Christopher Haxel

Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING - The creepy clown craze hit Michigan State University early Wednesday morning, after a photo of a clown holding balloons outside a dormitory surfaced on social media.

Students said a mob of "clown hunters" struck out to fight the makeup-laden character, but were unable to locate any clowns.

Freshman Ian McGuire said he and some friends were in the courtyard of Wilson Hall at around midnight, "climbing trees and doing related hooligan shenanigans," when a woman in a window above the courtyard screamed that she had seen a clown.

Someone soon sent McGuire's friend a photo that appeared to show a clown, holding a bundle of balloons, standing in the shadows outside a nearby cafeteria.

"(We) went over there to exchange some words and possibly right hooks with this little clown-makeup-wearing sissy face square," he said in a Twitter message. "When we got there a bunch of courageous MSU gentlemen had come to join us."

Within 15 minutes about 200 students were running around the courtyard looking for the clown, McGuire said.

The clown hunt eventually devolved into an impromptu pep rally of sorts, with students yelling "Go Green" or proclaiming that the clown had simply been a sleepwalking Jim Harbaugh, the University of Michigan football coach.

Someone called police, and an investigation ultimately determined the reported sighting was a hoax, said Capt. Doug Monette, a spokesman for the MSU Police Department.

"There were no clowns," he said. "It was done through Photoshop, and it was meant as a joke."

Tia Trudgeon, a freshman who lives in Wilson Hall, said she created the photo, and did not intend to create a campus-wide scare.

"I was kind of bored, and, a lot of times, I Photoshop pictures and send them to my friends," she said. "Pretty much everything I post on social media is a joke."

At 10:09 p.m. Tuesday she tweeted the photo, then went back to homework in her Wilson Hall room.

"Around 11:50 I heard screaming in my hallway," she said. "People were running up and down the hall."

By the time Trudgeon went out to the courtyard to explain that the photo was fake, the "clown hunters" had taken over, and there was no explaining away the situation, she said.

As for whether the students were actually scared at that point or simply having fun with the impromptu gathering, Trudgeon said she isn't sure.

"Maybe some people thought it was serious," she said. "I could see how that could cause a problem, but I was intending it to be between me and my friends."

Contact Christopher Haxel at 517-377-1261 or chaxel@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisHaxel.