By Tim Binnall
While Halloween may have come and gone for the year, it would appear that creepy clowns have stuck around as new reports of the haunting harlequins have recently emerged from both England and Japan. Across the pond, a pair of children walking to school on Wednesday morning in the town of Solihull reportedly encountered a mysterious stranger who was wearing a red 'clown-style' wig and sporting a painted face. Chillingly, the miscreant was also carrying a red balloon that featured a picture of a knife on it.
As one can imagine, the youngsters were understandably quite frightened, especially when the clown spotted them and beckoned them to come over to him. The children smartly took off running and reported the encounter to administrators at their school. One of the youngster's parents subsequently took to Facebook to warn residents about the clown, lamenting that "girl is petrified. She has been up and down all night having nightmares." Authorities in Solihull confirmed that the received a report about the incident and are investigating the matter.
Meanwhile, in Japan, a series of clown sightings in the city of Ibaraki over the last few weeks have left residents there on edge. The weirdness began back on the evening of November 2nd when a young boy was reportedly followed by a menacing stranger in a clown mask. What would have been a strange one-off event took on a more troubling tenor a few days later when a woman in the city said that she was followed by what appears to be the same individual. The encounters continued a week later when a pair of schoolchildren in Ibaraki were targeted by the haunting harlequin.
Fortunately, in all three instances, the witnesses were able to evade the ne'er-do-well and informed the police about what had happened. As with the Solihull case, cops are investigating the matter and asking people to report any strange clown-related activity. In light of the elusive nature of the mysterious harlequins, we're guessing that neither the police in England nor Japan will wind up capturing the culprits behind the creepy clown encounters.