Please sir - can we have our chaff back?
Red-faced United States Air Force bosses have had to issue a public plea after a plane dropped the device, designed to confuse radars, somewhere along the coast.
The air force issued a statement from its Mildenhall base, asking members of the public not to handle any objects they find with the US government logo on it, but to contact police.
The MC130H aircraft, assigned to 352 Special Operations Group, dropped the chaff module on a flight yesterday.
Suffolk police released the statement on behalf of the US Air Force, in which it said the flight's course had taken it along the "greater part of the UK coastal perimeter".
Members of the public are urged not to handle the chaff module or try to move it.
Electrical devices - including mobile phones - must not be used within 35ft or 10m of the item.
Armed forces use chaff to distract radar-guided missiles from their targets.
- More in today's Gazette
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