Having already afflicted South Carolina with greasepaint-induced nightmares, similar creepy clowns have now been spotted nearly 200 miles away in North Carolina!
On Sunday evening, police in Winston-Salem, North Carolina responded to a call regarding an unnerving incident that bears an uncanny resemblance to the clown panic currently festering in South Carolina.
Authorities say that two children reported encountering a stranger clad in full clown regalia who beckoned them to come into the woods with promises of candy.
The children's grandmother told North Carolina news station WFMY that "I've never seen the kids like that. They were so distraught."
Before the tale can be dismissed as an ill-advised prank, it should be noted that an adult in the area also apparently heard the mysterious clown during its exchange with the children.
A mere four hours later, police received a second call concerning a suspicious clown in the area, although little is known about that sighting at this time.
With Winston-Salem being about 175 miles from the epicenter of the clown craze in Greenville, the possibility exists that the two odd events over the weekend were been perpetrated by the same group of harlequins being hunted by South Carolina authorities.
However, given the incredible amount of media coverage for the South Carolina clowns, it's also very plausible that the North Carolina cases are copycat events.
The question remains as to whether the clowns will be captured or if they will somehow manage to evade justice via some nefarious trick, like spraying water from a faux flower in the eye of an arresting officer, thus allowing them to escape.
But what may be even more worrisome than that is the question of where they may appear next.
Coast Insiders looking to learn about the very real and extremely unsettling phenomenon known as the 'copycat effect' can check out Loren Coleman's 2/14/2005 appearance on the program.
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Source: CBS News