RUMFORD – An elderly man who brought two Japanese grenades from World War II into the municipal building on Friday likely will never know whether they were live bombs, police say.

The Maine State Police bomb squad, which retrieved the unexploded grenades, intends to detonate them rather than risk checking, Rumford police Cpl. Doug Maifeld said Wednesday.

Town employees, however, can thank Leo Melanson, 83, for getting them out of work 30 minutes early on Friday.

Right after Melanson plunked the grenades down on the police station counter at about 3:15 p.m., police behind the bulletproof window quickly backed away. They then evacuated and locked down the three-story building to await arrival of the bomb squad.

“People have sometimes brought in live ammunition for us to dispose of, but I’ve never seen anything like that in my 20 years here,” Maifeld said.

He described one grenade as the kind that has to be charged by banging one end on a helmet. The other looked like an aircraft missile, but it was about 10 inches long, he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like either one of them. It’s not something you see every day. The bomb squad guy said he didn’t think they were still active, but that doesn’t mean they’re still not dangerous,” Maifeld said.

Melanson, contacted Wednesday afternoon, said he took the grenades to the police station because he wanted to know if they were dangerous.

Maifeld said Melanson found the grenades in the basement of a friend, Rachel Lovejoy, 81, of Peru.

“We don’t usually get people who come up to our station window and plunk down two World War II grenades and ask if these are live or not,” Maifeld said.