TSA discovers five stolen Civil War-era cannonballs in a traveler’s luggage in Alabama

TSA officers got quite the surprise at Alabama’s Gulf Shores International Airport (JKA) when they discovered a passenger trying to carry “a stolen historic relic” in their checked luggage — Civil War-era cannonballs wrapped in paper towels.

TSA officers got quite the surprise at Alabama’s Gulf Shores International Airport (JKA) when they discovered a passenger trying to carry “a stolen historic relic” in their checked luggage — Civil War-era cannonballs wrapped in paper towels.

Lead TSA Officer Justin Dupree thought he was looking at medicine balls on his X-ray screen when a bag passing through the machine prompted an alarm sound, TSA said in a release.

Instead, he discovered five small inert cannonballs of varying sizes, wrapped in paper towels inside the bag. They had been stolen from Fort Morgan, and the largest were about the size of a grapefruit, TSA said.

“My first thought was, ‘I couldn’t see a fuse and need to get some help quick,’” Dupree said, according to the release. “I couldn’t see the entire item but was scared I might have been holding a live explosive.”

Dupree, a TSA officer for four years, said he’d “never seen anything quite this unique.”