Small town clowns hit home

​Late Thursday night, the small town clown scare of 2016 hit home.. my neck of the woods became the hot bed of clown activity.. There were numerous reports across social media in Schuylkill County, PA, primarily from the town of Frackville, of clowns roaming the woods scaring people. So many reports, as a matter of fact, that even the local police department in the town posted a message on Facebook with photographs of clowns hiding behind things—unclear of the photos are of ACTUAL clowns in town or just presumably what they would look like..

The post, however, vanished a bit after it was blasted across Facebook.. Nothing remains of the initial social media release.. But other postings across Facebook and Twitter concerning the Frackville PA clown outbreak are still there..

All of this would be laughable if it wasn’t so real. The clown scare started in South Carolina in August with kids being reportedly frightened and bus stop chases occurring. The clown scare moved out of the state and broadened to other locations. Last night my locale was hit with the phenomenon..

Without tooting any horns, you can go back into the late summer archives here on this site and see, after reading the initial reports from down south, that a more widespread clown outbreak would occur from that point right through Halloween. It follows the late summer early autumn patterns of previous years. One of the biggest small town clown outbreaks occurred when AMERICAN HORROR STORY featured its freakshows, and specifcally a murderous and frightening clown killer.. That year, we were hit was news stories of clowns behaving badly in France, people in America dressing like clowns and rampaging front porches.. even clowns being caught on closed circuit stealing things from houses.

There is a juvenile and yet somehow humorous aspect to all of this – but when you are faced with a midnight walk in the woods and four clowns following you, the humor quickly goes away. Clowns behaving badly, like the one who reportedly hunted a child on the way to a bus stop, is reprehensible.  But here is the problem: These are not clowns who think boldly, but instead people who copycat of the clown next door. 

Copycat clowns are looking at endless media attention.. they see a chance for quick fame, or to get their little town on the national map. Maybe Frackville will  make the AP news wire—of course I highly doubt the people dressing as clowns in Frackville even know what the AP or a news wire is.. 

The small town clown scare is set to continue. I have absolutely no doubt about that. Just about every autumn for the past few years has been hit with stories of clowns standing under street lamps under the pale moon light.. This year is going to be no different.. It’s cloudy with a chance of clowns until the end of October.