Campus Alert Archive
UT Dallas

"Immediately Evacuate All Buildings": UT Dallas Cleared Every Garage and Building Over a Phoned-In Hoax

TXbomb threatemergency notificationhigh confidence
Confirmed HoaxDetermined to be a hoax. The institutional response is documented because it reveals how the alert system performed under a perceived real threat.

On Tuesday afternoon, June 27, 2017, UT Dallas ordered a campus-wide evacuation of every building and parking garage after the university received a phoned-in bomb threat. The Comet Alert text and the university's Twitter account directed students, faculty, staff and visitors to leave all structures and remain in parking lots until further notice. The all-clear came roughly 40 minutes later, after police determined the threat was a hoax. UT Dallas Police said other campuses around the country received similar threats that day, suggesting it was part of a coordinated hoax wave.

Alerts
3
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
The University of Texas at Dallas
Public R1 · TX
~29,000 studentsComet Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 3 verified verbatim

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Verified verbatimCBS Texas quoting the UT Dallas Comet Alert verbatim206 chars
All UTD faculty, staff, students and visitors need to immediately evacuate all buildings and parking garages on campus. Please go to UT Dallas parking lots and stay away from buildings until further notice.
Notable for instructing evacuation of both buildings AND parking garages — a rare combination, as most bomb-threat evacuations send people TO parking lots rather than away from garages
Sent at approximately 2:40 p.m. CDT according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth's contemporaneous reporting
The phrase 'stay away from buildings until further notice' implicitly acknowledges that the perimeter of the search zone is the building itself, not just the threatened area
UPDATETwitter/X
Verified verbatimUT Dallas official Twitter (@UT_Dallas)85 chars
We received a bomb threat and are working with UTDPD to make sure the campus is safe.
Posted to the university's main Twitter account rather than a dedicated alert handle, reflecting that in 2017 most universities did not yet have a separate alert-specific social account
The plain-language phrasing ('we received a bomb threat') contrasts with the Comet Alert SMS, which never used the word 'bomb' — UT Dallas appears to have segmented bluntness to Twitter and operational urgency to SMS
The tweet served as the public confirmation of why the evacuation was happening; the SMS alone did not state a cause
ALL CLEARSMS+40 min
Verified verbatimWFAA quoting the UT Dallas all-clear Comet Alert89 chars
UTDPD say bomb threat was a hoax. You may now enter the buildings and parking structures.
Sent approximately 40 minutes after the initial evacuation order — among the fastest bomb-threat resolutions for a campus of UT Dallas's size in 2017
Explicitly characterized the threat as a 'hoax' in the all-clear, a transparency choice that some universities avoid for fear of normalizing false reports
The brevity (89 characters) reflects how short evacuations can be when a threat is quickly determined non-credible — no search-by-building update needed
Context

Background

On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 27, 2017, UT Dallas ordered a complete evacuation of its 455-acre Richardson campus at approximately 2:40 p.m. CDT after receiving a phoned-in bomb threat. Comet Alert text messages directed everyone — faculty, staff, students, and visitors — to leave every building and parking garage and to wait in parking lots. The university's Twitter account followed within minutes, stating plainly that 'we received a bomb threat and are working with UTDPD to make sure the campus is safe.' Just 40 minutes later, at approximately 3:20 p.m. CDT, UT Dallas Police issued an all-clear characterizing the threat as a hoax. UTD Police noted that other campuses around the country received similar threats the same day, suggesting it was part of a coordinated hoax wave — a pattern that would become endemic at US universities over the following years. The June 2017 evacuation occurred during the summer session, when campus population was at its lowest, which contributed to the speed of the clearance. No arrest was publicly announced.
Analysis

Key Findings

UT Dallas's 40-minute resolution remains one of the fastest bomb-threat all-clears in the archive for a campus of its size, reflecting the value of a low-population summer session and a phoned-in threat with no specified target building
The split-channel strategy — terse evacuation SMS, plain-language Twitter explanation — is an early example of channel segmentation that became standard practice at US universities by the early 2020s
Police characterizing the threat as a 'hoax' in the all-clear SMS — rather than using softer language like 'no credible threat found' — is a transparency choice few universities made in 2017, when many feared that publicly naming hoaxes would incentivize copycats
Outcome
All-clear issued at approximately 3:20 p.m. CDT, about 40 minutes after the evacuation order. Police said the bomb threat was a hoax and was part of a series of similar threats made to colleges around the country that day. No arrest was publicly announced. Summer-session classes resumed the following day.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    UT Dallas Evacuated After Bomb Threat (CBS Texas)
    cbsnews.com
  2. News
    UT Dallas Orders Campus-Wide Evacuation After Bomb Threat (NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth)
    nbcdfw.com
  3. News
    UT Dallas bomb threat was a hoax (WFAA)
    wfaa.com
  4. News
    Students return to UT Dallas after being evacuated for 'hoax' bomb threat (KXAN)
    kxan.com
  5. Social
    UT Dallas official Twitter post about bomb threat (@UT_Dallas)
    twitter.com
Tags
bomb-threathoaxtexasevacuationrichardsonut-systemsummer-session2017fast-resolutionHoax
Added May 2026Updated June 2026Via ingestion