LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities say a suspicious item discovered at a nuclear test site about 60 miles outside of Las Vegas turned out to be harmless.
The item was discovered shortly before 4 p.m. Tuesday outside a perimeter fence near the center of the National Nuclear Security Site. Spokeswoman Kelly Snyder says the site's own fire and rescue team responded first, and then federal and state law enforcement officers were called in.
Stacey Alderson, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, says the item turned out to be nonthreatening.
The National Nuclear Security Site hosted more than 1,000 nuclear detonations from 1951 to 1992, when the U.S. agreed to a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing. The site still conducts nuclear experiments, tests technology and manages nuclear emergency response plans, among other missions.
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