A Georgia state patrolman discovered a military rocket in the back seat of a car after he pulled over a teen driver for speeding on Wednesday around 5 p.m.

Trooper Joey Mock stopped the driver and his teen passenger near the intersection of Hiawassee and Meldrim roads in Meldrim. A 2.75-inch rocket was in the backseat of their white Chevrolet Cavalier.

The teenagers told the trooper that they found the bomb on the river bank while they were swimming in the Ogeechee River under Morgan’s Bridge off Highway 204. They claimed to be on their way to the police department to give the authorities the bomb when Mock pulled them over.

The bomb’s motor was intact and according to Georgia State Patrol dispatcher Robert Scott, it could have detonated on its own.

“It was still active,” he noted.

Mock called a bomb technician with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The agent in turn contacted the explosive ordnance disposal team at Fort Stewart after he determined that the weapon was military issue.

Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson described it as a Vietnam War era rocket, munitions the Army no longer uses. He added that it would have been primarily used in helicopter gunships.

Bomb personnel came and took the rocket to a sandpit off Shady Oaks and Sandhill Road where they detonated it around 9:40 p.m.

The teenagers were not charged with anything.

Surprisingly, this incident does not strike Scott as odd.

“There have been several of them (bombs) found in the same spot,” he said.

Larson does not know how the bombs may have gotten there.

Scott discourages anyone from swimming in the area. If someone should find another one, he advised, “First of all, don’t touch it; don’t move it.”

Larson gives the same advice.

Instead, Scott and Larson said they should contact the fire or police department.