Police chief Orlando Rodriguez addresses the media, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, in Brownsville, Texas. The local school district and city officials spoke to the media regarding recent threat-like hoaxes directed at area schools resulting in one student's arrest and a pending investigation. (Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP)
Police chief Orlando Rodriguez addresses the media, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016, in Brownsville, Texas. The local school district and city officials spoke to the media regarding recent threat-like hoaxes directed at area schools resulting in one student's arrest and a pending investigation. (Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP) Credit: Jason Hoekema

Carrying golf clubs, shovels and hockey sticks, several hundred University of Connecticut students gathered just before midnight in a cemetery, ready to do battle with menacing clowns they had heard might be lurking among the headstones.

Police determined that Monday’s clown rumors were a hoax. But dozens of similar reports have surfaced across the country, largely on social media. And authorities are being forced to take them seriously as a potential threat to public safety, particularly at schools, where principals have conducted lockdowns and canceled classes.

“There are many other emergencies and calls for service that troopers and other first responders need to get to without being misdirected to a prank,” Connecticut state troopers said in a statement.

Clown incidents have been reported this week at schools around the U.S., including Penn State University, where police said more than 500 students showed up early Tuesday to hunt for clowns.

Officials at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., ordered students to shelter in place for more than 30 minutes Monday night and evacuated a dorm after social media reports that an armed clown could be on campus.

The clown situations “waste valuable resources and can lead to injuries to both first responders and members of the public,” Connecticut state police said. The pranks “can cause major disruptions leading to schools, businesses and neighborhoods being placed into lockdown unnecessarily.”

Sociologists say the panic over clowns, which may seem silly from a distance, is actually a new twist on a phenomenon as old as witch hunts.

“There is a sense that there is some evil force out there that we have to organize together to attack,” said Dustin Kidd, a sociologist and pop culture expert at Temple University. “If anything, it’s just distracting us from the real ordinary threats that we face in our everyday lives.”

Rich Hanley, a journalism professor and social media expert at Quinnipiac University, which also had a clown scare this week, said the fear is easily spread on social media.