I found a live hand grenade today in Golden Gate Park...

mr_larry

Hero Member
Jun 22, 2010
504
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Northern California
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Detector(s) used
Minelab Explorer SE Pro
Primary Interest:
Metal Detecting
**UPDATED**
I went back yesterday and found some fragments of the grenade. I also inserted the photos into the text so that it reads a little better!


Here is the news clip recorded from my tv:



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okay...
So I began my day driving by some sidewalk tear-out work I have been hitting but the guys were working on newly developed land. I continued on to a park I wanted to hit but there were a ton of pre-schoolers on the field. I kept driving and went by Baker Beach. There were a ton of volunteers picking up trash. Next stop: Golden Gate Park.

I was driving around looking for any signs of recent work but didn't see anything. I did see massive piles of mulch stacked up at the Polo Fields.
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Next thing I knew I was at a spot where I met up with Chris (Nicasian), MT and SF Mike last Wednesday. I pulled over and parked and it looked to me like they had cleared a little more brush away from a homeless encampment that they have been cleaning up. I decided to swing on it.

There is a bunch of iron in this place but MT and SF Mike have pulled some silver out of there. I pulled up a big metal plate and found this underneath it. It is a Bromo bottle and there are no chips or cracks in it. Very pretty bottle:
bromo1.jpg

I wasn't there but 20 minutes, and about two minutes after the Bromo bottle I get a signal that sounds interesting enough for me to dig. Kinda nulling out but a squeek of a high tone in there. I grab the Lesche and carve a plug even though the dirt is pretty loose. It is held together by small roots.

I pull the loose plug out and plunge my hands into the hole to pull out the rest of the dirt and I grab on to a large heavy object. As any of us would do, I hold the object in my left hand and start brushing away the dirt with my right. Mind you I am on my knees. After about 5-10 seconds of vigorous rubbing, I see the dimples in the grenade. I dropped the thing on the ground and dropped my headphones and hauled ass up the hill to get away from it. As I am running up the hill I see a park gardener driving by and I start yelling at him. He stops and I tell him the story. He comes down and looks at it and says, "Yeah, that looks like a grenade." He gets his boss to come down and his boss says, "Definitely a grenade." He gets on his phone and calls the cops.

This was the first picture I took while waiting for the boss gardener to come down. In the clear area just right of center. I didn't want to get too close:
grenade far1.jpg

After about fifteen minutes with it not blowing up I came in close for this photo:
Grenade1.jpg Grenade2.jpg

e park guys were fantastic by the way. They know of us, don't mind us at all, and they are funny guys.

Next the first cop shows up, looks at it and says, "Yep, that is a hand grenade." He gets on the radio and asks whoever how far everyone should stand back and they say 50 feet. He starts putting up crime scene tape. Here is a photo of the tape extending down to the road. All I can hear is sirens in every direction.
crimescenetape1.jpg

All of a sudden multiple cop cars start pulling up, fire trucks, an ambulance and a "stringer" for the Channel 2 news. Right after that they close down the street from both ends.

After about 10-15 minutes the bomb squad arrives. The guy in the photo is the park supervisor who has been working on clearing out that homeless encampment.
bombsquad1.jpg

The bomb squad guys start asking me a bunch of questions about the grenade and I say, "Would you like to see a picture?" I show them the close up photo and he says, "Oh yeah, That's a Mark II grenade."

The next hour or two goes by really slowly. Earlier the stringer guy had tried to talk to me and I blew him off. We were the only two civilians on the scene so I went over to talk to him and he says he is with KTVU channel 2. Since that is the news I watch every day I tell him I'll give him a quick statement.

They bust out the robot (I have video of this thing) and then I have to go over to the guy controlling the robot to help him find it. We get results in about five minutes. Now the robot is parked directly in front of the grenade. Next, the other bomb squad guy, the same guy who eventually puts on the suit to place the explosives, this guy goes up with a shovel and digs a big hole about ten feet away from the grenade. Although they told me to back off at this point, I think they had the robot pick up the grenade and drop it into the hole the guy dug.

More time passes. The lead bomb guy is on the radio with headquarters and they need to clear the area. They call in the motor bikes and the explosives. The explosives arrive with the motorcycle team and an FBI guy. The explosives arrive in the back of this pickup truck in a container in back. The explosives do not travel with the bomb squad.
Cavalry1.jpg explosivesarrive1.jpg

After the motorcycle guys clear the area, the guy suits up in the bomb suit and drags some cable in his right hand from the command post all the way to the grenade.
brave man1.jpg

Meanwhile, my car is parked about 75 feet from where this thing is gonna blow. You can see it way down on the left. The grenade is across the street and maybe 75 feet from the road.
lonely car1.jpg

Up until this point I have been standing around on the sidewalk about 100 yards away from the grenade. As they are getting ready to detonate the thing, they put me into the Park Patrol car with the head of the GGP park patrol and his partner. They have their police radio on. The guy in the bomb suit comes back. Over the radio they ask everyone to turn on their sirens. Sirens are going off all around me. Next thing I hear is "Fire in the hole" repeated three times. Immediately after that, BOOM!! It was loud! Dirt shot up straight in the air about 40 feet. As I'm still sitting in the car with the police radio, dispatchers start saying. "A caller called in about an explosion in Golden Gate Park."

