Police in Bellevue, a city across Lake Washington from Seattle, were called to a report of a military-grade rocket by the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday evening.

A Bellevue resident had phoned the museum and said they wanted to donate an item that belonged to a neighbour who had died.

The man said his neighbour had originally purchased the rocket from an estate sale.

Bellevue Police Department contacted the man who had approached the museum, with bomb squad members later given access to the missile.

They inspected the rocket and found it to be a Douglas AIR-2 Genie - an unguided air-to-air rocket that is designed to carry a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead.

There was no warhead attached.

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Bomb squad members confirmed that the object was inert and contained no rocket fuel - meaning that the item was an artefact with no explosive risk.

The police force said they were able to leave the item with the neighbour to be restored and then displayed in a museum.

In a nod to the classic Elton John song Rocket Man, Bellevue Police posted on the X social media platform: "We think it's gonna be a long, long time before we get another call like this again."