A man pulled a live turtle from his pants at an airport security checkpoint in New Jersey after triggering an alarm, officials said.

The man, from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was caught with the turtle on March 7 at Newark Liberty International Airport, the Transportation Security Administration said in a March 11 news release.

A “body scanner triggered an alarm in the” man’s groin area, according to officials, and a TSA officer doing a pat down then “determined that there was something concealed” there.

The TSA officer questioned the traveler, and that’s when the man “reached down the front of his pants and pulled out a live turtle that was wrapped in a small blue towel,” officials said.

The roughly 5-inch-long turtle didn’t appear to have been harmed, per the release. The man identified it as a red-eared slider turtle, officials said.

A TSA official described the situation as unprecedented.

“We have seen travelers try to conceal knives and other weapons on their person, in their shoes and in their luggage, however I believe this is the first time we have come across someone who was concealing a live animal down the front of his pants,” said Thomas Carter, TSA’s federal security director for New Jersey, per the release.

Officials didn’t say why the man had the turtle.

Port Authority police officers questioned him and took the reptile, with plans to get in touch with animal control in the area and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to officials.

The man “missed his flight and was escorted out of the checkpoint by police,” officials said.

East Stroudsburg is about a 70-mile drive northwest from Newark.

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