The TSA said a gun frame had been jammed in the bottom of a boot, below a sock that was stuffed in behind it in an effort to conceal the weapon. The rest of the handgun — the slide, spring and gun magazine loaded with 12 bullets — were detected among plastic building blocks inside a Black Panther LEGO set.

The bizarre sighting landed the New Jersey airport in the No. 8 slot on the agency’s Top 10 list of most unusual finds at checkpoints last year.

How do you forget that you put a knife in your shoe? A passenger at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport did just that, and the incident put the airport on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Top 10 List of most unusual items detected at airport security checkpoints in 2024.

The reason for this distinction is an incident in October where a Mississippi man attempted to hide gun parts in a boot behind a sock, while concealing other parts in a Lego box.