LUMBY, B.C. -- Members of a forestry crew in British Columbia believe they may have unearthed a Second World War-era Japanese balloon bomb in the Monashee Mountains.

A military bomb disposal unit has been sent from Maritime Forces Pacific to investigate the metal object found in the forest near Lumby, 460 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

Const. Ted Bowen says the crew contacted RCMP and the area has been sealed off because the metal object may be live ordnance.

In the final years of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army released more than 9,000 bomb-bearing balloons to drift in the jet stream toward Canada and the United States.

At least 1,000 made it over the Pacific and landed as far inland as Michigan and Manitoba.

There were no deaths reported in Canada but an Oregon Sunday School teacher and five teens were killed when a balloon detonated on the side of a road almost 70 years ago.