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CHICAGO (CBS) ― Two more children have told police they were approached by a sinister man dressed as a clown, after several other such incidents were reported.

Both incidents happened on Wednesday, police said. In one incident, a child reported being approached by a clown while waiting at a bus stop at Hyde Park Boulevard and Lake Park Avenue, in the Hyde Park neighborhood near Kenwood Academy.

In the second incident, two boys told police a clown got out of a silver, four-door car at 75th Street and South Shore Drive and offered them a ride at 2:50 p.m.

These were the latest in a rash of incidents involving a man wearing clown makeup and a wig approaching children in various parts of the city. In the incidents, the clown is carrying balloons and attempting to lure the children into his car.

There have been two incidents on the city's South Side, in the 8300 block of South Mackinaw Avenue and the 10000 block of South Normal Avenue, police said. In both incidents, on Oct. 7 and Oct. 10, the children ran and called 911, police said.

Last week Harrison Area detectives issued an alert for a man matching a similar description.

That suspect was reported to be seen on foot in the Garfield Park neighborhood and near Beidler Elementary School, 3151 W. Walnut St. and Polaris Charter Academy, 620 N. Sawyer Ave., according to a community alert from Harrison Area detectives.

In both alerts police said the suspect was driving a white four-door van or brown pickup truck.
The reports are understandably upsetting to parents.

"They walk home from school and sometimes she gets out like 6 o'clock. Cause its getting dark, now I go pick her up cause I heard about that incident," parent Chad Clark said. "I can't wait 'til they catch that guy."

While police are taking the incidents seriously, a police source close to the investigation told CBS 2's Mike Parker that past scares involving men dressed as clowns have cast some doubt on some the current claims.

A police source said at this point, the latest reports are being investigated accordingly and cannot be dismissed. But another source close to the investigation said the two reports from the city's West Side are now believed to be bogus.

Investigators recall similar reports just before Halloween in 1991. There was an avalanche of reports of someone looking like popular TV character "Homey D. Clown," a Damon Wayans character from the early 1990s comedy show "In Living Color," approaching kids across the city. No such perpetrator was ever found.

In a 2006 story in the Chicago Reader, writer Isaiah Thompson said the Homey D. Clown scare involved "a man dressed as a clown who'd supposedly been roaming the neighborhood and luring children into his white van – or maybe just snatching them and throwing them inside." Police concluded the Homey D. Clown sightings were an urban legend.

Police tell CBS 2 "there are a lot of raised eyebrows. It seems like it might be happening again."

The very first reports, came two weeks ago from the Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side. After looking into them, Area 4 police determined the stories the kids told were unfounded.

More than half a dozen students from De La Salle High School on Friday, without prompting, shouted that they had seen a clown just moments before, driving by police headquarters in a van.

Is all of this for real, or a classic urban legend resurfacing? We don't know for sure.

CBS 2's Mike Parker and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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