HOUGHTON — Local law enforcement debunked a rumored threat to local school students after an investigation Friday morning.

The incident was spawned by a fake school shooting threat being circulated on Snapchat and Instagram through North America.

Friday’s action came three days after the Michigan State Police notified schools around the state of the Snapchat image, which has the primary text of “hug your loved 1s tmr might be the last hug your getting.”

Additional text mentioned specific schools. The post that sparked Friday’s confusion mentioned a Washington Middle School, which officers soon determined referred to one in Georgia.

“Obviously people in the community saw it and worried it was referencing Calumet,” said Houghton County Detective Lt. Charlie Klein.

The post has been sparking the same cycle of concern and quick debunking elsewhere, with recent incidents popping up in Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota and numerous other states.

The Georgia situation, as with all of them, was a hoax. The reference to Washington Middle School in Georgia’s Grady County was clipped from a Georgia Department of Education list of Title I schools receiving targeted assistance — in this case, to help students meet Georgia’s academic standards.

With a little tweaking, it became a supposed list of schools targeted for violence.

It also tied into nationwide talk about Friday the 13th, said Houghton Police Chief John Donnelly.

Houghton-Portage Township Schools received word of the rumored threat from a group of concerned Houghton Middle School students.

“You can talk to five middle schoolers and we got five different stories,” said Superintendent Anders Hill. “It was concerning, and we took it seriously. Rumors, with social media, can spread very quickly, and change quickly.”

The Houghton Police Department had received tips about the posts from concerned parents, and reached out to multiple departments to help investigate.

A message sent from Hancock Superintendent Chris Salani mentioned several departments — the Houghton and Hancock police departments, including their respective school resource officers Kirk Mills and Darron Olson, and the Houghton County Sheriff’s Office.

Donnelly and Klein said the departments coordinated to talk to the students who had reported the threat and track down the original source of the information.

“When we checked into it, there was nothing creditable to say that something was going to happen at our school,” Donnelly said.

Houghton schools continued to have heightened security and take threats seriously, Hill said in a message to parents sent Friday morning. Other officers, in addition to the district’s school resource officer, were in all three buildings Friday.

Hill encouraged people to immediately report anything to the school if they hear anything concerning.

“We want to take everything seriously and keep our kids safe,” he said.