A vague threat of possible attacks at schools across the country led to an increased police presence at local schools on Friday, but the day ultimately proved “uneventful,” said Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt.

School districts across the U.S. took precautions after rumors spread on social media about “school shooting and bomb threats for every school in the USA even elementary” on Friday.

Park County School District 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said the information was “widely shared” as part of a national trend on TikTok, a social media platform in which users share short videos.

“While we are not aware of any specific threat to our own schools, or believe the threat to be credible, we are closely monitoring the situation and taking it seriously,” Curtis said in a Thursday statement.

He was among many school leaders across the country — including Cody’s interim superintendent, Tim Foley — who shared nearly identical versions of the statement.

“This situation serves as a good example of why it is important to avoid sharing posts online that refer to school safety threats,” Curtis said. “Even if they are not credible threats, they can cause a great deal of stress and anxiety for our students, families, and staff. We ask our families to monitor their children’s social media activity and speak with them about proper behavior online.”

The origins of the threat remain unclear; TikTok said it had found no evidence of such a message originating or spreading via their platform.

“We’ve exhaustively searched for content that promotes violence at schools today, but have still found nothing,” the company tweeted Friday morning. “What we find are videos discussing this rumor and warning others to stay safe.”

TikTok charged that media reports about the threats have been “based on rumors rather than facts.”

“... we are deeply concerned that the proliferation of local media reports on an alleged trend that has not been found on the platform could end up inspiring real world harm,” TikTok wrote.

Although Friday’s school day passed without any reports of major violence, school administrators and law enforcement personnel had to spend time and resources dealing with the potential threat. In both Powell and Cody, more officers than usual were deployed in and around the schools.

Chief Eckerdt said law enforcement agencies across the country and Wyoming stayed in communication about the situation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday morning that it did “not have any information indicating any specific, credible threats to schools” but recommended that communities “remain alert.”

“When it’s a national issue, it becomes a little more challenging due to the fact that it’s not a narrowed focus and to some extent that takes away the credibility of the threat,” Eckerdt said, “but at the same time you can’t ignore it.”

He added that social media “fuels the fire” when it comes to threats and increases the scale of the issue.

“We’ve dealt for decades with bomb threats at schools, at banks, at businesses, it’s the same complexity,” Eckerdt said of the challenges a threat poses. “It’s just the mechanism by which the threat was delivered [that’s different].”

Superintendent Curtis asked families and their children to immediately contact school staff or a trusted adult if they become aware of any potential threat posted to social media.