Guy claims to find old Russian missile in a server room, and the internet freaks

A photo of an old Russian missile in a server room just caused a massive Reddit freak out. 

Redditor WhySoSadCZ posted a photo of "some kind of explosive lying on the floor" on Monday in the subreddit r/WhatisThisThing. They claimed that they were working on the air conditioning for a small office building in the Czech Republic when they found a whole missile in the office's server room. They claimed that the server room was untouched for two months, and that they had to break in to fix the AC.

"Farewell present from a former employee maybe?" they wondered in the comments. 

Understandably, people on Reddit were freaked out. 

The subreddit's mods added a stickied comment reminding the OP to leave the explosive alone and call local authorities as soon as possible. A Redditor going by u/clegg524 identified it as a Sagger missile, a Russian manually-commanded anti-tank explosive. Translation: it shoots tanks. TANKS. 

"Good luck w that bud," u/clegg524 commented. 

Even a mod for the EOD (that's the freaking United States military's bomb squad) jumped in, confirming that the object did look like a Sagger missile and reminding the OP that they wouldn't get in trouble for reporting an explosive. 

SEE ALSO: 7 Times the Internet Teamed Up to Solve a Mystery

It's not the first time a site-wide scare like this has happened. In 2015, a Redditor found what appeared to be an active land mine and after he posted a photo of it, his account went dormant. Fellow Redditors were convinced that he was killed by the supposed explosion. Others went further, digging through his post history and concluding that the post was some sort of morbid goodbye before he died by suicide. But don't worry — a combination of internet sleuthing and Mashable friending the user on Steam found that the OP was alive and well, and that the land mine was 3D-printed. It was a classic case of trolling for karma, and a lesson in approaching everything on the internet with some degree of skepticism. 

Which brings us to u/WhySoSadCZ. Here's a series of updates from the OP:

In the final update, they say that they got their phone back after going through a police investigation. The Redditor claims that the local bomb squad wasn't authorized to work with the missile, so it was taken to a "nearby military area" where it would be detonated. u/WhySoSadCZ said they didn't have any information about how the missile ended up in a locked server room for two months, but that "there is a strict embargo about it." 

"We can't talk to press or anybody so I hope this will be ok since I did not mention anything too specific," they said in the final update.

It's almost too believable. An OP who actually follows up with reasonable updates? How often does that happen online? 

The local news in the Czech Republic even covered the story — and said it was fake. According to Lupa.cz, the police spokesperson for the Czech Presidency claims that there was no bomb squad-led detonation. "We do not know anything about this description at this moment," Jozef Bocan, the Czech Presidency spokesperson said in a translated version of the website. 

But that's a pretty vague statement, and it could be the police department just trying to diffuse the situation or stall the press. 

Then r/KarmaCourt stepped in, bringing up some questions that we all have. Why would an office building's server room stay untouched for two whole months? How did the missile even get there? Could a disgruntled employee really get away with leaving a MISSILE in this abandoned room? Why would the bomb squad take away his phone, but not his laptop? 

The most damning evidence: a comment on a post from a month ago, criticizing another Reddit user for taking a photo of his grandfather's anti-tank missile. "How can you be so careless," u/WhySoSadCZ admonished. "That thing would left a crater in place where your home stood." 

Comment from discussion WhySoSadCZ's comment from discussion "Got this from my grandfather, very heavy, looks like a mortar?".

Is this one giant karma farm, reaping Reddit's fervor for drama for imaginary internet points? Or did this actually happen? If a bomb squad had to detonate a vintage missile after massive online attention, it's possible that the local government would want it to be done discreetly. 

That's the beauty of internet mysteries like this one — guessing whether or not it's real is what makes it fun. 

Reddit didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The Czech military also has not responded to requests to confirm or deny that the situation occurred. 

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