A suspicious material found inside an envelope Thursday afternoon at the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City caused a scare.

The 10-by-13-inch manila envelope arrived at the Frank E. Moss Courthouse mail-sorting facility, at the rear of the building, 350 S. Main, around 3 p.m. When it went through an X-ray machine, as all incoming mail does, workers noticed a small plastic bag filled with a white powdered substance, said Salt Lake City fire spokesman Scott Freitag.

The package was immediately sealed in a separate container and examined by the fire-department workers, who found no indication of a dangerous substance, Freitag said. The package was sent to the health department for further testing.

No one was exposed to the powder or evacuated from the premises.

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FBI officers are tracing the package to its origin, which is an address in California. Other items in the envelope led officials to believe it was not a real threat.

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