BELLEVUE, Wash. — An inert missile, the type used to carry a nuclear warhead, was found in the garage of a home of a deceased Washington state resident, police said.
Bellevue police responded Thursday to a report of a military-grade rocket in the garage of a home in the city across Lake Washington from Seattle. Police said an Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, called Wednesday evening to report an offer to donate the item, which a neighbor said was purchased at an estate sale.
Bomb squad members inspected the rusting object and discovered that it was a Douglas AIR-2 Genie (formerly MB-1), an unguided air-to-air missile designed to carry a 1.5 kt W25 warhead. There was no warhead attached and there was no rocket fuel – “which essentially meant the item was an artifact with no risk of explosion.”
“Because the object was inert and the army did not ask for it back, the police left the object with a neighbor to have it restored and put on display in a museum,” police said.
According to the Air Force Armament Museum Foundation, the unguided air-to-air missile was used by the US and Canada during a period of the Cold War when intercepting Soviet strategic bombers was a major military problem. In July 1957, a Genie was launched at 18,000 feet (about 5,500 meters) from an F89J interceptor and detonated over Yucca Flats, Nevada, the first and only test explosion of a nuclear-tipped American air-to-air missile.
“And we think it will be a long time before we get a call like this again,” police said on Twitter, adding a rocket emoji.