A fisherman in coastal Shandong Province hauled up a scrap cylinder from the sea, which was later identified as a missile booster.

A fisherman in coastal Shandong Province hauled up a scrap cylinder from the sea, which was later identified as a missile booster, the Qilu Evening Post reported yesterday.

Changdao County police said they saw many people gathering at the Dongcun Wharf and looking at a huge metal object netted by a local fisherman.

The blue-painted cylinder was about four meters long and two meters in diameter. It had a wire circuit on the top and some words on the body reading "support part-2," the police said.

The crowd was dispersed immediately and the strange object was sent to a local military unit for examination. Experts later confirmed that it was a missile booster.

Although the police didn't say what type of a missile the booster belonged to but it was widely believed that it belonged to JL-2, a submarine-launched intercontinental missile, the report said.