Rusty Cold War-era rocket designed to carry nuclear warheads found in dead US man’s garage
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The rocket was declared inert by members of the bomb squad as it had no warhead or rocket fuel.
PHOTO: BELLEVUE POLICE DEPARTMENT/X
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Some people might have doubts about retrieving items belonging to a dead person, but this is especially so if the item is a Cold war-era rocket designed to hold a nuclear warhead.
Such a rocket was found in the garage of a home in Bellevue city, next to Seattle in Washington state, by the neighbour of a man who died.
The rocket was identified as a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, a model used by the United States and Canada during the Cold War and was the US Air Force’s most powerful interceptor missile ever used.
Officers from the Bellevue Police Department had received a call on Jan 31 from the National Museum of the United States Air Force, according to the department’s blog.
The museum notified the police after the neighbour called to donate the rocket, adding that it had been purchased in an estate sale.
The police dispatched a bomb squad, who later confirmed that the rocket was inert as it lacked a warhead or rocket fuel.
Markings on the rocket are still visible in photographs posted on the blog and social media accounts.
The police said: “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.”
The AIR-2 Genie is an unguided rocket designed to carry a 1.5 kiloton W25 nuclear warhead and has a range of around 9km and a maximum speed of Mach 3.3, more than three times the speed of sound.
Developed in 1954, around 1,000 rockets were produced from 1957 till production ceased in 1962. The rocket was designed for air-to-air use to counter the threat of large bomber fleets attacking the US, its 300m lethal blast radius seemingly negating the need for accuracy.
