http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cloaked-figure-haunts-n-community-drops-raw-meat-report-article-1.2333009A creepy, cloaked figure that's lurking around a North Carolina community and reportedly dropping raw meat in playgrounds has residents on edge.
Photos of the mysterious person covered in a dark, hooded cloak surfaced on social media earlier this month and went viral after sparking fear among some in the Gastonia neighborhood where the images were believed to be snapped.
"I see why it could be easy to make a joke out of it, but this is serious," resident Brooke Conrad told The Gaston Gazette. "We live in a world today where you don't know what's going on and you don't know people."
It's unclear if the figure is a man or a woman. The pale person was snapped standing by trees outside the Hudson Creek apartment complex, the local paper reported.
Some say they have seen the person dropping meat near a playground. An unnamed resident told the newspaper he found a bag of raw meat near the apartment two weeks ago.
A Reddit user who posted the photo on the popular networking site said the husband of the photographer of the original image said the figure would "raise its hands upwards and then down."
Police have not confirmed the meat rumor.
"We don't know if this is some bogus prank somebody is playing," Gastonia Police Department spokeswoman Donna Lasher told The Gazette.
Meanwhile, residents are left scratching their heads and demanding answers.
"This isn't just teenagers playing a joke in Gastonia a woman also saw someone just like this doing the same thing two hours away in their town as well," local Kelsie Cooper wrote on Facebook.
"This is a serious thing that needs to be addressed."