Seaside Park Homeowner Finds Old Anti-Tank Missile In Garage

SEASIDE PARK, NJ — A Seaside Park man got a bit of a surprise as he was cleaning out the garage of a home he recently purchased when an anti-tank missile fell out of a box onto his yard Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.

The Seaside Park Police Department was called to a home on South Ocean Avenue at 2:37 p.m. Wednesday about a missile on the property, Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said Wednesday night.

When police arrived, they saw what they believed was a mortar in the backyard of the home. Not knowing whether it was a live round or not, the police department set up a perimeter and asked the prosecutor's office and the New Jersey State Police Bomb Unit to come take a look, Della Fave said.

"Upon speaking with the homeowner, it was determined that he had recently purchased the house and was cleaning out items from the garage. In the process of moving contents out of the garage, the aforementioned item fell out of a box and onto the grass," he said.

Della Fave said Christopher Bonner, an arson investigator with the prosecutor's office, examined the round and said the item was a military-grade rocket-propelled anti-tank ordnance.

"Close inspection revealed the device did not have an ignition primer, and did not contain any explosive material," Della Fave said, and the device was declared safe.

The state police bomb unit documented the device and turned it over to the Seaside Park Police Department, Della Fave said.

Soldiers fire an anti-tank missile during training. U.S. Army Photo by Visual Information Specialist Markus Rauchenberger, via Flickr, under Creative Commons license