MIBs, Clowns and Helicopters

MIBs, Clowns and Helicopters is the title for my Trickster's Realm column, which will be up sometime this Monday on Binnall of America.

I was searching for an image of a creepy scary clown, hopefully with a paranormal edge, and found these images. I couldn't go on looking, I was getting very creeped out and upset. I don't like clowns. At all.

This isn't that creepy, but it gives me an uncomfortable feeling. It's just so cheesy and dirty and you just know there's something smelly and bad underneath all that supposed wholesomeness.


This is obviously scary and creepy. King's novel (I am a King fan although I haven't read his latest five books or so) IT was a good one, in a nasty awful way.


Now this one is creepy and scary but I also kind of like it in a weird, sick way. It's just so off the wall, and I'm a big fan of pulp fiction, so it doesn't quite send me over the edge into the abyss. Still, I don't want it on my night table!


For guitar picks; this is actually kind of funny, but I still can't get there.


Creepy, sick, scary . . . even though it's vintage cover art (I think, it might be an homage to that, I can't tell) it's too much. I can't deal.


Tragic, exploitative, and all too real; surreal.


Fortean Times Magazine was on to clowns. Ironic arch skeptic Benjamin Bradford wrote the article, though not surprising for FT. I found this image on a blog called The Fortean Critic, but as far as I could tell, it isn't active and only had a couple of posts. You can read the article the blogger wrote here.


Killer Clowns From Space. A cult classic, a fantastic title. I can appreciate it from afar for what it is. But, nope, I can't enjoy it. Too damn creepy.


I think this might be the among the scarier ones, because I don't think it's supposed to be scary. But it really gives off a bad vibe!


That's quite enough, I can't take any more.

So what, you may wonder, do clowns have to do with Vintage U.F.O. stuff? Well, there is a Fortean history of weird paranormal clowns and related beings to UFOs, Mothman, etc. There's also the Trickster element; is it one aspect of this clown stuff? There's a whole dark underbelly to UFO experiences that a lot of people don't address. And, as you'll read in my TR column, I muse on the possible relationships with clowns, MIBS (are they a kind of "clown?") and UFO encounters.

Now, let's see if I can get to sleep tonight. . .