Social media platforms, such as Twitter, have been raving about clown attacks, causing public hysteria, and in some cases, acts of self defense.

“I live in Poway, which is where a clown was spotted, so I see and hear people talking about the clowns in my neighborhood,” Cathedral Catholic High School student Calvin Raab ’17 said. “My neighbor was driving and a clown jumped on top of the car and damaged it.”

The pie-throwing jokesters are in almost all 50 states, but instead of their regular get up, they appear in more creepy costumes. There have been more reports of clowns getting injured than common citizens being attacked, which is why law enforcement officials have pleaded with the public not to attack the clowns.

October is the time of year students are most excited for because it is the month of Halloween. Many people prepare for this month by going to pumpkin patches, the Scream Zone in Del Mar, haunted houses, and parties, but some people have other ideas: haunting a city by dressing up as a clown and scaring people.

“The clowns are extremely terrifying, and it is messed up that the clowns are doing what they are doing,” CCHS student Olivia LaQua ’17 said. “They need to stop because they are freaking people out for no reason.”.

Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have been flooded this past month with thousands of videos and testimonies of clown sightings. The new phenomenon has caused mass panic, especially at Penn State University, in which numerous videos show approximately 6,000 students chasing down three clowns.

Clowns have been spotted all around the county, including one at Point Loma High School, where a clown was terrorizing the school in the middle of the night.

“Point Loma High School was my old school, and I am very scared now that clowns could be popping up at Cathedral,” transfer student Robert Goodwin said. “It is way too close to home now.”

However, the craze does not interest some students because they think the whole thing is fake or just a marketing project for some movie soon to be released.

“I don’t care about the clowns because I am not scared of them and because this is just like any other sensation, which will blow over and drift away within a few weeks,” CCHS student Ian Thurgood ’17 said. “Sounds like a lot of falsified claims to me, and it’s just not smart to believe it.”