Renee Jensen has spent the last 24 hours racking her brain trying to figure out how Pennywise, the menacing, child-eating clown monster from the ‘It’ movie franchise, ended up outside her house
New Jersey homeowner Renee Jensen has spent the last 24 hours racking her brain trying to figure out how Pennywise, the menacing, child-eating clown monster from the ‘It’ movie franchise, ended up outside her house.
The 42-year-old divorced mother of two was relaxing with her boyfriend, Alex Papazian, outside their Harrington Park, New Jersey home around 3pm on Saturday when they both caught a glimpse of something descending onto the property.
‘All of a sudden we saw it come through the tree line across the yard without hitting one tree and clear the top of the gate at an angle,’ Jensen told the Daily Mail via Facebook Messenger.
Jensen said she read Stephen King’s ‘It’ novel many years ago, but hasn’t seen any of the films because she ‘hate[s] horror flicks.’
The Pennywise doll made of cloth had a fake blood-soaked face and weird, cult-like writing on its forehead
Pennywise the clown is the antagonist in Stephen King’s classic horror novel ‘It’
So she didn’t immediately recognize the cartoon incarnation of the Pennywise character, depicted with a fake blood-soaked face and its signature creepy clown makeup and outfit, when it landed outside her backyard’s side gate.
The plush doll made of cloth also had some weird, cult-like symbols written on its forehead.
‘I turned it over and saw the face and let go of it immediately and yelled for Alex,’ Jensen said.
Not sure what to do, Jensen decided to burn the scary doll, but it wouldn’t light initially. She finally settled on using newspaper as kindling to light the doll. Eventually it started to burn
Jensen put an arrow on the clearing of trees through which she said the creepy clown doll descended onto her property
The couple called police who arrived later that evening and searched the property for clues, finding none.
Jensen said she asked the officers to take the Pennywise doll with them before they left, but the patrolmen declined.
‘We asked them if they wanted it. They said “no,”‘ she said, adding that the officers did a ‘great’ job helping her at the scene. ‘It wasn’t part of an actual crime so I guess they didn’t feel the need to take it. But they wouldn’t touch it. They were being half serious, half joking.’
Not sure what to do, Jensen decided to burn the scary doll, but it wouldn’t light initially.
A scene from It Chapter Two. Jensen insisted the doll wasn’t attached to a balloon, wasn’t thrown, and didn’t fall from the sky, but appeared to float down before landing in the yard
Theorizing that the toy was coated with some flame-retardant chemical, Jensen tried soaking it in olive oil before setting it ablaze, but failed again. She finally settled on using newspaper as kindling to light the doll. Eventually it started to burn.
The ordeal left Jensen quite spooked, especially the cult-like writing on the doll’s face.
‘I had to leave the house for a couple hours,’ she said.
After the sun set on her suburban home, Jensen’s boyfriend left for work. Her kids were out of town staying with their father, so she had to sleep alone in an empty house.
She had trouble sleeping and armed herself with a kitchen knife.
‘Since i don’t own guns, I thought a knife for the evening would be appropriate. I couldn’t even fall asleep until super late,’ she said.
Luckily no additional clown-related shenanigans took place through the night, but Jensen still can’t explain why ‘It’ chose her.
She insists the doll wasn’t thrown. It didn’t fall from the sky or a tree. It appeared to… ‘float,’ through the trees before landing outside her house, she said.
‘The best explanation we have is that it was possibly a drone,’ Jensen added. ‘Nobody could have launched that thing into our yard from any angle around our property.’
‘It Chapter Two,’ floats into theaters on September 4, Jensen has no plans to see the film or its predecessor.
‘That kind of stuff gives me bad dreams. lol,’ she said. ‘I had bad dreams last night.’