Reports of scary clowns lurking in the shadows and trying to lure children into the woods of rural Greenville County, South Carolina, have families in a frenzy, local police on edge, and Twitter all jittery.
NBC affiliate WYFF reports the Greenville County Sheriff's Office has sent out a news release to address what amounted to "one incident report" and two related phone calls of nightmarish clown stalkers near the Fleetwood Manor Apartments complex.
In the Aug. 21 incident, one woman told police her son reported seeing clowns in the woods "whispering and making strange noises," the news station reports. The youngster also told his mom the weird wood clowns were flashing green laser lights, WYFF reports.
The mother's older son claimed he'd heard chains and banging on the front door of their home on Aug. 20, the station reports.
But it wasn't just kids who were freaked out.
Another woman reportedly told police she saw a clown with a "blinking nose" lurking under a lamp post in the wee hours of the morning by the complex.
The creepiness was making Twitter posters' skin crawl.
Sheriff's spokesman Ryan Flood told The Atlantic it's possible the incidents could be a prank — or children letting their imaginations go wild, "but at the same time, if people dressed as clowns are trying to lure kids into the woods, we have to investigate it seriously,."
Meanwhile, since last week's report, two more scary clown sightings have surfaced nearby, according to the Associated Press.
One family in a complex about 20 minutes from Fleetwood Manor claims a child saw a man wearing a clown mask in nearby woods; a separate sighting at yet another apartment complex, where a youngster told police he'd seen two clowns in the backyard, the AP reports.
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