What was up with the clown statue story

It was all fun and games in elementary school until somebody brought up that fucking clown statue story. It was this story where there were these kids and like a babysitter and the babysitter thought that it was really weird that the parents would have this like clown statue, um, in their house, but she didn't want to say anything, she didn't want to be rude. And then she swore that she kept seeing the clown statue move and then eventually she called the mother, um, because she was like, you know, um, I think the kids might be messing with the clown statue and moving it around because I keep seeing it in a different location and the mom was like, we don't have a clown statue, right? And then, um, the story is like, oh my gosh, it was just some weird guy in there and clowns with them. Hearing that story at eight years old during indoor recess when it was like storming outside, that was not good for me. I remember the first time I heard that and I was like, oh my god, what if that actually is going to happen to me tonight? Like why would that happen? It was never a good day when someone started talking about that. It was always like, there were like variations of the story. Like I think one involved a clock and then I don't know, but um, I know that this was like widespread at multiple elementary schools because I've talked about this with people like from all over the United States and they're like, oh my god, the clown story. I'm like, yeah.