Man Drives 65 Miles With Landmine Buckled Into Passenger Seat

Police in Hot Springs, Arkansas, evacuated about 20 homes after a man mistook a Civil War-era landmine for a cannonball and took it home this week. The US Air Force Bomb Squad has safely detonated the landmine, the AP reports. Matt Bell says he was doing excavation work when he dug up what he thought was a cannonball Wednesday near Danville. He he put the 32-pound land mine in his pickup's backseat, buckled it in with a seatbelt, and drove 65 miles to his home in Hot Springs.

After researching pictures of Civil War-era weapons and talking with a Civil War historian, the man called police Thursday to say he thought he found a landmine with a pressure sensor fuse. Hot Springs Police spokesperson Kirk Zaner says authorities evacuated nearby homes and contacted an Air Force bomb squad, which X-rayed the device, found what could be explosives inside, and later detonated the explosive at a local landfill. (More strange stuff stories.)