They didn’t have to look very far.

Arkansas prison officials called off the hunt for an “escaped” inmate — after realizing the convicted killer was hiding on the roof of the lockup.

Authorities spent more than a day searching for Calvin Adams, 49, after a unit check in the early hours Monday showed him missing from the East Arkansas Regional Unit in Brickeys.

“He can’t fly and we don’t believe the aliens plucked him out. So where is he?” Arkansas Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dina Tyler had asked during the search, with no signs that Adams had slipped past an electric fence.

Adams — who previously escaped a separate prison 10 years ago and later turned up in New York — was eventually found Tuesday, hiding under a large ventilation hood on the prison roof.

“***CAPTURED***” the department tweeted Tuesday.

Authorities believe Adams climbed onto the roof but got stranded because there was nowhere else to go, Tyler said.

He was not hurt and will be moved to a maximum-security area at the 1,650-inmate prison.

Adams was convicted of capital murder in 1995 in the kidnapping and shooting death of 25-year-old Richard Austin the previous year.

He had more luck with his first escape from custody. On May 29, 2009, Adams and Jeffrey Grinder, both serving life without parole for capital murder, strolled out of the Cummins facility in Grady, located about 90 miles southeast of Little Rock, wearing guard uniforms. They fled in a car that was left for them in the prison parking lot.

The duo was captured four days later in Hornell, NY.

With Post wires