Lockdown at US army base in Alabama lifted after report of shooter turned out to be false

A lockdown at a US Army base in northern Alabama on Tuesday was lifted after two telephone calls reporting an active shooter at the sprawling facility near Huntsville turned out to be false.

No threat was found and an investigation is under way to determine who made the calls from within a building where the shooter was reported to have been, Colonel Thomas Holliday, commander of the Redstone Arsenal, said at a press conference.

“We have no evidence of shots actually (being) fired,” Holliday said.

One of the calls to 911 emergency dispatchers said gun shots had been heard, and another said a gun had been seen. Neither of those were credible, Holliday said.

There were no casualties, and no one was arrested, Holliday said. There were no visitors on that part of the base on Tuesday, he added.

The base is home to military units including the US Army Aviation and Missile Command and elements of the Defence Intelligence Agency and the Missile Defence Agency. It also hosts the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Centre, where rocket research and testing is conducted.