So after they blow the thing up a cop drives up to where we are parked and he tells me the bomb technician guy wants to talk to me. I get out of the car. He asks me to tell him my story again. When he hears the part where I dropped the grenade on the ground his eyes got big and he says, "You dropped the grenade?" He proceeds to tell me it was definitely a live grenade. Next time, don't pick up a live grenade, etc. He also asked me if I heard any other signals that could have been grenades. "Did you hear anything else that sounded like this one did?"
I explain to the guy that it gave off a crappy signal and that there are signals every time you swing the coil. I kept trying to explain to the guy that I wouldn't have picked it up if I knew it was a grenade.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Sorry I don't know how to insert the photos into the text so that the pictures have more context.

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Updated:
I went back to the spot where they blew up the grenade and I recovered some fragments. See the picture below:
fragments2.jpg
 

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Upvote 26
That's a crazy thing to unearth from a city park, congrats on the good ending. :thumbsup:
 

Wow. Now that's a metal detecting memory! That park is really something. I have followed all of the great finds there over the years and the surprises keep coming. Glad you survived this one.
 

(p.s. I'd stay away from that area., you might find a land mine next time). You can now cross off "grenade" from your finds list.....

Oh, I dunno. Sounds like they moved some dirt around, (when they blew it up. ;) ). Maybe you should check around. :)

OH YEAH! And did they fill their divot!!???

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Glad you're safe!
HH!
 

Sounds like an interesting day !
I would have thrown it in my Finds bag & took it home to clean up
thinking it was one
of those '60 lighters :icon_thumright:

If you HAD tried to clean this, it would have cleaned your clock!!! LOL

HH!
 

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...He asks me to tell him my story again. When he hears the part where I dropped the grenade on the ground his eyes got big and he says, "You dropped the grenade?" He proceeds to tell me it was definitely a live grenade. Next time, don't pick up a live grenade, etc. He also asked me if I heard any other signals that could have been grenades. "Did you hear anything else that sounded like this one did?"
I explain to the guy that it gave off a crappy signal and that there are signals every time you swing the coil. I kept trying to explain to the guy that I wouldn't have picked it up if I knew it was a grenade.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Hello Mr. Larry,

Thanks for the great story, and the swinging Action News coverage. Just shows to go'ya that the Golden Gate is way more than Bison, hippies, and homeless.

Given the heavy troop presence and the proximity to the Presidio, Fort Mason, Fort Funston, Camp Stoneman, at al, I'm surprised this is the first grenade you've found. 8-)

There were troops all over the area during the mobilization. When are you going back for the rest? 8-)

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Mobilization--World War II in the San Francisco Bay Area: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary

Have you seen the finds of our new member zunder1? Slightly different hunting grounds though... 8-) http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/military-battlefield-relics/342135-finds-kurland.html

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Cool find...I think it might make some consider keeping clean drawers and pants in the car.
Great story glad it ended well!
 

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Somebody from San Francisco will correct me if I'm wrong, but Golden Gate Park was an army base at one time. I remember my mom telling me about a relative that was stationed there.
 

Great story, great pictures! Thank you for sharing!
 

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lol, welcome in the Club. :)

Had this one removed by the Police few months ago. But they werent nearly as motivated as yours. Had two Police officers looking at it, saying "yep thats a handgranade" and driving home again. Next day, Bomb Squad picked it up.

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Great Story btw, thanks a lot for sharing! Kinda weird that you found a grenade in America in such a public place. Must have been one hell of a gangfight. lol. And that Bottle is really awesome! bye GA

EDIT: That is NOT an "illuminating grenade" as I thought. That is a frag. :-0 I forget the 'Mk number' but it is called a "Lemon grenade" And unlike "pineapple frags" you do NOT see a lot of those that are deactivated novelty items...
 

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Holy crap! Glad everyone's ok! Congrats and HH!
 

Great story Larry,count your blessings!!
 

Wow! Cool find & exciting day. Yep I doubt I ever cross that one off my list.

Those guys in California definitely get carried away. I know how our guys would have handled it... somebody would have layed it in the back of a pickup truck drove it out to the police range. All the guys would take turns shooting at it with their rifles and when it finally blew up .... high fives all around followed by firing up the grill.

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Oh Homestead Hunter ~ everybody likes fire works... they came for the show! Why do you think the bomb guys added more explosive - bigger bang... lol
 

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Weird thing... These things can turn up everywhere here but in an US city park? Cool story! Great to read! 20 years ago we collected these things in detergent drums before calling bomb disposal. Back then the fuzes were not corroded that much like today....
 

Wow, what a great story with a very happy ending for you Mr. Larry. It is truly amazing, the things that are still out there just lying around. Glad you are safe and sound!
 

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