Construction workers digging a water line trench near Watsonville, Calif., last week unearthed a chunk of riveted metal, some bullet casings dated 1942 and part of a burned parachute. And now the town is buzzing about what might be buried there. Various local authorities, along with officials from Travis Air Force Base, are now examining the contents of the hole to see what it is and if its safe to bring it into the light of day. “There’s definitely a piece of history there, whatever it is,” Kenny Lazzerini, who owns the strawberry farm on which the wreckage was found, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Travis Air Force Base spokeswoman Vanessa Hill told the Sentinel they havent found any markings or any other clues to the wreckage’s origin. Old-timers told the paper the site would have been on the flight path for an airport that was located in that area in the 1930s and 1940s. Others suggest it might just be a random piece of junk that harkens to a simpler time. “Back then, there weren’t the sort of dumps that we have today,” Gerry Martin, a volunteer for the local historical society, told the paper. “Somebody could have just shoved it in a ditch and covered it up. Then over time, silt probably just accumulated and covered it up.”
