East Lyme — For about 20 minutes late Wednesday night, the sounds of machine guns and bombs dropping could be heard around the Boston Post Road area.

No, East Lyme was not at war. A Connecticut National Guard military police training exercise was being conducted at Stones Ranch.

Col. John Whitford, spokesman for the Connecticut National Guard,  said Thursday for the past two weeks training exercises were being conducted at the military reservation.

The training exercises startled some neighbors, resulting in numerous calls to police.

“We try to do what we can to let the appropriate authorities, the community and East Lyme police know that we are conducting these exercises,” said Whitford. “The sounds are needed for the realism of training... to make our men and women tactically proficient so they can perform their jobs stateside or when they are called up and go overseas.”

Whitford said Stones Ranch has been used as a training ground since the 1930s. He said other state and federal authorities use the site for training.

The exercises are expected to end Saturday. They typically start around 8 a.m. and end at 11 p.m.