IRVINE, Calif. — Students and teachers at UC Irvine were shaken Wednesday when officials sent out a campus alert saying they were responding to reports of a camouflaged man with a rifle on campus, a report that was later downgraded when police determined that it was probably just a student carrying a paintball gun.

UC Irvine has a campus paintball team that meets for practice Wednesday evenings, but a past team vice president said that the group doesn't allow members to carry paintball guns on campus and that members never wear camouflage.

After the initial panic subsided, the incident appeared to have served as a test of the campus emergency text-message alert system, which -- like many across the country -- was set up after the Virginia Tech shootings as an ultra-quick way to alert students to potentially dangerous situations.

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