FLOMATION, Ala. – Someone is clowning around on Facebook, and police and school officials in Escambia County, Alabama don’t think it’s very funny.

Officials put Flomation High School on a full lockdown, and instituted a partial lockdown at Escambia County High School after threatening Facebook posts by a user that goes by “Flomo Klown” and purportedly hails from Flomation, WKRG reports.

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Yesterday, Flomo Klown posted the message “It’s going down tonight,” along with two crying emojis beside two pistol emojis. Posts of blood-soaked clowns and other gruesome images on the page are mingled with messages like “I love kids,” according to AL.com.

The news site reports the clowns were also spotted on school grounds, an assertion denied by officials but confirmed by locals posting on WKRG’s Facebook page.

“About 7:15 this morning a concerned parent of a student at Flomation High School come to the police department and met with one of our officers and stated that their child had received messages from an individual known on Facebook as Flomo Klown,” Flomation police chief Ben Davis told WKRG.

“And this individual had sent some threatening messages with some emojis with guns and things of that nature and in those threats they related to the school, and so at that time we took precautions to notify … all the schools in the county just in case something bled over.

“We also … began talking with the principal and at that time they initiated their safety plan,” Davis said, adding that the safety plan included a “precautionary” lockdown.

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“There were no clowns ever seen on campus. It was just something that was going across Facebook, people claiming there were sightings I understand across the southeast last night, and maybe some claiming in the local area,” Escambia County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Mike Lambert said. “We have not had any reports to the sheriff’s office of anyone who has actually seen any.”

The incident follows reported sightings of creepy clowns at school bus stops in Georgia this week.

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A Macon, Georgia mother called 911 when her children were chased from a bus stop Tuesday, according to the Telegraph of Macon.

Some of the children told police they had received friend requests from clowns on Facebook before the incident, and said the clowns, which carried fake knives and flashlights, crept out of the bushes and abandoned houses near the bus stop.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

In McDuffie County, a caller to the sheriff’s office reported a clown chasing children from a school bus stop, the Augusta Chronicle reported. …

In Augusta, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office received reports Wednesday of a man wearing a clown mask and dressed as a woman firing a gun, the Augusta Chronicle reported. …

Previously, similar sightings had been reported in LaGrange. Police there received “several calls about clowns in a van and in wooded areas trying to talk to children.”

The Georgia sightings this week are the latest in a string of similar stunts in at least six states, including North and South Carolina, Ohio, California, and Wisconsin, in addition to Georgia and Alabama.

In several cases the clowns lurked in the woods and approached children, attempting to lure them with candy or money, BBC reports.

Law enforcement officials in numerous states have issued warnings about the sightings and solicited information from the public.

“The clowning around needs to stop,” Greenville, South Carolina police chief Ken Miller said in early September. “It’s illegal, it’s dangerous, it’s inappropriate, it’s creating a community concern.”

Numerous folks who commented about the situation in Flomation were outraged, and called on Facebook to shut the clown page down. Others promised to lace a bullet through any clown they see near their children.

Still others, who make a living as a clown, also spoke out about how the recent creepy clown trend is giving all bozos a bad name.

“This makes me so mad! Kids dressing up as mean Klowns!” Belinda Black posted to the WKRG Facebook page. “I am a professional working Clown that many people in the area Know. I love entertaining people but this puts us in a bad light.”