One routine yard maintenance project turned into a bomb squad call after a homeowner discovered an unexpected item beneath an oak tree.
The discovery in Middletown, Ohio, prompted a check from the Butler County Bomb Squad after the man was unsure whether the cannonball he found could explode.
The object was 5 inches and 8 pounds, per WKRC, which shared images of the discovery.
The homeowner, who asked not to be identified, contacted authorities rather than trying to move the object after finding it while digging.
Brian Smith of the local historical society said cannonballs are not the kind of artifact usually found in southern Ohio.
"Obviously, we're not in a place that had a lot of conflict, or things of that nature, where there might be stuff still around," Smith told WKRC. "Europe is much more ripe for that kind of stuff, you know, unexploded shells or things like that."
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He added that if the cannonball is tied to Ohio history, Fort Hamilton, a military outpost established in the 1790s, would be a more likely source than Middletown itself.
Smith explained to WKRC that Fort Hamilton operated as a supply post at the edge of U.S. military expansion, with artillery used as crews pushed north and opened routes. He said another possibility is that the cannonball arrived much later in the region as a souvenir, perhaps from a time when relic hunters were collecting items from Civil War battlefields.
Smith said the homeowner responded appropriately, and he recalled a similar case at the historical society, where staff once discovered a grenade inside a World War II memorabilia box, as WKRC reported.
"Something happens every day," he continued. "I learn something every day in this job, which is one of the reasons why it's so interesting, and I love it."
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