Police officers confirmed on Friday that they had helped Apple search for a "lost item" in a San Francisco residence but did not find anything.

In the official press release from the San Francisco Police Department, four police officers and two Apple employees went to a home in south central San Francisco to look for the missing item. The police didn't specifically mention when the search took place or what Apple had lost but a clue about the missing device can be found in the press release's document title- "iphone5.doc."

"The two Apple employees met with the resident and then went into the house to look for the lost item," the police said in the statement. "The Apple employees did not find the lost item and left the house."

Apple didn't want to file an official report of the incident, the statement said

Tech news site CNET broke the story last week about the prototype iPhone 5 being lost in a San Francisco bar last July. This is the second time the tech giant had lost a prototype of its popular smartphone. Last year, Apple misplaced its iPhone 4 when it was eventually bought by technology blog Gizmodo. The blog published photos of the still in development phone.

This time Apple tracked the location of the missing item to the San Francisco house. SF Weekly had quoted the 22-year old resident of the house as saying the group who came to house were Apple employees and police. The man reported that Apple did not find anything in the house.

The police meanwhile had initially debunked the story by claiming there was no record of a search having occurred. Hours before the SFPD gave their statement about the search, SFPD spokesman Lieutenant Troy Dangerfield said there had been no contact between Apple and the police.

"No one has reported anything," Dangerfield said.

Apple has not commented on the story.