FULLERTON – Several thousand students and employees at California State University, Fullerton, were evacuated for about four hours Tuesday because of a device that might have been meant to look like a bomb, police said.

A 6-by-10-by-12-inch box containing wires and glass tubes was found in a hallway at McCarthy Hall about noon. Police ordered the building's evacuation and called the Orange County Sheriff Department's bomb squad.

The scare brought the Fullerton Fire Department's hazardous-materials team, and evacuations later were ordered for the Science Laboratory Center, Langsdorf Hall and University Hall.

University police Lt. Will Glen said the bomb squad used an X-ray device to determine that the contents were harmless. An investigation is under way to determine why the box was placed in the hallway and who left it, Glen said.