Nuclear missile parts unearthed in garage after call to museum, Washington cops say

A phone call to a museum about a potential donation led police to part of a former nuclear missile stored in a Bellevue garage, Washington officials reported.

The police bomb squad identified the inert munition as a Douglas AIR-2 Genie air-to-air rocket designed to carry a 1.5-kiloton nuclear warhead, the Bellevue Police Department said in a Feb. 2 news release. The rocket had no warhead.

A kiloton equates to about 1,000 tons of TNT, according to the World Nuclear Association. By comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a 16-kiloton yield.

An Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, contacted the department Wednesday, Jan. 31, to report that someone had called them offering to donate the rocket, which belonged to a neighbor who had died, police said. The man said his neighbor bought it from an estate sale.

Officers and bomb squad experts responded the next day and found the rocket in the garage of the neighbor who had died, police said.

“Bomb squad members confirmed that the object was inert and contained no rocket fuel – essentially meaning that the item was an artifact with no explosive hazard,” police said.

Because the rocket was inert and the Air Force did not request its return, officers left it with the neighbor to be restored for display in a museum, police said.

Bellevue is about 10 miles east of downtown Seattle.

This story was originally published February 6, 2024 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Nuclear missile parts unearthed in garage after call to museum, Washington cops say."