Inert Nuclear Missile Found in US Man's Garage

The BBC reports:Police in Washington state say an old rusted rocket found in a local man's garage is an inert nuclear missile.On Wednesday, a military museum in Ohio called police in the city of Bellevue to report an offer of a rather unusual donation. The police then sent a bomb squad to the potential donor's home... In a press release, police say 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, there was no warhead attached, meaning there was never any danger to the community.Bellevue Police Department spokesman Seth Tyler, told BBC News on Friday that the device was "just basically a gas tank for rocket fuel". He called the event "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," he said... The man told police that the rocket belonged to a neighbour who had died, and was originally purchased from an estate sale. Citing a Seattle Times article, the BBC notes that "The first and only live firing of the Genie rocket was in 1957, according to the newspaper, and production of it ended in 1962."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.