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Inert Cold War-era missile found in Ohio man's garage after he tried donating it to US Air Force museum
A local man unearthed an old rusted rocket in his garage that was designed to carry an inert nuclear missile. It was "basically a gas tank for rocket fuel."
An old rusted rocket, which was designed to carry an inert Cold War-era nuclear missile, was found in a Ohio man’s garage. Police in Bellevue, Washington, discovered the rusted rocket after they were alerted about a call received by the National Museum of the US Air Force in Ohio.
A Bellevue resident expressed the desire to donate the extraordinary item to the museum over a call. When museum alerted the police, they sent a bomb team to the possible donor's house.
"And we think it's gonna be a long, long time before we get another call like this again," the cops stated on X (formerly Twitter), making reference to Elton John's well-known song Space Jam.
The device discovered is "in fact 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," according to a news release from the police. However, the rocket had no warhead attached.
According to The Seattle Times, this kind of rocket was the most potent interceptor missile the Air Force had ever used. It was used by both the US and Canadian Air Forces during the Cold War.
It was 'an artefact with no explosive hazard’, say Police
Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler told BBC News on Friday, February 2, that the device was "basically a gas tank for rocket fuel."
The incident, in his words, was "not serious at all". "In fact, our bomb squad member asked me why we were releasing a news release on a rusted piece of metal," Tyler recalled.
The National Museum of the US Air Force, located close to Dayton, Ohio, made the contact to the police.
"He was gracious enough to let us have a look at it and we determined that it was safe," Tyler said.
The authorities did not feel the need to evacuate the 150,000-person metropolis because they were unaware that there was a nuclear warhead in the neighborhood, the police department said in a statement.
The man told the authorities that the rocket belonged to his deceased neighbour, who had originally bought it from an estate sale. Finally, the police determined that the object was a "artefact with no explosive hazard".
"Because the item was inert and the military did not request it back, police left the item with the neighbour to be restored for display in a museum,” they added.
