Officials said a report of a car sliding into the Tuscarawas River early Monday was false.

A woman driving on Front Street in Dover called 911 around 3 a.m. and told dispatchers she was confident she saw the taillights of a pickup truck in the river near the Wooster Avenue Bridge.

Emergency crews found tire tracks leading down to the water and they set up lights, but couldn't see anything in the shallow parts. Dover firefighters then called for a SONAR device from Akron in Summit County, but the device did not detect any vehicle in the river. The search was called off by noon.

Dover Fire Department Capt. Brooks Ross said there are two possible options as to the false report.

"One, someone's playing a pretty elaborate hoax to get us involved and get the police department involved. The other thing is a lot of people come down here whether they are drinking or -- there's a lot of graffiti under the bridge, whatever they are doing down here -- they might have simply just turned around and got a little too close to the river," he said.

Officials said they get a lot of calls of that nature, but in the past there were incidents of cars that did not go into the river.

The false report took up a lot of time for firefighters, but officials said they had to be sure.