They used to be comedic relief in circuses, but now they are everyone’s biggest fear. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Clowns.

Over the past few months, people dressed as clowns have been spotted across the country and it is not funny anymore. They are here to commit crimes and cause anxiety amongst individuals. They have kidnapped people and also chased others down with knives, and other weapons. I personally was never one of those people who is afraid of clowns, but now I sure am.

I really do not understand why the go-to thing to scare people was to dress as a clown, but for those people with preexisting clown fears, this is a nightmare come true.

When these sightings were happening in other states, I had no fears. Sure they are creepy, but “it will never happen here,” or so I thought. In the past few weeks, people have spotted clowns incredibly close to our campus. Some people claimed that there were clowns on our actual campus; however, this has not been confirmed. Now that these clown sightings are so much closer, I am afraid. I used to not care about walking back to my dorm alone, late at night, but now I try to make sure I’m back before 11. This does not have anything to do with Campus Police, however. I do trust them to keep me safe, I just know that these clowns can get onto our campus if they want to, and Campus Police might not be the first to know that they are here. But this campus is slowly getting rid of my fears.

I do know that this campus, even without Campus Police, is incredibly safe. Our school is full of aspiring cops, FBI agents and more. We also have a large ROTC program. And on top of all of that, if you have ever been noisy on the Bixler/Botwinik quad or behind Sheffield and Winchester, you know that those people will be at their windows in less than a second. That brings me a lot of comfort, because I feel like if I screamed due to a clown attacking me, someone would be able to get me help incredibly quickly. I don’t feel unsafe near Bergami because WOW is open so late and always has customers, plus REC sports tend to be on Kayo from around 8 p.m. to a little past 11pm. This campus always has something happening somewhere, so there’s very little chance of a clown being able to hurt someone on this campus.

As for what should be done about this problem, I really do not see anything specific that U.N.H. can do, personally. As long as we keep doing what we’re doing, I think we’ll be fine. We have to remember to trust Campus Police, but also trust that this campus is super safe. These weird clown people will continue to try to wreck havoc, but if we don’t let them affect us, we’ll be fine and they won’t get any pleasure out of coming here.

So yes, this clown thing is super freaky and messed up, but as long as you’re at U.N.H., there’s nothing to worry about.