This is the most important lesson in this course, and the rule is short enough to memorise.
Do not touch it. Do not move it. Do not photograph it from close. Do not throw anything at it. Get away, and tell the authorities.
Assume anything unfamiliar is dangerous. Ordnance that did not function when it landed is not safe — it is a device that failed to work on schedule and may work now. Items that killed people were routinely picked up because they looked like scrap metal, a toy, a torch, a tin, a piece of pipe.
This applies for decades. Munitions from wars that ended in the last century still kill people every year in Europe.
What to do instead.
- Stop where you are; do not walk closer.
- Move away by the route you came, if you can see it.
- Keep others away, especially children.
- Note where it is precisely enough for somebody to find: a street, a building number, a landmark.
- Call the emergency number and say what you saw and where.
Tell children explicitly. They pick things up. A child who has been told "if you see something you do not recognise on the ground, do not touch it, come and tell me" is meaningfully safer, and it costs one conversation.