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If you’re watching local news right now, it’s hard to avoid stories like this one: "A clown started chasing us up here."
如果你现在正在看本地新闻，你很难不看到这样的故事：“一个小丑从这里开始追我们了。”
"On Facebook they said there was killer clowns around here that were killing people.
“他们在Facebook上说，这附近有杀人的小丑。”
"We saw a man with all black on, clown mask on, and like a red wig."
“我们看到一名一身黑，戴小丑面具，还戴着红色假发的男子。”
"Subject dressed in a red and yellow suit with a clown mask"
"TA穿着一套红黄色的衣服，还戴着小丑面具"
This wave of clown panic started in late August,
这波小丑恐慌始于8月底，
when police in South Carolina received reports
当时，南卡罗来纳警方接到报案，
about a suspicious character dressed as a clown who was trying to get children to follow them into the woods.
说是有一名装扮成小丑的可疑人物试图让孩子们跟着他们进入树林。
Residents reportedly took matters into their own hands and began firing shots into the woods.
据报道，当地居民便自发行动起来，开始向森林里开枪。
“We do know that it’s striking fear among members of our public.
“我们知道，我们的民众对此感到十分惊恐。
And so we have patrols out in each of these areas and wherever we think we might anticipate that person.
所以我们在每一个区域都部署了巡逻的警察，在所以我们认为我们觉得可能会遇见小丑的地方都派了警察。
We've added patrols to see if we can intercept the person and the activity.
我们增加了巡逻，看看能否拦截此人并制止住他。
And since then, police around the country have been inundated with complaints about clown sightings, and prank calls falsely reporting sightings.
从那以后，全国各地的警察都接到了大量关于目击到小丑事件的投诉，以及大量谎报看见了小丑的恶作剧电话。
And residents in some communities are asking if they’re allowed to shoot clowns on site.
一些社区的居民还问及是否允许他们现场射杀小丑。
"You’re under arrest for disorderly conduct."
“你因妨害治安被捕了。”
"I was not scaring nobody, I promise you."
“我向你保证，我没有吓唬任何人。”
"Alright, how did we get a 911 call?"
“好吧，那我们怎么接到报警的?”
"I just came out the door, I swear."
“我才刚出门，我发誓。”
As you can hear the police officer saying, the arrests are usually made for disorderly conduct,
正如大家听到警察所说的那样，逮捕通常是以行为不检为由，
though some states also have anti-mask laws that prevent people from concealing their identities in public.
虽然部分州还出台了反面具法，防止人们在公共场合隐藏自己的身份。
The consequences of these copy-cat pranks are playing out in a very real way.
这些跟风恶作剧的后果正在以一种非常真实的方式上演。
Schools in several states have been put on lockdown after threats from people posing as clowns on social media and word-of-mouth reports of clown sightings.
由于社交媒体上有人假扮小丑，以及有人目击到小丑的消息口口相传，美国好几个州的学校都已经被封锁了。
On top of that, one student in Georgia was arrested for bringing a knife to school to defend herself against clowns,
更糟糕的是，乔治亚州一名学生因为带刀到学校自卫，防止被小丑伤害到被逮捕了，
and another in Virginia was arrested for posting a request on social media for a clown to kill her teacher.
弗吉尼亚州的另一名学生也因为在社交媒体上发帖要求一名小丑杀死她的老师而被捕。
At Penn State, hundreds of students flooded the streets in search of clowns that had allegedly been seen around campus —
在宾夕法尼亚州立大学，数百名学生涌上街头，寻找据说曾在校园里出没过的小丑——
though police reported that there were no credible sightings or threats.
尽管警方报告说可信的目击事件或威胁并不存在。
"No matter who you are voting for,
“不管你的政治立场如何，
We can all agree on one thing:
但在一件事情上我们是一致的：
Fxck that Clown."
让小丑去死。”
Turns out the clown backlash may be more dangerous than the pranksters themselves.
事实证明，小丑引起的抵制情绪可能比那群恶作剧的人本身还要危险。
At the end of September, a 16-year-old who was allegedly scaring neighborhood kids while wearing a clown mask was stabbed to death after a confrontation.
9月底，一名16岁的少年据说是戴着小丑面具吓唬邻居的孩子，最后在双方的冲突中被捅死了。
Now, this isn’t the first time things like this have happened.
这样的事情已经不是第一次发生了。
As recently as 2014 there was a similar clown craze in the U.S. that became a small social media trend and spread to France.
就在2014年，美国就出现过类似的小丑狂潮，当是还演变成了小规模的网络趋势，甚至还流行到了法国。
But the roots of people dressing up as clowns as a prank are a lot older than social media.
然而，人们打扮成小丑恶作剧的根源要比社交媒体诞生地早得多。
In 1981 in neighborhoods around Boston, police received over 20 calls about children having seen mysterious clowns.
1981年，波士顿附近的一些社区的警方接到了20多个电话，说孩子们看到了神秘的小丑。
Local schools panicked.
当地的学校慌了。
Police questioned a clown they believed to be the one children had seen,
警察审问了一个他们认为就是孩子们见过的那个小丑的嫌疑人，
only to find that he had just been making rounds to department stores as part of his job.
结果却发现他在百货商店里转来转去，只是因为那是他的工作而已。
A few days later, police in Kansas City were flooded with an estimated 60 to 100 calls about a “demon clown” scaring children, armed with a knife.
几天后，堪萨斯城的警察接到了大约60到100个电话，说有个带刀的“恶魔小丑”吓唬孩子。
Parents were on edge after a local parochial school sent home a note warning them about a “killer clown” —
当地一所教区学校给家长们发了一张纸条，警告他们有“小丑杀手”时，家长们都慌了——
but police weren’t able to find any real threat, and blamed the hype on prank calls and children’s imaginations.
然而，警方未能发现任何真正的威胁，将这一轰动归咎于恶作剧电话和孩子们的想象力。
Now, all of this happened just a year after John Wayne Gacy was charged with the murders of 33 people, mostly adolescents, committed over the course of the previous decade.
由于所有这些事件距离约翰·韦恩·盖西被控在过去的十年里谋杀了33条人命，其中大多数是青少年，才仅仅一年。
Gacy worked as a clown for charity — so there was a lot of preexisting fear around this image of a dangerous clown.
盖西原本是一家慈善机构的小丑——所以大家对危险的小丑的形象有一种先入为主的恐惧。
And for the next 25 years, appearances kept happening.
在接下来的25年里，这种现象不断发生。
