(Newsworthy.news) – Police in Washington state said that they had discovered an inactive rocket—the kind used to transport nuclear warheads—in the garage of the residence of a person who had passed away.
A military-grade rocket was found in the garage of a property in Bellevue, according to a complaint that the police responded to on Thursday. According to the neighbor, the item was bought at an estate auction; the Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, contacted the police to report a donation offer.
After examining the corroded item, members of the bomb squad determined that it was a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, an unguided rocket with a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead. Due to the absence of a rocket fuel source and a warhead, the artifact in question posed no threat of explosion.
According to the police, they left the inactive object to be refurbished for a museum exhibit as the military did not ask for its return.
During the Cold War, when intercepting Soviet strategic bombers was a big military priority, the United States and Canada used the unguided air-to-air rocket, per the Air Force Armament Museum Foundation. The only test explosion of an American nuclear-tipped air-to-air rocket occurred over Yucca Flats, Nevada, in July 1957, when a Genie was fired from an F89J interceptor at 18,000 feet.
Police added a rocket emoji to their X/Twitter post, stating that they expect it will be a long time before they get another call similar to this one.
The Douglas AIR-2 Genie had been fitted with a 1.5-kiloton nuclear head to counter enemy bomber formations and flew unguided air-to-air.
In the Cold War era, which lasted from 1957 to 1985, it was used by both the Canadian and American air forces. According to the Air Force National Museum, the Douglas Aircraft Company built about 3,000 copies of the rocket between 1957 and 1962. The Genie’s solid-propellant rocket engine gave it the power to reach Mach 3.3 and an operating range of 6 miles. It was unguided and operated autonomously. Aircraft like the F-106 Delta Dart, F-101B Voodoo, and F-89 Scorpion were operational carriers of it.
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