Stolen Civil War cannonballs found in Alabama airport suitcase

A routine baggage screening at Alabama’s Gulf Shores International Airport turned up an unusual and alarming find: five stolen Civil War-era cannonballs wrapped in paper towels inside a passenger’s suitcase, federal officials said.

The Transportation Security Administration said the discovery was made July 18 after Lead TSA Officer Justin Dupree spotted what looked like a large, opaque item on an X-ray image of a checked bag. At first, he thought it might be a medicine ball. When he opened the luggage, he found five small cannonballs of varying sizes.

“My first thought was, ‘I couldn’t see a fuse and need to get some help quick,’” Dupree said in a TSA statement. “I couldn’t see the entire item but was scared I might have been holding a live explosive.”

Dupree, who has worked as a TSA officer for four years, said the discovery stood out from other unusual items he has encountered. “I had never seen anything quite this unique,” he said. “I’ve seen inert grenades and training munitions but never an Indiana Jones-esque stolen artifact-type situation.”

A supervisor joined Dupree to review the images and inspect the bag. Supervisory TSA Officer Richard Cash said the items appeared potentially dangerous, and Dupree remained with the bag while Cash contacted a TSA explosives specialist and an assistant federal security director for law enforcement, according to NBC News. Local police were called to determine whether a bomb squad was needed, and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office responded.

“I had never seen anything like this,” Cash said. “It was my first time dealing with a potentially live explosive, and it’s actually only the second incident we’ve had since JKA opened in May 2025.”

The cannonballs were later determined to be inactive, with no explosive material or active components, the TSA said. The largest were about the size of grapefruits and weighed about as much as a shot put ball, according to CBS News. Even though they were inert, they could not be allowed on the aircraft.

“Technically, they were artillery munitions and considered prohibited items,” Cash said, according to NBC News. “Because we were unable to initially determine they were inert, they could have been dangerous to the aircraft.”

Police determined the cannonballs had been stolen from Fort Morgan, a historic site in Alabama that the TSA said played a significant role in several military conflicts, most notably the Civil War. CBS News reported that authorities identified the artifacts through paint markings applied by fort staff.

Accounts of how the cannonballs ended up in the suitcase differed. NBC News reported that the passenger told police they were not sure how the cannonballs came into their possession. The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday, according to CBS News, that a juvenile stole the cannonballs from a storage area at Fort Morgan and placed them in their grandmother’s checked bag. The grandmother told officers she did not know the items had been stolen.

The sheriff’s office returned the artifacts to Fort Morgan. CBS News reported that the fort declined to press charges and did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The TSA said it has been screening more than 2 million passengers a day this summer and has found a range of unusual items in luggage, including two live smoke grenades, an inert grenade, a pipe bomb look-alike and a samurai sword hidden in a guitar case.