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ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) -- Police briefly evacuated a neighborhood to take possession of a military-grade rocket that was discovered by a coyote hunter.
The man saw the rocket sticking out of the ground, dug it up and took it home Sunday. He called police when he realized it might not be safe to keep.
"It comes from a shoulder-fired weapon like a bazooka," St. George bomb-squad commander Jason Whipple said Tuesday. "It was an old piece of ordnance, from back in the '50s and '60s."
The area where the rocket was found was a former National Guard firing range, he said.
Authorities did not know if it was a live round.
"The part that would have told us that had been rusted over," Whipple said.
The 2 1/2-foot-long rocket was taken to a remote area of Washington County and destroyed.
------ Information from: The Spectrum, http://www.thespectrum.com
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
