On Feb. 1, members of the Bellevue Police Department’s bomb squad responded to a report of a military-grade rocket in the garage of a Bellevue residence — what the department described as a “a rather unusual call.”

On evening of Jan. 31, 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.

On Feb. 1, 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 reportedly given access to the reported missile.

Bomb squad members inspected the object and learned that it was in fact a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, previously designated as an MB-1, an unguided air-to-air rocket that is designed to carry a 1.5-kt nuclear warhead.

Bellevue Police clarified that there was no warhead attached, and 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,” according to a post on the Bellevue Police Department website.

The department said that 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.

AIR-2 Genie rocket with a replica nuclear warhead attached. (Photo by Steve Heeb)