Ah, never mind.

Those mysterious Hellfire missiles that turned up in a Serbian airport, bound for Portland? The U.S. State Department says they were "dummy" rounds used for training.

They weren't coming to Oregon, either.

"The actual Portland that everyone was talking about was Portland, Maine," a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Authorities in Belgrade created a sensation Saturday by reporting a sniffer dog had discovered two missiles on an Air Serbia flight from Beirut. Initial reports indicated the missiles were en route to an address in Portland, Oregon.

The missiles had gone to Lebanon in advance of a plan to send about 1,000 actual Hellfires there, according to the State Department spokesman, who asked that he not be identified by name, in keeping with State Department protocol.

They were sent by a third-party contractor, he said, so Lebanese aircraft could be fitted to carry the real Hellfires.

"This was all for training and education," the spokesman said. He said the Lebanese military had followed appropriate procedures for returning the practice rounds and that authorities in Serbia had acted out of an "abundance of caution."

The State Department spokesman said Portland was in fact designated as the U.S. port of entry for the training missiles' return -- but not the one in Oregon.

Photos of Hellfire Missiles and Air Serbia aircrafts 19 Gallery: Photos of Hellfire Missiles and Air Serbia aircrafts

It wasn't clear why a sniffer dog would have detected the inert missiles, or if those reports were accurate. The spokesman said he didn't know details of the missiles' discovery in Belgrade but that it wouldn't be surprising for items that had been in a military environment to pick up traces of an element that dogs would be able to detect.

On Monday, the Lebanese army reportedly said the missiles had been used in training and were being returned to the American manufacturer. The Hellfire AGM-114 is currently produced by Lockheed Martin, which does have an Oregon office focused on energy.

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway