SAN CLEMENTE (CBS 8) - It was a rare and surprising find for divers off the coast of San Clemente Island.
They discovered a state-of-the-art Navy torpedo, sitting on the ocean floor.
"It is very cool... I mean it's very cool... Not every day I run across something like this."
Carl Robbins recognized it right away, a Mark 54 torpedo, property of the US Navy.
"It's one that's generally released by an anti-submarine warfare helicopter and so it's deployed from the helicopter - hits water and it's sensors take over until it finds the submarine it's looking for."
It was sitting 50-feet below his dive boat, which brought the obvious concern, could this thing explode at any second.
Carl went in for a closer look.
"It had the indications of having a warhead on it... However it was overridden by the fact it had the inert load sticker on top of it."
So Carl surfaced and gave his diving buddies onboard the Horizon the all clear.
"It turned out to be a pretty fun event for the group."
The torpedo was found about 75 miles northwest of San Diego, near San Clemente Island.
It's property owned by the Navy and used for training, but the area around it is opened at times to boaters.
The device was actually spotted by someone else on Carl's trip, but his 31 years of civilian work for the Navy gave him the knowledge to identify it and know who to call -- although at first the Navy didn't believe him.
"And as soon as they saw the pictures - all of a sudden I was on speaker phone and everyone in the room was listening to the story... So it took on a whole new serious meaning at that point."
Judging by how clean it looks, the torpedo hasn't been down there very long and it seems to be in pretty good shape.
A unique find for divers and Carl knows there are many more surprises out there just waiting to be found.
"We're just going to keep diving until we find something like that special in the future."
The torpedo is just one of many interesting discoveries Carl has made over the decades he's been diving.
Other finds include the wing of an F-14 aircraft and an old World War II ship originally commanded by L. Ron Hubbard.
