Volunteers had been preparing for their own New Year celebrations when they received a call from a concerned member of the public who had spotted flares in the sky near Elizabeth Castle.
But after a half-hour search by the St Helier inshore lifeboat just after 11 pm, nothing was found except Chinese lanterns floating in the water. It was believed that these had been mistaken for flares.
Jonathan Lee, a spokesman from the RNLI St Helier, said that people should contact the coastguard on 447705 if they wanted to release the lanterns to avoid false alarms and confusion.
