This year it appears the killer clowns are trying to make a comeback. On Monday, police were called to Hampton Pier in Herne Bay, Kent, after a 17-year-old and his friend were stalked by an individual who was dressed like a killer clown.
The “clown” apparently chased the two teenagers at around 10:00 p.m. but “did not attempt to speak to the children and no crime was identified,” police said.
A concerned mother posted the story to Facebook* to warn others of the prankster clown, who has not been identified or found.
“My 17-year-old son has just come home with his friend and they have both been followed along Hampton Pier to just past the park by someone dressed in a full clown outfit,” the mother wrote on Facebook. “[The clown] was acting strangely, walking fast behind them, hiding and crouching behind the sea wall, and behaving creepily like they were acting out a killer clown.”
“My son and his friend hid for a couple of minutes, and this clown was standing by the park along the sea wall swaying side to side. They ran home. They tried to video it, but it was too dark."
At least 50 incidents were reported to police in the South East England county of Kent between October 7 and October 10 of 2016, which was most likely inspired by the “clown panics” that were occurring in the United States around the same time. The phenomenon is nothing new, author and folklorist Benjamin Radford told People in 2016.
“[It’s a] low-risk, high-reward stunt, because it’s virtually guaranteed to make local or national news,” Radford said of the prank in which one individual may dress up as a scary clown, terrorize folks, and have “copycats” follow suit. While the prank can cause some to panic, and even prompted one woman to go into premature labor, it’s usually not considered illegal.
*Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is banned in Russia