At first glance , video of Penn State scholarly person stampeding throughout campus would paint a picture that Drake was playing a free concert in the gymnasium , or that imbibition fountains set off spurting beer . But on Tuesday evening something quite unlike was happen . These students were n’t cluster to a frat company . They were hunting a creepy clown .
Rumors spread online that a buffoon was spotted near the university , and a group of 500 educatee now go on the offense , charging toward the allege intruder en masse . The group was actuate by the rash of creepy clown sighting that have captivated the nation in late week , and adjudicate to scare off the interloper with whatever forcefulness they could muster .
Except , as local outletThe Centre Daily Timesreports , no clown was really seen . Penn State law Sgt . Mike Nelson told the paper that authorities had no believable reports of an actual clown sighting , and that the whole thing was a social media - generated artifice .
Screenshot via YouTube
“ The cause of this specifically was social medium … If there were any clowns with this many students out there and with our law respond to calls , we would have ran into it . Some photos we ’ve construe were photoshopped or incident from across the country . ”
Clowns have been lurking ominously in various states over the last few weeks , with enough cases to inseminate some minor hysteria . There ’s evena map of all the weird incidents , which have predominantly taken place on the sou'-east , midwest and east coast . composition of some clown wield chain – others essay to lure children into the woods – have been undeniably strange and upsetting . Some clown have reportedly threatened or been sight near schools , placing them on lockdown in Alabama , Texas and Illinois .
Although this is n’t the first spate of clown natural process in the country – in the 1980s , the Boston area fell victim to a exchangeable phenomenon – it ’s been forcing citizenry to reexamine just whyclowns are so curiously terrifying . No one has been harm by anyone with a bulbous crimson nozzle and white side paint , and many written report that snowballed on social media have been proven simulated . That stand for there ’s probably nothing to worry about . After all , college students are often prone to stampede – the fake clown sighting just apply them an excuse .
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Sam Blum is a News Staff Writer for Thrillist . He ’s also a soldierlike artistic creation and medicine nerd who appreciates a fine sandwich and cunning dogs . Find his clips in The Guardian , Rolling Stone , The A.V. Club and Vice . He ’s on Twitter@Blumnessmonster .
