VIDEO: CSU football team members believed among students that went 'clown hunting'

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCIV) — ABC News 4 has learned members of the Charleston Southern University football team may have been among a group of students that went "clown hunting" late Tuesday / early Wednesday after a student reported being chased by a clown with a knife.

According to a campus-wide Buc Alert issued around 10 p.m., a clown with a knife "came after a CSU student at an apartment complex."

"Tonight, one of our students was walking her dog and a person wearing a dark hoodie and a clown mask, armed with a knife, came towards her in a threatening manner. She was able to run to an apartment to escape the person who chased after her," the Buc Alert reads.

The man in the video above told us his name was Ethan Ray. As we interviewed him, others in the background chanted "CSU!" and "CSU Football!"

Buc Alert:Knife-wielding clown chased woman at apartment complex near CSU

"We heard one of our classmates got chased down by a clown," Ray said. "So my fellow brothers and I, we came out here, and we're trying to find it."

Ray is identified as a freshman long-snapper from Boiling Springs, South Carolina.

"Clowns better stay away," he said.

One of the students we spoke to last night said he actually spotted the clown while out looking.

"I saw like, the clown. My heart was racing," Amani Williams said. "I was like, 'dang.' I didn't know what was going on, and my heart was racing. I see it on Facebook and stuff, but I didn't know it was like, real."

University officials are asking students not to walk around campus alone.

We've reached out to university leaders to find out if there will be any changes today and also to North Charleston police to find out if they found anything/anyone. So far, we haven't heard back.

** ABC NEWS 4's Brodie Hart and Brian Troutman contributed to this report.