UNILADIf I ever found anything that resembled a bomb, I would walk swiftly in the other direction, but these curious adventurers wanted to know more when they found a massive metal container in a river.
19-year-old Normunds from Latvia decided to fish out the container from the water before opening it up to reveal lots of dangerous TNT.
It’s safe to say the people of Reddit were horrified that he, his dad and his uncle had not called the police and left it alone, but he said they police could have charged them and would take it away.
Speaking to UNILAD, Normunds explained how they found it:
My uncle went fishing and found this weird object that was super heavy and he didn’t know what it was. So the next day me, my uncle and my dad went there with a car through fields and bad roads until we reached the spot in Daugava river.
We found it near city Daugavpils. We took a look at it and couldn’t figure out what it was.
Everyone thought it’s a sea buoy, I thought it’s some kind of bomb or something, because it reminded me something from game called ‘BioShock’ and was pretty scared to touch it, but the next thing i see is we rolling it uphill (very steep) through bushes.
UNILADAfter rolling it up a hill, they couldn’t fit it in the car so they drove it home with the boot open, with Normunds uncle holding it from the inside.
It was once they got the mine home that Normunds posted a photo to Reddit looking for some answers.
Talking about what they did with the bomb, Normunds said:
By the time we figured out it’s a sea mine we had already done the most dangerous thing, we slammed the screws that were on it with a hammer and removed the primer on accident, once we saw what’s inside we freaked out because it was clearly a bomb, my dad recognised gun cotton and there were cables.
Then we figured out that we didn’t blow up because it’s been underwater for over 100 years, so we poured some more water on it and took all the pressed gun cotton out.
UNILADWhile the group were taking out all the explosive materials with their hands, they found a news article showing the exact bomb they had found saying it was a dangerous sea mine from 1877 that was used in the First World War.
After they took all the innards from the bomb, they dried it off and burned it.
One commenter on Reddit wrote:
Dude, that is the chemical centre for a sea mine that will explode if set off by any primer. Get the hell away and call the police.
UNILADTalking about how he felt after finding out it was a bomb, he said:
It was only dangerous when all of that thing was inside, we could’ve blown ourselves up when we removed the primer, but it wasn’t dry enough at the top, the inside pieces were in better condition.
Only once we opened it, dad recognised the pressed gun cotton aka TNT and because of the cables of course.
We had already opened it, so the worst part was over, then we thought it’s a good idea to just take everything out real quick, because maybe the TNT would get dry in next half an hour and blow everything up.
I was a bit scared from time to time, but it looked like my dad and uncle had a death-wish or something, maybe because they thought it was a buoy.
UNILADAnother commenter wrote:
It’s a sea mine from year 1877 they were used in WW1. I found news article where someone found the same thing. Only 2 of these were found before.
The family soon realised how lucky they were to be alive and Normunds said, ‘If we would’ve known that it’s a mine we would never would have gone near it.’
His uncle now keeps the container in his garden as he intended when he first spotted it while fishing.
Normunds said:
It can’t explode anymore, as we took out all the explosives and cleaned it. Now it’s just an epic metal thing with a story behind it.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via [email protected]. To license this article contact [email protected]
