Another report of a creepy clown encounter has surfaced, this time in Columbus, Ohio.
A 14-year-old student at Columbus North International School was on his way to a bus stop Tuesday, around 6:15 a.m., when a man in a clown mask, dressed in all black, chased him with knife, NBC affiliate WCMH reported.
Police told NBC News the teen managed to get away by throwing a rock at the attacker. Authorities are still canvassing the area in search of the suspect and said they will keep a close eye on the bus stop where the incident occurred.
"We don't know whether this was a prank or not, but we are taking it seriously," police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.
The attack follows multiple reports in recent weeks of menacing clowns lurking in the woods in Greenvile, South Carolina, allegedly offering kids money to follow them to an abandoned house.
Alex-Bouzounis told NBC News the department is aware of the South Carolina reports but is "investigating locally" for now.
The Greenville County Sheriff's Office said it has boosted patrols around the Fleetwood Manor apartment complex after it learned that men opened fire into woods behind the complex last week. Residents told a deputy that the men were spooked by what an incident report described as "recent clown activity."
A purported picture of one of the clowns — which NBC News hasn't been able to verify — was posted Tuesday to Twitter.
According to an incident report, multiple residents, some of them children, said they saw the clowns, brandishing flashing green laser lights and creeping around complex on the night of Aug. 21. Some of the kids said the clowns showed them "large amounts of money."
