Man finds a motar lying in the bush and takes it home to show his wife…
A fossicker (referring to prospecting) has given his wife an almighty shock when he returned home with an old military mortar and placing it on the kitchen bench.
The man found the old grey mortar in a bush when he was looking for precious minerals
and metals north of Alice Springs.
The man returned home and laid the two to three kilogram mortar on the kitchen bench to show his wife, before the couple called the police. The police quickly summoned army experts in to examine the bomb, while they set up a perimeter around the
house. While the old mortar turned out to be deactivated the police said any suspicious objects should not be handled in case of an incident. ‘Should it not have been spent … it could be extremely unpredictable in terms of what could trigger it,’ Watch Commander Darren Keenan told the ABC. ‘Whether it be a rusted firing pin or anything to that effect. Moving old things like that can actually see a detonation of sorts.’ The police said the army would be retrieving the mortar from the station.