What are we saying? Of course, this is a laughing matter.
You may remember a few months back that
JOE brought you the frankly terrifying tale that one dementedly hilarious soul in the English town of Northampton had taken it upon themselves to dress up as
Pennywise the psychotic clown from the Stephen King-inspired 1990 horror film, It.
Well, it now seems that this event has sparked a clown epidemic of sorts in the nearby town of Gaywood. If you suffer from
coulrophobia then be prepared to get no sleep for a week...
According to a report in
The Metro, a member of the public contacted police after being spooked by a person wearing a full clown outfit with a red wig in Gaywood, Norfolk earlier this week. This complaint then prompted Superintendent Carl Edwards to release one of JOE's favourite scary clown-related police statements of all time.
After explaining that, thankfully, no one had actually been injured or assaulted, Supt. Edwards went on to advise people to ignore the clowns and not to give them the attention they're looking for saying,
"Firstly I’d like to stress that it isn’t against the law to dress up as a clown.
Nobody has been assaulted and it appears that the people involved are waiting for a passerby to be startled by their appearance and run away, and then the clown runs after them for a short distance.
We know there has been a lot of gossip and conversations about this on social media channels, not just in Norfolk, and it is important to gain a perspective on these incidents. We appreciate this can worry people, especially the young or elderly.
The most effective way to behave if you are to see someone dressed up is to give no reaction – because that’s what they are after."
"Runs after them for a short distance!?" Ha! Both terrifying and hilarious in equal measure.
In all seriousness though, no one is really sure who might be masquerading under all of that clown makeup and curly red wig, but we're pretty sure Homer Simpson hasn't been spotted in a while...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-crJKAfcHw
