A student at Auburn High School was expelled after creating a "Killer Clown" account on social media, police told The Tacoma News Tribune.
The Facebook page account circulated among schools in Auburn; it has since been disabled.
Across the nation, creepy clown sightings were reported in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and now Washington state.
Several people have shared posts and messages with KIRO 7 News about reports of clown sightings in wooded areas of the South Sound and masked individuals walking around in cities in the North Sound.
"They're probably jumping on the bandwagon of what's been going on around the country," Pierce County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ed Troyer told the Tacoma News Tribune.
Threats were reported at multiple South Sound schools on Tuesday, some on social media, but none of the threats stemmed from clown sightings, according to authorities.
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To be cautious, the Puyallup School District placed Rogers High School in a modified lockdown during lunch time on Tuesday.
Despite the clown masks were found by the school, Pierce County detectives said that the masks were not related to the modified lockdown.
Police around Western Washington say they're being run ragged checking on reports of menacing-looking clowns.
The nationwide trend has police being pulled away from keeping the community safe. Law enforcement says they need such clown pranks to stop and need the public’s help to evaluate what is a prank and what is a real threat.
The clown sightings began in the Carolinas, where parents were on edge after about a half-dozen reports of the menacing clowns trying to lure children to wooded areas.
A majority of the reports were first made in a smattering of North Carolina cities. None of the reports have been substantiated, according to police, and at least one person there was accused of making up a confrontation with a clown.
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