A Reddit user called Happy Kitten said the sound was driving her ‘insane’
The mystery over the “creepiest clown music” heard in a Leicester neighbourhood every morning has been solved.
Rather than anything circus-related, the sound is actually being blasted out by a tiny sandwich van that plays the theme from the 1960s Batman show.
And we tracked it down to record a video of the sound, in case anyone else needs urgent reassurance they’re neither at risk from creepy killer clowns nor having auditory hallucinations.
It was Reddit user Happy Kitten who took to the website this week to share a recording of the strange sound that could be heard from her friend’s flat on the Freemen’s Meadow development, across the river from the King Power Stadium in Leicester.
She wrote on Reddit that she was finding it disturbing. She said: “My friend lives on Watkin Road, and every single morning without fail, there is the creepiest clown music that plays.
“It plays between 8.30am and 9.15am, and the times seem to be random. It’s loud but varies in volume and plays for varying amounts of time, seemingly randomly too.
“I need to know what it is – it’s driving me insane.
“It’s so creepy and not really what you wanna hear first thing, so I feel like if I knew what it was it would make hearing it less creepy.
“I know it’s nothing sinister! It just sounds very unsettling when you have no idea what it is.”
Another Reddit user, Alcoholic Pirate 89, was the first to supply the answer to the conundrum, replying: “Quite possibly McGorums cob van. They do the Batman theme when they turn up to workplaces to let people know they’ve arrived.”
The theory was backed by SizeIll8005, who said: “It’s 100 per cent this.”
The vans use the ‘creepy’ Batman theme to let workers know their lunch is arriving(Image: Tom Mack/Leicester Mercury)
The McGorum’s vans, from the company’s base in Saffron Lane, Leicester, do indeed travel all over the city’s industrial estates and office parks, serving sandwiches and drinks to workers, luring them out with the Batman theme.
Happy Kitten, feeling reassured, responded: “I now know it’s just a food truck playing the Batman theme – though it doesn’t sound like the Batman theme from here! Mystery solved :).”
LeicestershireLive got in touch with McGorum’s to confirm the true source of the sinister sounds and the family business said it was, indeed, their vans.
We asked where we might find one of them to hear the spooky sound for ourselves. The company explained they’d recently taken on a new fleet and the vans didn’t have trackers anymore – but there was one somewhere around Carlton Park.
So we headed south past Fosse Park to the Carlton Park business area, which is home to several companies, a gym and a nursery, but there was no sign of the distinctive little van in any of the many car parks.
But McGorum’s told us the van was due at the British Gas headquarters off Aylestone Road between 12.30pm and 1pm, so we got there with plenty of time to spare and lay in wait.
We shot a video of the noisy sandwich van doing the rounds so we could share the creepy tune, in case anyone else was being driven insane.