Ladies. Gentlemen. Journalists. The conspiracy-minded have accused us of "Project Blue Booking this thing." We want you to know that we set aside time on other jobs and with our families to serve on this Commission. Set aside a fair amount of pride, too. Those of us who aspire to public service imagine we'll work on something boring but responsible. Water policy. Voting rights.
       Nobody expects to spend two months trying to explain a rash of menacing clown sightings.
       But here we are.
       It wasn't your intention, but we've come to find the Project Blue Book comparison flattering. Does a better methodology exist than to explore likely explanations before humoring unlikely ones? To ask ourselves, what grounded theories might explain the growing number of clown reports?
       A stealth campaign for a horror film, perhaps?
       Or maybe pranksters spawned a horde of copycats?
       Or could it be a social contagion? Spread among the homeless, leading members of that population to dress as clowns as they occupy their usual spots, cash they might have spent on interview attire instead wasted on very large shoes?
       Yet, after completing our investigation, we can say with confidence that no such theory is necessary. There's been no increase in the number of clowns in our state. Where people say they're seeing clowns, there are no clowns.
       Hyperventilating TikToks aside, this fact is easy to establish. Our streets are a panopticon of CCTV, camera-capable phones, surveillance drones, and traffic cams. We have more electronic eyes on the ground today than ever before. While owners of some devices may be reluctant to share footage without legal pressure, it's easy enough to accumulate several hundred hours of video from places where--and times when--people said they encountered menacing clowns. If you were to study that footage (as we did), then you would observe (as we did) that, in fact, there are no clowns in those places at those times.
       No clown glaring at nervous diners in the Michelin star restaurant.
       No clown scowling at drivers from the middle of a busy intersection.
       No clown in a rapidly evacuated Chick-fil-A play area, cackling at fleeing children through the Plexiglas.
       Yes, we're aware of the YouTuber who responded ahead of our findings, tipped off by an unauthorized leak of preliminary materials. It's true that one of us may have set our Google Folder visibility to anyone with the link. It's also true that the same individual may have angered a teenaged daughter by telling her to dress more like a lady at school, whereupon said young lady may have shared said folder link with her friends. We're not here to litigate the matter of the leak. Nor will we respond to--and thereby dignify--uncharitable commentaries on parenting which have followed, particularly from childless adults who believe in a plague of murder Bozos.
       Nevertheless, that video raised two questions, and I can see by the hands raised in this room that they're about to be repeated. To the first: Yes, of course, we noticed that the witnesses in the collected footage reacted as though they saw something. The pointing fingers, the jittery steps backward, the wide eyes--even on grainy CCTV, those details are clear enough. But all of those people are pointing at nothing. Nothing is there. For leakers and their respondents to decide collectively that we simply never considered--hold on, let's check my notes--vampire clowns, is laughable. And I mean that literally. When we discussed that idea, we laughed so hard that we deployed three tissues for tearing eyes, one asthma inhaler, and one Heimlich maneuver.
       As it happens, the human behavior in that footage is easily explained. Our state is in the grip of a mass psychogenic illness, akin to dancing sickness, spread among witnesses. People, in short, are seeing things. They're passing the idea to other people, who are then also seeing things. The same things.
       As for the second question from that video, look: the less said about the preposterous idea that we on the Commission are covering up a phenomenon that we ourselves are behind, the better. None of us owns greasepaint. The lack of photos on our Commission's website isn't some kind of clue. The volunteers on this Commission asked not to have their photos made public. We honored their request for privacy. That is all.
       We've moved on from this lunacy, and everyone else should, too.
       Ignore the reports of clown sightings. There are no clowns.
       Ignore the reports of people disappearing. People disappear all the time.
       Ignore the reports of bodies found ravaged in ditches. Carrion-eating animals exist.
       Ignore accusations that we Commissioners, like the clowns, feed on fear. If that were true, why would we work so hard to reassure you here today?
       Continue sending children to school. Adults need to work.
       Continue buying whatever you need. Your economy needs you.
       And inoculate yourself against mass hysteria. Remind yourself, every day if you must, that there is no mystery about what was actually standing there on those desolate roadsides, outside your ninth-floor office window, or looming over the crib of a crying infant,
       as you watched your colleague sigh,
       and then apologize to everyone in her Zoom call,
       and then turn around,
       and then scream and scream and scream.
       I promise nothing was there. Nothing at all.