Cold War-era rocket designed to carry nukes discovered in Washington state garage

 Washington state officials recently discovered a decommissioned Cold War-era rocket in a deceased resident's garage.

The military-grade rocket, which was designed to carry nuclear weapons, was uncovered by Bellevue Police Department officers on Thursday.

According to police, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, called on Wednesday to say they had been presented with the item. A neighbor reported that the rocket was purchased at an estate sale.

The rocket, which is a McDonnell Douglas AIR-2 Genie (previous designation MB-1), was designed to carry a W25 nuclear warhead. It is an unguided air-to-air rocket.

According to police, the object was "an artefact with no explosive threat." There was no fuel in the rocket, nor was it equipped with any weapon.

"Since the object was inoperable and the Army had not requested to return it, the police left the object with a neighbor to be displayed in the museum," the police said.

Bellevue police joked on X that they "think it'll be a long time before we get a call like this again."

According to the Air Force Armament Museum Foundation, the McDonnell Douglas AIR-2 Genie was used by both the US and Canadian military forces. Production of the weapon ended in 1962 and approximately 3,000 rockets were built.

"Intercepting Soviet strategic bombers was a major military preoccupation in the late 1940s and 1950s," the museum explains on its website. "Combat machine gun and cannon weapons of the Second World War era were inadequate to stop attacks by massed formations of high-speed bombers."