POLICE have appealed for calm after frenzied social media claims that a clown was intimidating people with a baseball bat on the streets.

Officers received calls from concerned residents after alleged sightings in the past few days.

But a police spokesman said: "We would like to reassure people that there is no foundation for any of these reports and we have had no first hand reports of any incidents of violence or intimidation."

Hundreds of messages on Facebook and Twitter claimed the clown was spotted in the Rosegrove, Rosehill, Towneley Park and Harle Syke areas of Burnley, as well as Blackburn, Accrington, Clitheroe and Sabden.

Some schools were understood to have contacted police after concerned parents said their children were being frightened by reports.

The fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia which adults and children can suffer from.

In July 2006, the Bestival, a three-day music festival had to withdraw a request to festival goers to come dressed as clowns due to the unexpectedly high prevalence of claimed coulrophobia among the potential audience.

In September this year, a man dressed as clown in Northampton terrified residents by standing on street corners, sparking numerous copycat incidents.

A Facebook page called 'Spot the Burnley Clown' has amassed more than 4,000 followers.

The page continued to post messages last night and offered to meet people in the town.

Several pictures have been posted claiming to show the clown, although most have just been copied from the initial Northampton story, and none can be clearly identified as having been taken in East Lancashire.

The pictures show a clown resembling horror writer Stephen King’s character Pennywise from the movie It.

Some Twitter users claimed the clown had been knocking on windows and mugging people, but police said no sightings had been reported since the rumours surfaced on Tuesday night.

A Lancashire Police spokesperson said: “Over the last couple days, police have received a number of calls from concerned members of the public in Burnley and the surrounding areas with regards to a man dressed as a clown reportedly in possession of a baseball bat.

“The calls have come as a result of various postings on Facebook as well as a dedicated page ‘Spot the ‘Burnley Clown’, with comments becoming more and more exaggerated.

“We would urge people to only report first hand instances of suspicious behaviour and try to avoid repeating gossip and third hand information.

“When people start to talk about incidents like this on social media, without any malicious intent, stories can become confused and sometimes exaggerated and people should bear this in mind.”

Inspector Zeg Awan said: “We are not treating it with a degree of importance. When it comes down to it, there have been no reported concerns about violence.

“It seems to be a trend that has originated elsewhere with someone basically playing hide and seek.

“We had one call that said a clown was hiding up a tree but that turned out to be false.”

Northampton University student Alex Powell, 22, admitted responsibility for the Northampton clown saga in October which attracted almost 200,000 followers on Facebook.