WATERVILLE – The people who cleaned out a unit in a Waterville storage facility after its tenant fell $16,000 behind in his rent were shocked to discover what it contained.

“When they opened some of the boxes, they found human brains and baby fetuses,” said Detective Jeffrey Bearce of the Waterville police. “Some were in a preservative and some of the brains were in plastic containers.”

Police quoted the tenant, a doctor, as saying the brains and fetuses he stored there were research specimens given to him when he graduated from medical school, and he used them for instructional purposes.

Detective David Caron said more than 26 brains and one or two fetuses were apparently stored in 32 cardboard boxes that were placed inside 21 8-foot-tall wooden containers.

“There were a minimum of two brains per box that we know of,” he said, “and some of the containers were leaking.”

The detectives said no criminal act had been committed and they would not reveal the name of the tenant, whom they identified only as a neurologist who was practicing outside the immediate central Maine area.

Police would not specify the storage site, but an owner of Parker K. Bailey & Sons, Inc., on Armory Road, confirmed that the company had gone through a fairly lengthy legal process to notify a tenant that his belongings would be auctioned if he did not claim them.

Craig Bailey, who was in his Brewer office, would not reveal the name of the person who had stored the items at the Waterville site since 1999 and said he had not seen the contents of the crates himself.

“I have no idea what’s in them,” he said. “We don’t know if they’re turtles or sheep [brains].”

Scott B. Austin, an environmental specialist with the state Department of Environmental Protection, said his office is investigating a report that brains and fetuses were found in a Waterville storage facility.

“This is very unusual,” said Austin, who would not release details of the case. “I’ve been doing this medical-waste job for 12 years and I’ve never encountered anything quite like this.”

Austin said preservatives used in the storage of the brains could be dangerous.

“Formaldehyde, if that’s what it is, is a hazardous material,” he said. “It’s toxic and it can be flammable if it is a strong enough concentration. Usually it is not flammable.”