Creepy Clown Craze: Troy Police Warn of Clown on School Property

(Originally published on Oct. 4, 2016) TROY, MI — Police in Troy aren't laughing at the clowns. They're actively warning pranksters to stay within the law. "We think the clown thing has gotten out of hand," Troy police spokeswoman Megan Lehman said.

The reaction was triggered when a former student, in clown costume and carrying a baseball bat, was spotted at Athens High School Monday. The student has been banned from school property. Police are also on social media warning clown accounts to stay out of Troy neighborhoods.

"The clowns have their own Twitter accounts so we decided to tweet with them. Let them know they could be arrested if they are breaking any laws," Lehman told WXYZ-TV.

The police department is concerned for the safety of the clowns, as well as for the general public, she explained, noting that the Athens clown was carrying a baseball bat. "I'm sure these young people are trying to have fun but it can be a safety issue too."

So far, about a dozen people have been arrested in multiple states, and there have been creepy clown reports in at least 28 states, according to media reports. A motorist posted a video on Twitter at 2:45 a.m. Sunday of a creepy clown in Clinton Township. The tweet says: “We just saw this clown on Cass and Moravian. He tried to follow our car. This is getting insane.”

Well, yes — the video has been shared more than 6,700 times and has garnered almost as many likes.
The first creepy clown report was in South Carolina in mid-August when a group of children told a sinister tale of clowns living in an abandoned house in the woods and trying to entice them with money to follow them into the woods, The New York Times reported. Police weren’t sure at the time if the sightings were real or the product of children’s imaginations.

The Clinton Township clown sighting isn’t the first in Michigan. Reports have also been confirmed in Big Rapids and Port Huron, and there might have been one in Lapeere. Clinton Township police say they’re aware of the incident, but the individual in the clown suit was only waving and didn’t appear to be doing anything threatening, WXYZ-TV reported. The tweeted video of the clown sighted at the car wash can be found here, but a word of warning: It contains profanity.

As the craze has spread, creepy clown sightings have become something of an urban legend. However, police are getting serious about the epidemic of creepy clown reports that have resulted in school lockdowns in Reading, Ohio and Alabama.

Why are the reports spreading?

Experts have weighed in with some possible explanations. David G. Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, told The New York Times the reports, which he called “mass hysteria,” play to people’s fears.

Jason D. Seacat, an associate professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, said people who perpetuate the hoax with reports may just want to be part of a national news event.

“Since the event appears to be difficult to verify, the claim that one has had such an encounter is easier to make and relatively free from the risk of being called out as a fraud,” he said in an email to The Times. “So, low risk of being called out for lying and the benefit of positive attention for reporting such a claim may motivate some people to lie.”

• See Also: Creepy Clown Sighting in Clinton Township: What's Behind the Craze?

After similar phenomena occurred in the 1980s in Boston, Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist who studies the folklore behind mythical beasts such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, developed “The Phantom Clown Theory,” which chalked it up to mass hysteria, usually as a result of children’s reports, CNN reported.

Children aren’t that fond of clowns to begin with, according to a 2008 study in England that concluded decorating children’s wards in hospitals with clown images may give already ill children the heebie-jeebies.

“As adults we make assumptions about what works for children,” Dr. Penny Curtis, a researcher with the University of Sheffield, told BBC at the time. “We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.”

In the United States, fear of clowns may have been sparked by 1970s serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who had a children’s party gig as “Pogo the Clown” and also painted clown pictures. Scary movie clowns followed, includingPennywise, the clown from Stephen King’s 1990 movie “It.”

Michigan Patch editor Beth Dalbey contributed to this report

Photo by William Gray via Flickr Commons