Initial testing of seven suspicious letters or packages sent to hotels and other locations near the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl in East Rutherford, N.J., found they were not hazardous, according to the FBI and a law enforcement source.
Additional testing was being performed, but preliminary results on the letters found in New York and New Jersey indicated that the security scare was a hoax, the law enforcement official told NBCNewYork. A tweet from the FBI's New York office also indicated that "substances in suspicious letters ... were deemed non hazardous."
Earlier, federal officials told NBC News that one letter examined at an unidentified location was found to contain only baking soda.
The security scare erupted early Friday afternoon when the FBI and New Jersey police issued identically worded statements:
“The Joint Terrorism Task Force and Hazard Materials units have responded to several locations that have received a suspicious letter and substance,” the statements said. “There are no reported injuries at this time, and the locations are being secured. This situation is being thoroughly investigated and more information will be provided when it becomes available.”
FBI and New Jersey law enforcement sources told NBC News that six of the packages were received in the north New Jersey area and one in Manhattan.
Authorities would not identify the sites that received the packages or describe why they were considered suspicious. One FBI source, however, told NBC News that one of the suspicious letters was sent to the offices of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, though it was addressed to someone else in the office.
Read more coverage from NBCNewYork.com.
NBC's Katy Tur and WNBC's Jonathan Dienst contributed to this report.