Welcome to October 2016, where people are actually living in fear of evil clowns.

October has sparked a plethora of reports of malicious clowns roaming areas all across the globe. Some seemingly harmless, while others attempting assaults on civilians.

The international craze began with several false reports of clowns on people’s property through social media, and has exploded into a huge and very creepy trend.

Reports have become so common, there have actually been cases here in Chickasha.

The report came in at around three in the morning on October 4th. The man claimed the person dressed as a clown was standing on the corner of 2oth and Oregon, seeming to be holding some sort of machete-like object.

The witness was not injured in any way, but highly frightened.

These instances pose the question; should students on campus be concerned for there safety?

Logan Webb, senior Fine Arts major, stated, “Recently I guess they’ve been running up on people and interacting, but I hadn’t heard of any violence anywhere until recently. Not in Chickasha, but in other places. Clown movies are making a comeback this year, but I’m not sure of a motive for this happening other than that. And it’s nearing Halloween, so people are feeding on that sort of yearly autumnal anxiety.”

Webb isn’t the only student who thinks these occurrences have more to do with the Halloween season rather than pure malicious intent.

Senior Fine Arts major, Micah Halverson, stated, “It’s hard to know for sure, but personally, I think that they’re jokes. I mean, it started in October, right? Maybe they’re just wanting to give people some Halloween spooks, now, if we’re still seeing clowns around Thanksgiving… that might be a little weird.

The consensus is that the local sightings seem to be not much more than creepy jokes at this time, but we can’t rule out a violent attack occurring.

Whether the new eerie occurrences are a concerning safety hazard or just an odd Halloween trend, it is safe to say that the students of USAO are genuinely weirded out

All report info taken from KFOR News.