AC repair tech claims they found a missile in a server room

There’s nothing quite like opening a Reddit thread and finding yourself swept away in tale of international intrigue, government denials, and explosive cover-ups. But this window into the life of an average AC repair person in The Czech Republic has it all. Maybe.

The mystery began when a person on Reddit posted the following image and accompanying text:

Backstory:

I am doing some air-condition maintenance in an small business office building. No one was in that server room for more than 2 months since the last IT guy left and apparently took the keys with him. AC gave up, found out there are no spare keys, had to break in and found this. Farewell present from a former employee maybe?

As best we can tell, the original poster (OP) saw the device, snapped a quick pic, and then left to notify the authorities. According to comments made by the OP, over a period of several hours, the authorities arrived and determined the missile was active:

Update #6: 15:16 CET

Just heard from police radio. It is a freaking active bomb, live explosive, not inert or whatever is the correct fucking wording for it in english (sic).

Other Redditors were quick to help identify the object: labeling it a 9M14 Malyutka anti-tank missile. Interestingly enough the Wikipedia entry for the 9M14 now contains the following entry:

But, the plot thickened when a local website, Lupa, reported Czech police spokesperson Jozef Bocan denied the incident occurred. “We do not know anything about this description at this moment,” he reportedly said.

According to the OP, the missile was moved to a military base for detonation after the police bomb squad unit was unable to disarm it.

So, did a repair person stumble across a piece of unexploded ordinance – perhaps a failed attempt to blow up a server room? And if so, why are the Czech police reportedly denying the incident?

We’ve reached out to the Czech police, and the OP. We’ll update this article as soon as we get more info.

Here’s hoping, no matter what, everyone remains safe and nobody gets exploded. When’s the last time your company’s system administrator did a bomb sweep of the server room?