On last Wednesday night, an event surprised the United States. The Bellevue Police Department received a call from the National Museum of the Air Force in Ohio after the attempt by a man to donate an item that investigation determined to be a missile belonging to the Cold War era.
More than four decades after the end of the conflict that pitted the Western and Eastern blocs -led by the United States and the USSR-, there are still traces of that war in the citizens involved. In this way it was that A man in Washington managed to acquire at a state sale a missile that in the past contained nuclear explosives.
After the man's recent death, a neighbor tried to donate the item to the National Air Force Museum, ignoring the nuclear nature of the device and the danger it represented. His call to the museum prompted a subsequent visit by the local Bellevue police, whose officers found, after rigorous investigations, that The item was effectively a Douglas AIR-2 Genie, an unguided air-to-air missile designed to carry a 1.5kt W25 nuclear warhead..
Despite the alarm that the news aroused in the residents of the area, local police confirmed that the object was inert and contained no missile fuelso there were no possibilities of explosion.
Because it does not represent a risk to residents of the area, The police officers left the element in charge of the neighbor for its restoration and subsequent exhibition in the museum to the one who first tried to donate it.
A 3D rendering of a nuclear missile in space.
United States: wanted to donate an object and discovered that it was a Cold War nuclear weapon
According to official information from the National Museum of the Air Force, The Douglas AIR-2 Genie missile was first tested in 1956, and during the beginning of the following year it was sent into service. Thus, during the second half of 1957, a fighter plane launched the first missile of this type in the only official test in history.
Because of the unusual factor of the situation, the Bellevue Police Department shared an image of the missile on its social media and wrote: “And we think it's going to be a long, long time before we get another call like this again.”
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