NEW YORK — Residents of the Lower East Side were treated to police digging up a cemetery today, but as night falls across the city, zombies and vampires are yet to emerge.

This disturbance of the dead follows the police receiving a call about a suspicious package, which turned out to be a plastic garbage bag containing eight sticks of C-4 explosives.

A New York City Marble Cemetery volunteer placed the call to the police early Monday. Police discerned that a caretaker had dug up the package in fall 2009, but left the mysterious bag near a back fence without notifying authorities.

C-4 is a military grade explosive more powerful than TNT. A single stick can blow up a car or topple a large tree, but the substance is considerably stable without a detonator to set it off.

The bag found at Marble Cemetery did not include a blasting cap or detonator so was unlikely to explode on its own.

Who buried the bag—and when—remains under investigation. “We believe it’s been there for a significant period of time,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

As noted by the New York Daily News, the historic cemetery abuts several brownstones and is approximately 100 feet from a notorious 3rd Street Hell’s Angels clubhouse. According Yves Lavigne’s 1987 book “Hell’s Angels: Three Can Keep a Secret if Two Are Dead,” the motorcycle gang stockpiled C-4 in the 1980s.

Kelly stated that there is no suspicion of terrorists connected to the explosive at this time.

Further befuddling investigators, a chalk note found on the sidewalk outside the cemetery reads, “I really hope one of you finds this.”

About The Author

Ann Crews Melton is a Blast correspondent

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