope he doesn’t scare me too badly if I do see one.  I think I will yell German at him and hopefully that scares him off.”

Mr. Weinheimer, also an English teacher at Elder High School, said he has not seen a clown but if he does see one, he said, “I will let my dog out on him”.  Clearly his dog is like all of us, being that his dog also hates clowns.

Cleary the faculty is not to be messed with if you are a clown and you are reading this.  The students I interviewed had a different approach to the clown uprising.

Junior Danny Hurley says he has not seen a clown personally but he has heard about clowns wandering his streets.  I would not want to cross Danny if I were a clown because he said, “If I am in my car and I see a clown, I plan on running it over.” However he also said that he would be scared out of his mind.

Senior Carmelo Sabato says he did happen to see a clown when he was driving by St. Jude one day and his only thought was to ignore it.  “I did not want to stop and mess with that weirdo,” Carmelo said.

I also interviewed a senior at Mercy High School, Maria Busken.  Maria has also not seen a clown but she said, “If I see a clown, I think I would scream and run towards it while I threw rocks at it.”  I would not want to be a clown if I crossed paths with Maria.

I think it is truly disturbing how people are finding time in their lives to dress up like clowns and scare people.  However with Halloween approaching, I worry that these clown sightings will only increase.  So, make sure to lock your doors at night because you never know if there was a clown that happened to follow you home.

Are you afraid of clowns?

• Terrified
• Not at all

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