A Cold War Rocket Called A Douglas AIR-2 Genie Was Discovered In A Guy’s Garage
Recently, a police department in Bellevue, Washington, got a call to check out a unique artifact in the garage of a resident’s home.
They were notified by the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, after a man had called the institution about donating an object that had belonged to his late neighbor.
A bomb squad was sent to inspect the object. When authorities arrived on the scene, they found a missile from the Cold War.
The missile was a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, an “unguided air-to-air rocket” designed to carry a nuclear warhead. Fortunately, it wasn’t equipped with one, nor was there any rocket fuel.
Officers determined that there wasn’t any risk of explosion, so the missile presented no threat to the public.
While the rocket is now just a rusty relic of a grim period in world history, it was actually a highly dangerous weapon during the Cold War days.
According to the Air Force Armament Museum Foundation, in 1957, the Douglas AIR-2 Genie became the first nuclear-armed rocket that could strike other aircraft.
It was created to intercept strategic bombers from the Soviet Union. The first and only live firing of a Genie took place on July 19, 1957, at a test site in Nevada. More than 3,000 rockets were made before production ceased in 1962.
Police have not been able to contact any of the owner’s relatives. The man who had originally reached out to the museum told him that his neighbor had bought the missile at an estate sale. When his neighbor died, he received control of his property.
Spiroview Inc. – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Since the object was inert and posed no danger, the military did not request it back. As a result, the police left it with the neighbor. Eventually, it will be restored and displayed in a museum.
The town is located near a military base called Joint Base Lewis-McChord, so Bellevue police are used to calls from people coming across military weapons, such as hand grenades. However, a Cold War missile was certainly out of the ordinary.
“We think it’s going to be a long, long time before we get another call like this again,” Bellevue police wrote on X.
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