The government says three holes found on wire fences on the demilitarized border with North Korea may have been made by a South Korean civilian crossing into the communist state.

The Defense Ministry's deputy director of operations, Hwang Jung-sun, said in a news briefing Tuesday that investigation results did not point to North Korean agents infiltrating into the South, as earlier suspected, but instead to an unidentified South Korean crossing into the North.

Hwang said that a study of foot and hand prints found nearby, as well as the angle and shape of the holes, led to the conclusion that only one person had likely been involved in the apparent border crossing.

Following the results of a joint investigation conducted by the military, intelligence agents and police, Hwang said the Joint Chiefs of Staff had called off military operations that were launched earlier Tuesday to hunt down possible North Korean infiltrators. The JCS is now focused on identifying the purported civilian who supposedly crossed over to the North.

Massive search operations were triggered after South Korean border guards discovered a 40 by 30 centimeter-wide hole early Tuesday morning in Yeoncheon, some 60 kilometers north of Seoul.