Family Finds Cluster Bomb: “I Couldn’t Get Out the Door Fast Enough”

File this story under ‘Google ain’t always right.’

Brandy Dyer 21-year-old son Justin came into their home after helping a neighbor clear out their property of scrap metal with a red toolbox.

Inside the toolbox is a round metal object (no, not a coin) with some blue markings on it.

Dyer’s son wasn’t sure what it was, so he asked his mom what the object could be.

Dyer took out her phone, snapped a picture of the smallish ball object, and popped into google as her son headed outside with the object.

What popped up on her screen scared her to death. “I couldn’t get out the door fast enough,” Dyer remembered.

The object was a cluster bomblet – like the ordnance used in the Vietnam War era. Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) bears the responsibility for the deaths or dismemberments of more than 20,000 Laotians alone, according to the HALO trust.

According to Google though, the blue markings on this object meant it was inert. Dyer’s husband called the Niceville Police non-emergency number and made contact with a dispatcher – who told her to call the emergency number. Three Police Officers were dispatched, along with a fire truck.

The area was sealed off as a precaution – a prescient one, it turned out. At one point, someone x-rayed the object and determined it was a live bomblet.

Eglin EOD was called out to retrieve the live ordnance from the home.

Dyer, who’s lived here for almost 50 years, said this was a novel experience for her. “Finding bombs is not unusual,” she said, “finding it at someone’s house in a metal-to-be-scrapped is a little unusual.”

And ultimately, the Dyer family is a little more aware of some of the dangers of living next to the world’s largest weapons test range by area – and Google’s limitations. “Don’t go off Google images. Just because Google tells you [cluster bomblets] might be inactive or inert, [doesn’t] mean that is the case.”