It turned out to be nothing more than a gruesome nuisance.

Twice Monday morning, Long Beach police headed to the beach to look for human remains after someone reported finding what looked like a skull.

They first searched the sand near Orizaba Avenue around 7:15 a.m., but officers called it off after they couldn’t find any grisly remnants or the person who reported them, according to Long Beach Police Department spokesperson Hannah Ortiz.

A little more than three and a half hours later, there was another sighting. This time, a lifeguard spotted it in the water and officers taped off the would-be crime scene.

But when the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s team arrived, what they found was more ornamental than homicidal.

The skull was fake, Ortiz said. The Medical Examiner crew took it away and officers took down the tape around 2:30 p.m.

There’s no hint yet, Ortiz said, where the skull may have come from.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with more details about who found the skull and where.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.