It’s not every day that a missile is found just chilling inside a home. An inert Cold War-era rocket used to carry a nuclear warhead was found in the garage of the home of a deceased resident in Washington state.
According to the Bellevue, WA Police Department, they responded to a report about a military-grade rocket in the garage of a home in the city across Lake Washington. Bomb squad members inspected the rusting object and determined it was a Douglas AIR-2 Genie (previous designation MB-1), an unguided air-to-air rocket that is designed to carry a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead.
Fortunately, there was no warhead attached and there was no rocket fuel, meaning that the item was an artifact and would not be an explosive hazard. “Because the item was inert and the military did not request it back, police left the item with the neighbor to be restored for display in a museum,” police said.
According to the Air Force Armament Museum Foundation, this type of unguided air-to-air rocket was used by the U.S. and Canada during a period of the Cold War. Police said that they were called by an Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, to report an offer to donate the item, which a neighbor said had been purchased at an estate sale.
“And we think it’s gonna be a long, long time before we get another call like this again,” police said.