(Updated) Man Arrested After Chaining Himself to Box of Sand Near VA Nuke Plant

UPDATE II:

A Williamsburg man is in the custody of state police after after creating a disturbance on the James River in Newport News, floating in an inflatable raft with a chain around his neck attached to a black box.

The man has not been identified, but Lt. Scott McBride of the U.S. Coast Guard said he is in his 30s. After the raft was towed to shore in Surry County, the box - approximately 2 feet by 1 foot - was determined to contain sand. No charges against the man have been announced.

[...]

McBride said the man did not make any threats or demands. He described the man as "at times coherent, and at times unresponsive."

UPDATE:

Fox News just reported that the "unknown device" was a block box filled with sand. Officials still don't know why the man was in the river outside the plant or what he was planning to do.

Original story below.

A suspicious man outside a Surry, VA nuclear plant has been discovered in a rubber boat in a nearby river. He apparently has a chain around his neck which is connected to an unknown device:

From WTVR-TV:

Virginia Marine Police say they are towing the boat of a man with a unidentified device attached to himself to shore. Officials say the man is in a nine foot inflatable boat that was in the middle of the James River, just south of the Ghost Fleet between Surry Nuclear Power Plant and Ft. Eustis. The man had a chain wrapped around his neck attached to a 2 foot by 1 foot black box.

Virginia Marine Police's John Bull says the man, who was first spotted by a commercial crabber around 7 a.m., made no demands, appeared incoherent and disoriented, but at other times was also cooperative.

According to the Daily Press, Bull said the man provided no information other than to ask people to stay away from him.

"We don't know who he is, and we don't know how he got here," Bull said. "We don't know why he has a chain around his neck. We don't know why the chain is attached to a black box, and we don't know what's in the black box either. We are approaching this with an abundance of caution so that a very strange situation doesn't become more serious than it already is."