Abstract In this paper, we investigate the impact of false alarms on planet searches of TESS data by performing a search of a large number of stars. We examine the period distribution of transit-like signatures uncovered in a Box-Least Squares transit search of TESS light curves, and show significant pileups at periods related to instrumental and astrophysical noise sources. Signatures uncovered in a search of inverted light curves feature similar structures in the period distribution. Automated vetting methods will need to remove these excess detections, and light curve inversion appears to be a suitable method for simulating false alarms and designing new vetting metrics. Automated vetting will be a significant step toward making TESS data useful for demographic studies.