David Hahn was not a terrorist.

The story of a boy scout who nearly went nuclear.
Kevin Tumlinson | WrittenWorld.us

We all have our hobbies. Maybe it’s trains. Maybe it’s comic books. Maybe it’s scotch or fine wine. There’s going to be something you’re passionate about, maybe even obsessed about, that occupies your time away from your work.

But what happens when our hobbies become a threat? And not just a threat to us, but maybe even a threat to our neighbors? Or—think bigger—what happens when our hobbies become a threat to national security?

I’m Kevin Tumlinson, and this … is the Written World.

I like quirky bits of history. I'm always on the lookout for odd little tidbits that make you scratch your head and wonder at what happened. And these can range on the spectrum of epicness—from little-known facts about the evolution of a turn of phrase, such as "jump the shark," to more profound revelations such as the historical presence of Vikings in North America, centuries before its discovery by Europeans.

 I even wrote a whole book about that last one.

 Sometimes, though, you come across some quirky history that makes you pause and makes you think, and may even makes you laugh and cringe a little.

 That's exactly how I feel about David Hahn, the "Radioactive Boy Scout."

 The thing about David's story that resonates most with me is that he grew up in a small town, without much of a social scene, and so he was forced to find his entertainment where he could. He was smart, and I like to think that we share that trait. The opinions of others may vary. And he was resourceful, another thing I believe (or hope) we have in common.

 Growing up in Commerce Township, Michigan, David was a Boy Scout. He participated in all the usual boy scout things, such as going hiking and camping, learning to tie knots, and doing good deeds for the community. By most signs, David was a good kid.

 He earned a lot of badges while in the scouts, but one of those badges set him on a path that would lead to infamy. David, it turns out, was one of only a few people to earn the Atomic Energy merit badge.

David had a keen interest in atomic energy. He obsessed over it, studying everything he could find on the subject. And as it turned out, he could find a lot.

 When trips to the local library weren't producing enough information, David did what any bright and curious kid would do: He opened up a phonebook (this was the early 1990s ... Google wasn't quite a thing yet) and started making phone calls.

He reached out to experts in the field, sometimes telling them he was a student working on a project, sometimes posing as a researcher or other official position. David would often write twenty or more letters per day, occasionally claiming to be a Physics teacher at Chippewa Valley High School. His letters went to experts and professionals all across the industry, including the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 In the end, not only did David learn exactly how something like a nuclear reactor might work, but he also managed to talk some experts into sending him some parts and supplies.

 What he needed, though, was fissionable material to work with. And lots of it.

 To get it, he got creative. He began salvaging radioactive material from household products. Americium from smoke detectors. Thorium from camping lanterns. Radium from clocks. Tritium from gunsights. Lithium from batteries.

All items that could be obtained either by rummaging through the trash or buying from a local supermarket.

 With materials gathered, and plans cobbled together from books in the public library and documents sent by bonafide nuclear experts, David moved his operation to the shed behind his mother's house. And there, he made history.

 Using his pilfered materials, David built a small nuclear reactor, known as a "breeder reactor." David favored this design because, in a sense, it was self-sustaining.

 We won't go into the pure physics of this, for several reasons. But the short version is that as a breeder reactor uses nuclear fuel, the fission creates radioactive byproducts. So while energy is being generated, the "waste" collects, and this waste can also be used in a fission reaction. In a sense, a breeder reactor generates its own fuel. And though this is far from a perpetual energy source, it can result in a pretty long-lasting source of energy.

 More than most teenagers need, at any rate.

 David got incredibly far along in his experiments and in his build. In fact, he actually succeeded in building the breeder reactor, complete with a radioactive fuel source. And though it never came close to critical mass, it did start generating alarming levels of radiation—more than one thousand times normal background radiation.

This got attention.

 Actually, David and his neighborhood have sheer luck to thank for the fact that his operation was discovered.

 In 1994, just before 3AM on a late August morning, local police were called to investigate claims that a teenager was stealing tires off of cars. They arrived to find David Hahn, who claimed he was just waiting for a friend.

They didn't believe him, and ended up searching his vehicle. When they opened the trunk, they found a metal toolbox, locked and sealed with duct tape, as well as a large assortment of lanterns, clocks, smoke detectors, and more. There were also fifty small cubes of a mysterious gray powder, wrapped in aluminum foil. But what alarmed them most was when David cautioned them about the toolbox, claiming that it was radioactive.

 From there, things escalated quickly. The FBI was called, and they brought along experts from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (one of the same agencies David had contacted for his research). A Federal State of Nuclear Emergency was declared. There's something you don't see much, in a small town.

 Eventually, men in radiation suits arrived to dismantle David's miniature nuclear facility, carting up not only the reactor and the various materials used but also the tools, the furniture, even the walls of the shed itself. All of it was permeated with alarming levels of radiation, thanks to David's work.

 Frighteningly, some of that material ended up in the local landfill, thrown away in the neighborhood garbage before the Feds ever knew it was there.

These days, the shed and its contents are buried in an undisclosed location in the Great Salt Lake Desert, where it resides next to a bevy of nuclear cast-off, including some of the early experiments that led to the development of the first atomic bomb.

 David Hahn wasn't a terrorist. He was a curious, intelligent, very resourceful boy who became fascinated with something to the degree of obsession. He pursued that obsession, learning everything he could until he did what many might consider impossible.

 David's story is both inspiring and horrifying. On the one hand, it's remarkable that someone so young could have worked out the details of this, in a pre-internet age, to a degree high enough to actually build this device. On the other hand, now that we live in the age of instant information, the implications of something like this are beyond frightening.

I played with this idea a bit in my first thriller novel, The Coelho Medallion. In that book, the terrorist steal crates of smoke detectors, ultimately using the radioactive material within them to build a dirty bomb. It's a scenario that isn't all that farfetched. Which is why it works so well for fiction.

 The world is an interesting and sometimes frightening place. And as we advance in technology, and in our ability to discover and share information, it might be good to keep in mind the David Hahns of the world, and to stress to them the old adage, that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS LITTLE TALE …

You might enjoy a good thriller novel. And I happen to write thriller novels. Find something to keep you up all night at KevinTumlinson.com/books

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Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling thriller author and podcast host. He travels the world looking for interesting tidbits of history and culture to fold into his work, and spends much of his time writing from hotels, cafes, coffee shops, and the occasional ride line at Disney World. Find more of Kevin and his work, including novels and podcasts, at KevinTumlinson.com.