EAST LANSING -- Thousands of Michigan State University students and community members received a scare Tuesday evening when the institution's emergency alert system incorrectly warned of a campus shooter.

The university sent out the following message at 6:10 p.m. via text and email:

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE from MSU POLICE, DO NOT HANG UP. There has been a shooting incident at Wilson Hall. Take shelter in a locked room. Monitor www.msu.edu ; Public Media."



At 6:45 p.m., a corrected alert was issued:



"The MSU Police accidently sent a message of an active shooter on campus. THERE IS NO ACTIVE SHOOTER ON CAMPUS.....THERE IS NO DANGER ON CAMPUS"

The MSU Police Department said on its Facebook about 7:10 p.m. that the episode was the result of a technical error:

"An unknown computer issue during launching of the tornado warning caused an erroneous message reference a violent incident occuring on MSU's campus. There was no violent incident. We apologize for any undue worring this may have caused. We are investigating the computer glitch to ensure this does not occur again."



The error appeared to coincide with alerts of a tornado warning that had been issued for Ingham County about the same time. Not all subscribers to MSU's emergency alert system received the erroneous message.

The mix-up frightened and upset many.

MSU Alerts is now confirming that the Active Shooter alert was a false alarm. Now I can walk out to my car without having to duck into cover — Aiman Farooq (@AimanFarooq) May 28, 2013

Idc if it was a mistake, the fact that I didn't receive the #MSU alert regarding an on-campus shooter is disturbing. What if it was legit? — Colin Dilworth (@Colin_Dilworth) May 28, 2013

Also not sure if its a good or bad thing that I didn't receive the text about the shooter at MSU...even if it was false #ohwell — Mel Mel (@Mel_10Len) May 28, 2013

MSU police were not immediately available for comment.

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