People with a fear of clowns have had a really rough time lately. There have been reports from several states (including Nebraska) of people dressed up as sinister clowns hanging around neighborhoods and peeking out of cornfields. Just this week, multiple teens in Nebraska have been either arrested or questioned by police in incidents involving threats made while the teens were dressed as clowns.

Knowing all of that may make what you're about to see seem tame by comparison...or it may make the following even scarier.

CLOWNS. Or, rather, Klowns. Thousands of them. Surrounding you from every side, smiling those huge, exaggerated smiles and bearing their terrifyingly huge feet.

We're only kidding, of course. The Klown Doll Museum in Plainview is definitely full of clown dolls, and anyone with the extremely common clown phobia would do well to stay away. But for lovers of weird, kitschy roadside attractions, the Klown Doll Museum is anything but scary.

This 8-foot-tall guy, known as Stumpy, is the museum's mascot and stands outside of the entrance.

Oddly enough, the museum was inspired by a local band that formed in the 1950s.

The Plainview Klown Band was founded to promote the town in a goodwill ambassador fashion. Years later, a small assortment of a few clowns in the Chamber of Commerce offices blossomed into a huge collection that grew rapidly thanks to donations from all over. This was the beginning of this odd little museum.

Or should we say big museum? This is now the largest collection of clowns in the world, containing more than 7,000 pieces.

And the most amazing part is that there is not a single repeat in the whole collection. Each clown is unique.

You'll find stuffed clowns, clown figurines, clown paintings, clown music boxes, and various objects with clowns on them.

The collection actually outgrew the museum's first location and had to be moved to its very own building which opened in 2007 with the help and fundraising of the community.

The Klown Doll Museum is, at its core, a community project. It was born of a desire to make people smile, and it continues to do that today (unless, of course, clowns actually terrify you).

On the first Saturday of each June, the town comes together to celebrate Plainview's Annual Klown Festival. The town of Plainview was even officially named "The Klown Kapital of Nebraska" by former governor Dave Heineman.

The museum is open six days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Outside of that time frame, it is open by appointment only. No matter what time of year, admission is always free. Find out more, look at lots more pictures of klown dolls (if you dare), and get the phone number for making an appointment at the museum's site.