A nationwide rash of emailed bomb threats made its way to the Santa Barbara area on Thursday, but local law enforcement officials say they appeared to have been a hoax.

Multiple threats were received by businesses and other entities in the city of Santa Barbara, according to Anthony Wagner, a Santa Barbara Police Department spokesman.

He declined to specify how many threats were received and by whom.

“We’ve gone to each targeted location to ensure that the threats were moot, and that public safety has never been at risk,” Wagner told Noozhawk.

At least two threats were received in Santa Barbara County’s jurisdiction, according to Kelly Hoover, a spokeswoman with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.

One was at a Alice Shaw Elementary School in Orcutt, and the other was at the Ramada Inn on the 4700 block of Calle Real near Goleta, Hoover said.

The e-mails included an extortion demand for $20,000 in the form of bitcoin to avoid the detonation of a bomb, Hoover said.

Both were determined to be not credible and part of the nationwide hoax, Hoover said.

Similar threats were reported in cities across the nation, including San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, New York, Miami and Atlanta, according to various media reports.

Wagner noted that such threats typically are emailed from an encrypted server, and therefore are not traceable.

— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.