My 2nd cousin's girlfriend had given me a couple of bars of soap that I put in my carry on and I threw in some sort of electronic gizmo on top of everything in my carry on- not thinking- my bag got pulled to be hand checked- of course they used the explosive indicators on it. The TSA guy was really nice about it- I told him I didnt think about what it looked like under xray. and I did not tell him what it looked like- not using those words! so yeah ,it can get checked.