AP Wire Service

Two explosive devices were found Monday at Michigan Technological University, prompting authorities to evacuate two buildings and re-route traffic.

Campus police officers discovered the devices around 3:30 a.m. while on routine patrol, officials said. One was found outside the U.J. Noblet Forestry Building and the other was in a parking lot near an adjacent U.S. Forest Service engineering lab.

The buildings are on the southwestern edge of the university grounds, less than a half-mile from the main campus.

According to the Detroit Free Press, The FBI, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Michigan State Police had officers at the scene, on the southwest portion of the campus. The state police bomb squad disarmed the two devices around 1 p.m.; streets in the area were opened a half-hour later.

Jack Dueweke, the Houghton County emergency measures coordinator, said the devices consisted of five-gallon jugs with wires leading to timers. One device had two jugs. The other had one. They smelled of gasoline, university spokesman Dean Woodbeck said.

A state police bomb squad from Negaunee inspected the devices, first using a remote-control robot equipped with a video camera. Police rendered them harmless but declined to say whether they had actually been ``armed'' to explode, Woodbeck said.

``We're fairly confident that this isn't related to the Sept. 11 attacks or those terrorist organizations,'' Woodbeck told The Daily Mining Gazette.

No note was found with either device, and apparently neither police nor university officials received any warning, said Bill Curnow, another Tech spokesman.

The university received some threatening e-mails around Earth Day in April, Woodbeck told The Associated Press.

``There is research in the university's forestry building into genetic manipulation of plants and trees,'' Woodbeck said. ``Apparently there's a group that opposes that kind of research. But no one has claimed any responsibility for what happened today.''

Michigan Tech Public Safety, Houghton police, the Houghton County Sheriff Department and the Houghton Fire Department evacuated everyone within a 2,000-foot radius of the buildings.

Streets in the vicinity of the buildings also were closed for nearly eight hours, and classes inside the forestry building were canceled. Classes elsewhere proceeded on schedule after police checked all other campus buildings twice and found nothing suspicious, Curnow said.

Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were at the scene Monday afternoon, Curnow said.

The area, except for the USDA and forestry buildings, was reopened about 12:30 p.m. Officials were hoping to reopen the buildings Tuesday.