I read with great interest a ROLLING STONE article about All of these clown sightings taking place throughout the United States, especially the Eastern seaboard states… Great interest because for two reasons:
1) I have been blogging about this clown phenomenon for years now, it occurs every autumn and starts in the late days of August. Just as it did this year.
And
2) Because it mentioned my home state, and towns near me.. Pretty exciting to see the little city of ‘Pottsville,’ the home of Yuengling brewery..
The article reports,
Pennsylvania, too, is rife with creepy clown reports. In Pottsville, there were reports of two people wearing “clown-like clothes,” driving around in a pickup truck scaring teens and children. In Ebensburg, a woman caught a peeping-Tom clown peering through her window. Most recently, York College sent a safety alert out to the campus – a reaction deemed necessary after receiving eight different clown reports since September 24th. More sightings have been reported in Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and, most recently, New York State.
I was at a party this weekend.. The small town clown phenom was the talk of the event! People claiming they saw clowns outside their windows…in parks…in parking lots… Under street lights.
The trouble in.. There is no proof of these clown sightings. And really, this year, with all the hubbub about small town clowns, very few have been proven. It is mostly an urban legend tale of kids on school buses passing along frightful information of clowns with knives..
Speaking of clowns with knives, there was another story of clowns this weekend.. According to reports in Florida, a young girl claims men in clowns masks and a knife scaled the fence of the house and scared her.. No proof of it and no other witnesses as well..
There is a fear deep within out soul of clowns. The makeup and style is similar to that of a dying patient of the plague.. The clown mocks death. There have been countless pop culture references to clowns in horror. The Joker has been one of the most known fictional criminals in all of entertainment history.. And Stephen King’s Pennywise the dancing clown was so frightening that it has had an enduring legacy since the made for TV movie debuted in the early 1990s–so much so that now the film is being remade into a whole new scary clown film!
Clowns abound.
But there’s really no proof they even exist.
That is what the ROLLING STONE article sets to show.. There have been no photographs besides a few … And despite police warnings of crackdowns on clowns, only a few have been apprehended and arrested.
A lot of this is cyclical. I recall last year and the year before, clowns showing up on porches and smashing pumpkins around Halloween. I recall bad clowns in France rioting.. And as the STONE article reports, this clown situation has dated back to at least the Reagan era:
Since the 1980s, clowns have made appearances across the country, usually in the weeks and months leading up to Halloween.
Coleman’s phantom clown theory is rooted in the “primal dread that so many children experience in their presence.” The first notable instance of a creepy clown is when serial killer John Wayne Gacy was captured in 1979. His alter ego Pogo the Clown frequented children’s parties, so his capture drew a connection between a killer and a clown. Three years later came Poltergeist, in which a sinister clown doll lives underneath the bed. Stephen King doubled down and only increased the public’s fear of clowns – his 1987 novel It, featuring Pennywise the clown, was made into a horrifying film in 1990. (People still love to fear clowns – Poltergeist was rebooted last year, and a remake of It is set to arrive next fall.)
And with that… The clown crisis will continue. I have no doubts that more will be reported before Samhain… And with each passing day, we will be one day closer to the darkness of winter…when the clown makeup comes off.. And the real scary time of year begins.
Stay peaceful everyone.
Keep the clowns abated.