Bomb Team Probing Item Found in Hills

Orange County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad members are analyzing a possible explosive device they unearthed Friday from a remote construction site in the Aliso Viejo area, authorities said.

Sheriff’s Lt. Thomas A. Conner said it is not known whether the object had been in the area a long time or had recently been placed there. He said that he understood the object looked like “some construction explosive” but that it had not not yet been determined whether it was indeed an explosive device.

“They don’t know yet if it’s from something left out there some time ago or if it’s got something to do with the new construction,” Conner said late Friday.

Details about the incident were sketchy. Conner said sheriff’s deputies were called about the matter before noon. He did not know who called or what the object looked like.

It was not discovered “until they started bulldozing. It was just out in the hills,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Department hazardous devices squad was dispatched to the site--so isolated that other deputies were not able to communicate with them--and returned with the object in the early evening, Conner said.

“They’ll be working on it for the next few days,” he said. The squad members “go at their own pace,” he added. “We don’t make them go fast.”

No one was hurt during the discovery or removal of the object, he said.

The object was discovered in the hills west of Alicia Parkway and Aliso Creek Road, Conner said. There are no roads or residences nearby. The nearest landmark is the Chet Holifield Building, a huge federal archives facility about a mile to the northeast.

Times staff writer Donn Walker contributed to this article.