Police have determined that a reported threat that prompted a North Berwick school to cancel classes Friday was not credible and was the result of a “childhood game of telephone” after a student was overheard saying they had psychic powers and felt there would be a school shooting.

A student “may have made a threatening statement” about a violent act at Noble Middle and High School to take place on Friday, Audra Beauvais, superintendent for Maine School Administrative District 60, wrote Thursday in a letter to families notifying them that classes were canceled Friday.

The district serves students in Berwick, North Berwick and Lebanon.

“Some of the reports included referencing a student coming to school in a Halloween costume and committing an act of violence,” Beauvais wrote.

The “third-party hearsay threat” that a school shooting would take place was reported to a school resource officer late Thursday morning, North Berwick police said Friday. The threat had been overheard four days prior.

In the six hours after the threat was reported, police and school staff interviewed students to determine the credibility of the alleged threat, police said. Based on those interviews, they deemed the threat “unsubstantiated, not credible and false,” police said in a statement.

Police said “every interview conducted led to another name, which led to another interview of someone saying they never actually heard anything directly or saw something concerning, but heard it from the next person.”

In the end, police said the investigation led back “to a student stating they had psychic powers and had a feeling there was going to be a school shooting.”

The superintendent said the decision to cancel school Friday was made “out of an abundance of caution” and to allow time to conduct a thorough investigation.

North Berwick police said a student within the district is wrongfully being targeted on social media because of rumors about the threat. Police discouraged people from using social media to spread unverified information and rumors about threats.

“Not only does this hurt our investigation, but it creates undue panic within the community,” the news release said.

School administrators said the volume of social media interactions that required examination hampered the investigation.

“One of the difficult features of our investigative work has been the saturation of rumors being circulated through social media,” Principal AJ Dufort and three assistant principals said in an update to the school community on Friday. “Our administrative team continued work late into the evening last night and throughout the morning today to ensure that every report and concern was thoroughly investigated.”

In an unrelated incident, a fire alarm went off at the end of the school day on Thursday, the school administrators said, and many students left without some of their belongings.

The school reopened from 1-4 p.m. on Friday to allow students to collect those items, and all after-school activities were to continue as planned, the administrators said.