Rocket event in Massachusetts, Nantucket, Tom Nevers area, United States of America on Thu 21st May 2026

State bomb-squad technicians traveled to Nantucket to detonate and dispose of unexploded military rockets found on a beach in Tom Nevers last Thursday.

The Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad responded to the beach below the former U.S. Navy base on the south shore of the island after unexploded military ordnance was discovered in an eroding sand dune, according to the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services.

With help from the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit and the Nantucket Fire Department, they identified the weapons as World War II-era rockets that were used in training exercises.

A photo posted to Facebook by the Department of Fire Services shows a long metal cylinder partially buried in sand among rocks and seashells. The cylinder is completely rusted over and comes to a point on one end.

Bomb squad technicians detonated the rockets in a controlled explosion.

This is not the first time unexploded ordnance have been discovered and disposed of on the property of the former Navy Base, also home to the underground bunker built for U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the early days of the Cold War.

The property is now a public park, and voters at Town Meeting earlier this month and at the ballot box Tuesday authorized an $8 million debris cleanup and erosion control project at the former military installation, which closed in the 1970s.