An Indiana man may be facing a potentially explosive situation after discovering what appears to be a stash of dynamite left behind by his grandfather. He says he made the alarming find after purchasing the family estate from his aunt, a property that includes a house, a workshop, storage bins, and roughly 45 acres of land. Now, the new homeowner is uncertain about how to handle the suspected explosives—though thousands of Reddit users believe he may not be taking the danger seriously enough.
“I’m struggling with what I should do with them,” says Glum-Blueberry-3870, the grandson of the man who once owned the alleged dynamite stash. “I’m not opposed to blowing them up, but will they even explode? [They’re] possibly 40 years old,” he speculates. If the material is indeed dynamite, he believes his grandfather may have used it to clear beaver dams.
While OP’s tone was relatively casual, the comment section was anything but. Hundreds of users urged him to take the situation extremely seriously. “DO NOT touch them. Depending on what kind they are, simply moving them can cause a detonation,” one commenter warned. Another agreed, adding, “Old dynamite is absolutely volatile.”
Several commenters suggested calling the fire department, while many others urged OP to contact the police bomb squad to have the dynamite safely removed. A few shared their own frightening stories about people they knew who had carelessly handled or played with old sticks of dynamite before they exploded.
While some Redditors suggested that Glum-Blueberry-3870 could use dynamite to remove unwanted trees—or simply for amusement—the Indiana Department of Homeland Security makes clear that handling explosives requires a license, as they are strictly regulated. Meanwhile, a small number of commenters argued that the sticks may not be dynamite at all, but rather railroad flares.
Some Believe the Dynamite May Actually Be Old Railroad Flares
One person claiming to be a “former railroader” said, “Yes, those look like road flares we would use. That said, if OP says they say ‘dynamite,’ then it’s a bomb squad problem. Otherwise, it’s just trash.” Another individual shared a link to a product page on Eagle’s Eye Finds, where the antique flares shown appear, at first glance, to closely resemble those in OP’s post.
In any case, the safest course of action is to contact the police or fire department, as handling old dynamite is extremely dangerous and not worth the risk.
