The University of Florida was briefly plunged into lockdown Monday night after gunfire was reported on campus – before school officials declared that the reports were ‘consistent with hoax calls.’

In an alert just before 9.30pm, school officials announced that gunshots were heard near Smathers Library, and asked students and community members to avoid the area or ‘secure in place.’

But after police arrived on the scene, they confirmed that no gunshots were actually fired and the university proceeded with its normal operations.

The incident is in line with a trend of ‘swatting’ calls at college campuses across the United States, whereby first responders are dispatched to a fake emergency. 

Authorities say they are now working to determine where the false report came from. 

The scare came just hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared at the university to tout the success of the State University System following the University of Florida’s rank as the seventh best public university in the country.

It was the second straight year that the school earned the number seven spot in the  US News & World Report rankings.

The incident follows a number of shootings that have rocked the nation in recent weeks, including a deadly church arson attack in Michigan on Sunday and a shooting on a North Carolina riverside the day before. 

Four people were killed and eight others were injured in the attack on a Grand Blanc Township church in Michigan on Sunday before former Marine Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, was shot dead by police.

Authorities say he rammed his pickup truck into the church on Sunday morning before opening fire and setting it ablaze.

The attack occurred about 10.25am while hundreds of people were in the building in Grand Blanc Township, outside Flint.

At that time, Sanford had gotten out of his pick-up with two American flags raised in the truck bed and started shooting, Police Chief William Renye told reporters.

The attacker apparently used gas to start the fire and also had explosive devices but it wasn’t clear if he used them, said James Dier, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

Hours earlier, a shooter in North Carolina pulled up to a marina and opened fire on a group of restaurant diners, killing three individuals and injuring eight others.

The suspect, whose identity remains unknown, then escaped on a boat on the Intracoastal Waterway toward Oak Island – about 40 minutes outside of Wilmington.

Police say the shooter was the lone occupant of the boat, which US Coast Guard officials later saw being loaded onto a public ramp by a person matching the suspect’s description.

The person of interest was detained by the Coast Guard and was brought in for questioning by the Oak Island Police Department with assistance from the State Bureau of Investigation. 

Colleges across the United States have also seen violence, with conservative commentator Charlie Kirk gunned down at Utah Valley University earlier this month. 

As the school year began at Villanova University in August, another ‘cruel hoax’ sent students, staff and family members running for their lives.

A report of a man with an automatic rifle in the law school library sent students and faculty members fleeing to safety at the prestigious Pennsylvania institution once attended by Pope Leo XIV. 

A second alert told students to avoid the law school, which held its orientation earlier in the day with a picnic hosted by the Villanova Law Alumni Association. Students were also told to ‘lock/barricade doors.’ 

Heavily-armed police officers were also seen responding to the scene, their guns drawn as they marched into the Law School of Scarpa Hall and searched for the gunman and any possible shooting victims – though no victims were reported.

Eventually, university officials gave the all clear – noting that there never was an active shooter on the campus.

‘Today as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued with the news of a possible shooter at the Law School,’ Rev. Peter M. Donohue, the president of the university said in a statement.

‘Mercifully, no one was injured and we now know that it was a cruel hoax – there was no active shooter, no injuries and no evidence of firearms present on campus.

‘While that is a blessing and relief, I know today’s events have shaken our entire community.’ 

The university president went on to thank the local police for their quick response, as well as the ‘orientation counselors and all of the Villanova staff in attendance at the Orientation Mass, who responded calmly and compassionately to a very frightening and unnerving situation.

‘Amid my thanks, I would like to apologize to our first-year students and their families,’ Donohue continued. 

‘This is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for. And while I cannot do anything to relieve the unrest you are feeling right now, I can offer a prayer.’