An old rusted rocket, which was designed to carry an inert nuclear missile, was found in the garage of a local man.
The police officials in Washington state said that they found the rusted rocket after the police officials in Bellevue were given a call by a military museum in Ohio to make a very unusual donation.
After receiving the call, a bomb squad was sent by the police to the home of the potential donor.
“And we think it’s gonna be a long, long time before we get another call like this again,” said the police, while referring to the iconic song of Elton John – Rocket Man.
The police, in a press release, said that the device 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”.
However, no warhead was attached to the rocket which meant it was not of any danger to the community.
‘Just a gas tank’: Police calls the event “not serious at all”
Speaking to BBC News on Friday (Feb 2), Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler said that the device was “just basically a gas tank for rocket fuel”.
He said that the event 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 said.
The call was made to the police from the National Museum of the US Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
The man, in whose garage the rocket was found, “was not expecting a call from us”, said Tyler, adding that it seems that he was not informed by the museum that they would be reporting his donation offer.
“He was gracious enough to let us have a look at it and we determined that it was safe,” Tyler said.
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The officials never had any idea of a nuclear warhead being present in the neighbourhood and hence, never felt the need to evacuate the city of 150,000 people.
The man informed the police that the rocket belonged to his neighbour who had expired and it was purchased originally by him from an estate sale. The item was finally deemed by the police as an “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.
(With inputs from agencies)
