Bellevue Bomb Squad Responds to Report of a Rocket in Residence

Yesterday, members of the Bellevue Police Department’s bomb squad responded to a rather unusual call – a report of a military-grade rocket in the garage of a Bellevue residence. Officers later determined the object to be inert.

On Wednesday evening, Bellevue Police received a call from an Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio. The museum had received a call from a Bellevue resident who expressed interest in donating an item that had belonged to his deceased neighbor. The man stated that his neighbor had originally purchased the item from an estate sale.

Yesterday, members of the Bellevue Police patrol division and bomb squad responded to the residence and contacted the neighbor who had called the museum. Officers were given access to the reported missile. Bomb squad members inspected the object and then learned that it was 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. There was no warhead attached.

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.

Because the item was inert and the military did not request it back, police left the item with the neighbor to be restored for display in a museum.