HERMISTON -- Hermiston Airport Manager Susie Rawe was suspicious when a woman came into the airport on Jan. 7 asking questions about airspace restrictions near the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

She also thought the questions were laughable.

"I was thinking 'Is this real?' If someone was really dangerous, they wouldn't be this obvious," Rawe said.

The questions were similar to those a terrorist would ask, and the woman questioning Rawe apparently was pretending to be a terrorist, Rawe said.

So Rawe called police and the FBI.

"I was thinking 'Is this a joke?' " she said. "But she met my criteria for turning someone in, so I did."

Rawe said she called Hermiston police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but got a call from the depot telling her it was a training exercise while the Hermiston police were still there.

"We were invited to a briefing, but we thought it was just a drill on the depot," said Hermiston Police Chief Dan Coulombe.

He said police declined to attend because of other priorities, not knowing it was a drill that would involve Hermiston residents.

The incident at the airport was a drill, part of an off-base exercise conducted by Army Materials Command back East, in conjunction with the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

The drill is similar to those performed annually in previous years, said Jim Hackett, spokesman for the Army, but it was the first time he knew of that the community around the depot was involved.

And it caught the community and local law enforcement off guard.

Hackett said he was surprised, too.

He said it was an anti-terrorism exercise, but one he didn't know would involve the community. He expected the drill to take place solely on the depot grounds.

Hackett said he did make calls to Army officials, but was unable to learn more.

During the drill, three people were apprehended trying to get on the depot. Two were stopped at the gates, but the third person got as far as the operations center, which is close to the admission gate, but far from the area where chemical weapons are stored, before he was stopped, Hackett said.

Depot security was then informed that the intruders were part of an anti-terrorist drill.

Hackett didn't have any more details, but said the person who got on base had federal credentials.

"Someone couldn't just walk off the street and get on the depot," Hackett said. "They had to have had a badge of some kind."

He said the badge was likely authentic because the person probably was a federal employee, but Hackett didn't know for sure.

Hermiston police also responded to a call from Radio Shack employees who were approached in a similarly suspicious fashion as Rawe at the airport.