An area of Leeds city centre was cordoned off and evacuated after a man and his nephew pulled what they thought was a bomb out of the river.
Police and a bomb disposal squad attended the scene by the River Aire but found it was not explosive, and was in fact a mooring post.
Ian Major, 39, and his nephew Nathan were magnet fishing on the river near to Granary Wharf early this afternoon when they pulled out the item.
Mr Major said: "When we first looked at it we thought it was a lump of metal but on closer inspection it appeared to be more shell-like. I'm ex-forces so I had an idea of what I was looking at."
He said: "We thought it was a shell. My mate got in touch with one of his mates who's at Catterick and he just said 'call it in, it's better to be safe than sorry' and that it needs further investigation so I made the 999 call."
Police arrived around 3.15pm and put a cordon in place blocking off access to Neville Street and Victoria Bridge and evacuated people from the area.
The army arrived just before 5pm and left after assessing the item.
Just after 5pm a spokeswoman for West Yorkshire Police said: "Further enquiries have established the object is a mooring post. The cordon has now been removed. Thank you for your patience."
We followed this incident with a live blog, which you can view here.
