MISSOULA, Mont. -- University of Montana administrators learned some lessons from last week's email threat. Law enforcement swarmed campus only to determine it was a hoax. UM staff remained very tight lipped about the incident until Friday.

Around 12:30 p.m. last Tuesday, many University of Montana students received a text message warning them about an e-mail threat. But, by that time, the rumors already circled campus.

"One thing led to another," one student told us. "First, it was, 'oh, there's a guy walking around school with a gun.' And then, 'oh, there's a guy on the roof of the law building with a gun.' And then, just finally, 'it was just an email.'"

The threat of a gunman on the law school's roof came in at 11:02 a.m. Many asked why it took so long to send out emergency alerts. Now, UM officials admit they learned something from it all.

"We recognize that people want to know if there's a significant emergency response and that's what will change, so it identified that," Public Safety Director Jim Lemcke said.

From nearly the beginning, authorities decided it was all a hoax, but some students wonder why administration even sent out alerts.

"At that point, we realized that a lot of misinformation was being distributed and we wanted to shortcut that by providing some accurate information even though it was limited," Lemcke said.

Protocol may be looked at in the near future, but the investigation into who sent the e-mail is far from over. Authorities made progress in finding a possible source, but nothing has been narrowed down to any one person.

Administrators report not every student subscribed to the emergency alert system receieved a message. We're told that's because some cell carriers deleted the message as spam. UM Public Safety plans to only use one vendor for emergency messages in the future.