Wednesday afternoon a call went out to all Newsome parents to calm and inform them that every necessary precaution was being taken in order to make sure students are safe. Safe from clowns to be exact.  The call was intended to calm Newsome parents after threats from creepy clowns have been made towards many schools and assure them it was safe to send their children to school.

But how exactly did the star of circuses and the special guest at children’s birthday parties become a newfound symbol of fright and suspicion?  Sightings of creepily dressed clowns have been made across America, causing a widespread hysteria to sweep the country.  Matters only got worse when social media allowed threats to be made from so-called clowns and posts to be shared threatening schools.

Ground zero for this epidemic is believed to be Greenville, South Carolina, according to The Guardian.  A little boy had spotted two clowns in the woods next to the apartment complex in which he lived.  His mother, Donna Arnold, said he ran to her after they tried to lure him to a seemingly-abandoned house.  Later they came back and this time Arnold saw them as they hit her door with a chain.

These sightings have spread to over 20 states and the hysteria is only being fed by the use of social media.  A number of these clowns have made profiles for themselves on sights such as Twitter or Facebook and are using them to distribute fear. In Georgia, a Facebook page was created and stated clowns would be going to local schools to abduct children.

Pages like these have popping up all over and are threatening the safety of many schools and citizens.  These threats have led to many arrests though, particularly of teenagers and kids.  A 13-year old in Texas was charged for posting a supposedly “hit-list” from a clown.

Police have been cracking down on these threats and anyone pretending to be a clown or fabricating a story about one can expect to be arrested.  Many have already been charged because of this.

Folklorist Benjamin Radford spoke to People about how these sightings are part of the phenomena of “clown panics” that have appeared through the last decades.  They usually include the recurring theme of a white van.

However, he stated that they are all essentially copycats who were able to enjoy the attention because before now no legal action had been taken towards dressing as a clown and acting “creepy.”

Because of this, panic has spread resulting in different responses.  Schools have taken the necessary precautions for safety and police departments are taking this matter of public safety entirely seriously.

“There is a sense that there is some evil force out there that we have to organize together to attack,” said Dustin Kidd, sociologist at Temple University explaining the approach being take at colleges.  Gathering together, students at the University of Connecticut wielded makeshift weapons ready to battle the clowns that were reported to be seen close by.  Similarly, at Penn State more than 500 students gathered to hunt for these clowns, according to CBS.

In good news though, Radford believes this hoax has reached its height and will begin to die down now because of increasing police action.  Soon he said all of this will just end up being that weird fall when the clown panic happened.