The S.I. Clown Will Haunt Your Dreams

Apparently, someone on Staten Island is traipsing around town in an evil-looking clown outfit, peering at drivers from behind bridge abutments, blowing balloons without provocation, and generally terrorizing the island’s residents. The Staten Island clown was reported around two weeks ago, and while it hasn’t done anything other than lumber around harmlessly, locals are freaked out. Which is understandable, given that clowns are, as a matter of scientific fact, abjectly horrifying.

Nobody knows who’s inside the oversized, predominantly yellow clown costume, or why they’ve chosen to haunt the residents of Staten Island. Viral marketing would seem to be a possibility, but it could very well just be intimidation for intimidation’s sake. Either way, nobody on the island is happy about it (other than the clown, presumably).

“Ok so I'm a little freaked out right now,” Michael Levy wrote in an Instagram post earlier this month. “I was driving home from Buffalo Wild Wings and saw this waving at me.”

Any experience is going to be creepier when an unsolicited clown gets involved, but what’s particularly unsettling about this incident is that the clown has been spotted in places where a clown, by all means, shouldn’t be — underneath a freeway, for example, or standing by the side of the road near traffic cones at night.

The situation is reminiscent of an incident in Great Britain last year, when a 22-year-old college student and filmmaker dressed as the clown from the Stephen King film “It” and roamed around frightening passerby.

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In any event, let's all be thankful right now that we're not on Staten Island. And for those of you who are, our prayers are with you.

Images: Bobbypriv, Michael Leavy/Instagram