I am sure most of you have heard about the clowns creeping around Ohio. If you have not then you must never go on any type of social media. There are videos and pictures all over the place. These clowns are rumored to be armed with knives and machetes. Clowns are scary in their own right, but adding weapons makes them downright terrifying.

To make matters worse, it is October! Halloween is coming up! I dressed up as a clown when I was a kid once and regretted that decision almost immediately. I have a fear of clowns, and I feel like I am not the only one. If you go to any haunted house or Halloweekends at Cedar Point, there WILL be a clown. There is a reason for this, MOST people are terrified of clowns. Some haunted houses, like Seven Floors of Hell, have a separate house dedicated to just clowns. I, personally, will not be attending any haunted houses this season due to the rumored clowns. I may even skip Halloween altogether. How are we supposed to know if the actor or the person dressed as a clown is just in costume or trying to kill us? We don't! Canceling Halloween, however, is not an option. Kids love Halloween and are probably drooling over all the candy they will get. As they should. Let's just hope these savage clowns do not go near developments where children are trick-or-treating.

How are we supposed to know if this is true? Most people are just hearing about this through social media. Social media is not always trustworthy. People could easily just be playing around and think it is funny to mess with people's heads. There is a video that went viral on twitter of a mob of Kent State students going after a "killer clown." Well, the clown never existed. Someone posted a picture of a clown under a street lamp and said that it was found on the Kent State campus, but through investigations, it was determined that the picture was taken from another location, nowhere near Kent State University. Before the police were involved students were fearful to even leave their dorm rooms. People inducing panic like this is not helping!

I hear people say, "Only in Ohio," or, "Of course this will happen in Ohio." It did not start in Ohio. In fact, clowns have been spotted in at least eight states! It started in South Carolina about a month ago, with children saying clowns were trying to lure them into the woods with candy. Then women reported clowns trying to lure them into the woods too. In Las Vegas, schools were closed because the school board and parents were worried about children's safety walking to and from school after a clown sighting. There have also been occurrences of lurking clowns in Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, New York and Georgia.

Police have gotten involved because they are afraid that residents will start taking matters into their own hands. Police have been arresting anyone wearing a clown costume. The problem is police only arrest the clowns they see, those are usually the clowns that are just joking around. The ones they need to worry about and the ones we need to look out for are the ones that are hiding in the woods.

If you are familiar with American Horror Story, you would know that two seasons ago the theme was a circus and there was a clown with a screwed up face that went around killing people. That is what I am picturing. Creepy right! Not all clowns look like that. Some clowns have the squeaky red noses and big afros. Some are even blue like in the hit Disney channel movie "Big Fat Liar." Either way, I am a hundred percent positive that party clowns, clowns that actually clown for a living, will be out of a job.

What makes clowns so scary? First of all, their makeup is usually a disaster. That usually does it for most. But if you seriously think about it, what is the one thing that scares us all the most? Uncertainty. Clowns hide behind their makeup, hiding their true identity. We do not know who they are. The ambiguity of clowns is what makes them the most creepy. Especially when you see one lurking around in the woods with a knife.

Have fun this Halloween, be safe! Do not trust any clowns, stay out of the woods, use the buddy system, and if you do come across one, RUN!