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Overview and Evidence[]
Sam the Sandown Clown is no doubt one of the strangest and most unclassifiable paranormal entities ever recorded in England's history. Seemingly neither a spirit nor an extraterrestrial, 'Sam', as he is known, is truly in his own class of unidentified entities. Only one reported encounter with the being is known, a supposed sighting involving two children from Sandown, England, who interacted with the being for an extended period of time in 1973.
The creature allegedly stood nearly seven feet in height and lacked a defined neck, instead having a head that emerged directly from its shoulders. The entity wore what appeared to be a green spandex tunic, a red collar around its neck, and a pointed yellow cowl with wooden antennae. The creature's facial features consisted of triangular eyes, a square-shaped nose, and yellow lips that never moved, as well as red cheek markings and a small bit of visible red hair.[1]
It has been suggested that Sam was an extraterrestrial or an interdimensional being, but the lack of evidence makes such hypotheses dubious. A more disturbing yet realistic possibility is that Sam was human and was actually a child predator. According to the story, he didn't actually make any advances towards either child, but the fact that he invited them into his hut alone is suspicious. Of course, it isn't necessary that the individual, assuming it was a human in a suit, had malicious intent. It is entirely possible that they were simply a prankster looking to frighten children and cause a scare in the local town, but doing so in such a remote area where victims would be scarce would have been a lackluster strategy for an aspiring prankster.
Alleged Sightings[]
Third-Person Accounts[]
The encounter with Sam occurred in the late afternoon of an unspecified date in May of 1973 in the small resort town of Sandown, located on the Isle of Wight's east coast, when two children, one being known by the alias 'Fay' and the other being unnamed, were exploring the hills of the Shanklin & Sandown Golf Club. While exploring the rolling green hills of the course, they were alarmed to hear a monotone siren-like sound. Going in search of the source of the noise, they made their way to a small bridge where the siren suddenly ceased and a strange entity emerged from underneath the bridge.
The creature, apparently startled by the children's presence, fumbled with a book it was carrying and dropped it into the stream below. Upon retrieving the now-drenched book, the clown-like entity fled with a series of bounding hops as though the creature was experiencing lowered gravity. It fled into a windowless metal domicile and returned with a small microphone-like device. After a brief reprise of the siren-like noise (evidently a case of microphone feedback), the figure began to speak to the children. As the now-calmed children approached, the figure wrote the message "Hello and I am all colors, Sam" in a jumbled order. The children later described the creature's manner of speaking as stilted, as though it were trying to put on a ventriloquist act or talk through a stuffy mask.
'Fay' asked Sam if he was a human, an idea that Sam denied. Upon being asked if he was a ghost, Sam allegedly replied, "Well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way." Sam began to explain that he had no true name despite calling himself Sam and that others like him existed on Earth. He expressed a fear of humans, specifically a fear that humans would attack him if he were discovered. The seemingly friendly figure then invited Fay and her friend into his hut. The hut's first floor consisted of nothing but an electric heater and wooden furniture. Sam told the children that, in addition to his hut, he had a secret campsite, but he did not disclose its location.
Sam then removed his hat, placed a berry in his ear, and lunged forward to cause the berry to reappear in his eye socket before doing so again to get it into his mouth. For the next half hour, the two children conversed with Sam, asking him questions and receiving only vague answers in return. Eventually they left and raced home to tell someone of what they just encountered. Encountering the golf course's groundskeeper, they told him their tale, but he laughed it off as overactive imagination. Disheartened by the groundskeeper's reaction, Fay waited several weeks before telling her father, but after exploring the area in which the incident occurred, he found no trace of the metal hut or Sam.[2]Sources[]
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