【eroticism vs pornography】

There's nothing like a good prank to scare the crap out of America.

The eroticism vs pornographymovie adaption of Stephen King's Itis slated to be released on Friday, bringing with it some good old-fashioned clown hysteria. Just a year after "killer clowns" terrorized suburbia in the U.S., creepy clowns are back, perfectly timed for the lead up to Halloween.

SEE ALSO: Critics say 'It' is missing something, but will still scare you silly

On Tuesday police in Lilitz, Pennsylvania, shared a couple photos to their Facebook page of red balloons that were tied to sewer grates across their small town -- a signature move from Pennywise, the clown in It.

The cops politely requested that the prank be stopped, admitting they were "completely terrified." They were good sports about it, but it was clear they did not want this to turn into hysteria.

So who was the mastermind behind the prank? Was it a marketing campaign for the movie? Was it some serial killer that also loves clowns?

Nah. It was apparently just five teen girls looking to scare the crap out of their classmates.

After the cops' Facebook post blew up, Peyton Reiff shared a series of status updates on social media, admitting that she and her friends were the ones behind the harmless prank.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

On Facebook, Reiff went into more detail, complete with photos of the girls tying up more than two dozen the balloons to the grates.

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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

On the last night of summer my friends and I were driving at night when I spotted a dim lit sewer drain and I stopped the car and told the girls I have an idea. I explained what I wanted to do and all the girls agreed it was a great idea. So we quickly drove to giant to start our scheme. When we arrived at giant we asked them to blow up 24 red balloons. We then shoved these balloons into my friends small car and drove away. Our plan was to tie red balloons to sewer drains around our piers from school houses to geek them out since the new IT movie is coming out this Friday and we knew kids from our school would know about this! We ended up going back to giant and getting 10 more red balloons and tying them all over town. When we woke up we saw the Lititz Police had responded to the balloons and were frightened which wasn't our intent but we are glad to see they understood what it meant and got a good laugh out of it! Don't worry no clowns here in Lititz just 5 teenage girls having fun!

In the post, Reiff says the girls had no intention of scaring the cops, but they appreciated that if gave everyone a good laugh.

Reached by phone on Wednesday afternoon, Reiff says that her and her friends, who are juniors and seniors in high school, were driving around town on their last night of summer when the idea hit them. They decided to buy a few dozens red balloons from Giant supermarket, and place them around town where they knew their friends would see them. They had no intention of freaking out the town, let alone the country.

When the teens saw the cops updated their Facebook page, they said they were shocked.

"We were all freaking out," Reiff said. "Honestly, we didn't expect it to be this big."

The girls decided to own up to the prank when it started to get more attention. "We decided to tell people it was us ... to not freak them out."

Additionally, the girls said they didn't want someone else to claim responsibility, and possibly cause more hysteria. The teens even messaged the cops, and they plan on meeting with them to do a " funny followup."

As far as the vibe in the town goes, Reiff says that things have calmed down since the girls admitted to the prank.

"At first we think people were freaked out but now they're all laughing and having fun with it," she said.

So what's scarier: Five teen girls or killer clowns?

UPDATE: Sept. 6, 2017, 1:47 p.m. PDT This post was updated with comments from the teens.

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