SYSK Gets Weird Playlist: The Story of the Nuclear Boy Scout

9:35Josh Clark:Like every, uh, divorced kid says, I'll do it at the other parent's house.

9:39Chuck Bryant:That's right. Um, and so he did, he ended up setting up a lab in his mom's potting shed in golf Manor in Commerce Township. And this is where the story really starts to kind of take off because his dad was getting really worried that his son was basically creating and selling drugs. Like that's what he was doing with his chemistry experiments. And so like they would, he and his stepmom would drop in on the library when he was supposedly there to see if he was there. Like they really did not trust this fascination with chemistry, which I mean, I can understand if your kid blows himself up a couple of times, you're like, what are you doing exactly here?

10:25Chuck Bryant:So I don't know if he knew that David went and set up a lab in his mom's potting shed or not. And just was like, it's fine as long as it's out of my house. I'm not sure. I've never seen that either way. But one thing that he did do to try to be like, okay, I think you're creating drugs. You're probably on them. You may or may not be selling them. None of those seem to be true from what I can tell. You need to become an Eagle Scout. And he pushed his son to become an Eagle Scout.

10:52Josh Clark:Yeah. And that's exactly what he did, as we will later find out. But when it came time for merit badge selection, he said, I want the one that says atomic energy. And the Scoutmaster said, I think he told the writer of the book, no one had ever chosen that before in the history of the troop. So it kind of reminds me of the Brian Cox scene in Rushmore with Bill Murray when he says he's one of the worst students we've got. I can just picture Brian Cox saying that, that no one's ever tried for this badge before. But it was a legit badge. It's kind of funny that it existed. It's different now, as we'll see.

11:32Josh Clark:But in 1963, they introduced the atomic energy badge. It came with a pamphlet. That they created with the nuclear energy industry that turned out to have a lot of really useful information, almost like a starter kit on how to like source radioactive elements in the real world. Yeah. And how to get your own reactor going.

11:55Chuck Bryant:Yeah. One of the projects you could do was to build your own Geiger counter. Like it was serious stuff.

12:02Josh Clark:Yeah. Maybe so legit that, like I said, the Boy Scouts would eventually change that badge. I think probably because of what happened with David. In 2005, they replaced it with the nuclear science badge.

12:15Chuck Bryant:Yes. So, but he's still working on the original, the atomic energy badge from 1963, right? Oh, yeah. So he's just devouring this. He's having the best time. He visits a hospital ward to learn about x-rays, which is part of the merit badge certification. The thing that really changed things, though, Chuck, is he decided just these things the merit badge was having him do. Like one of the things was draw a diagram of a fission reaction.

12:47Josh Clark:Yeah.

12:47Chuck Bryant:Or build a model of a nuclear reactor. But a model, like a cardboard model, basically, or paper machine.

12:54Josh Clark:Or?

12:55Chuck Bryant:Yes. Or I will create my own nuclear reactor in my mom's potting shed. He decided he was so psyched about atomic energy that he wanted to do it himself.

13:09Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, I guess you do the model and you're like, hey, that wasn't so hard. Right. Let me see if I can do it for real. And he wanted to build. And, you know, this shows that he was a kid. I think I don't think this was to cause harm. He wanted to build a neutron gun. And the way I just for my research, this is speculation, but it didn't seem like he was like, I want to build a neutron gun to try and like blow up the city that I live in.

13:36Chuck Bryant:Not at all.

13:37Josh Clark:It seemed more like a kid who was really into science and sci-fi and chemistry and wanted to make a little pew-pew gun.

13:45Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I think neutron gun is a misleading term. I can't get the Nintendo duck hunt gun out of my head whenever I hear neutron gun. But really what a neutron gun is, at least the one that David made, It's a block of lead with a cavity carved out and you put radioactive material in the cavity and then cover it over with like aluminum foil. And then you just point the aluminum foil side of that block of lead at what you want to irradiate. And then you try to start a chain reaction, a nuclear reaction. That seems to be the sum total of his goals. He wasn't trying to build a bomb. He wasn't trying to sell plutonium to the Libyans.

14:27Chuck Bryant:He wasn't doing anything like that. He just wanted to see if he could start a nuclear chain reaction, this thing that had fascinated him since he was 10 years old. And so he set about doing that with help from this Eagle Scout merit badge pamphlet. Yeah.

14:43Josh Clark:Yeah, totally.

14:44Chuck Bryant:Which makes the whole thing that much more nuts.

14:47Josh Clark:Yeah, and also by adopting a persona as a professor because he starts writing into organizations trying to get information, trying to get materials, trying to get schematics. He said he was Professor Han that taught at his high school, Chippewa Valley High School. Go chipmunks. Are they? I don't know. They better be. And over the next few years, basically, and apparently, you know, he applied himself. He didn't apply himself in school. He was smart, but he was failing, almost failing out, basically, barely passing like the math and English exams needed to graduate eventually. But that is to say these letters had like spelling errors and grammatical errors.

15:31Josh Clark:It didn't seem like they were written by a professor, but people bought it. And before you know it, he's like corresponding as a professor to these adults. Yeah.

15:39Chuck Bryant:And these adults are just totally into this correspondence. They're really enjoying helping this who they think a high school physics teacher learn the stuff he's looking for about nuclear energy to ostensibly go and teach to the kids. Right. So this correspondence is like genuine. The only thing illegitimate about it was that he was misrepresenting who he actually was.

16:01Josh Clark:Yeah.

16:01Chuck Bryant:A professor rather than a high school student. But other than that, everything else about it seems to be pretty neat.

16:07Josh Clark:Yeah, except for the fact that it's dangerous and illegal.

16:10Chuck Bryant:Yes. So one of the people that he corresponded with, I think he corresponded with him the most, was named Donald Erb, ERB. And he was the guy who was the head of the department that produces isotopes. If you need isotopes, you can go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is not you, but like if you are in some sort of industry that uses isotopes. Erb will hook you up. And this herb will be like, I got you. I got you covered. For some reason, they come in these little baggies with like card suits printed all over them. It's weird. That's an herb kind of touch. That's so nice. But he worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and nobody helped David Hahn more than Donald Herb did, again, unwittingly.

16:55Josh Clark:Yeah, absolutely. So should we take a break?

16:58Chuck Bryant:We should.

16:59Josh Clark:Okay. All right. I was about to keep going, but let's take a break. And we're going to talk about his pursuit of radioactive materials right after this.

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18:03Chuck Bryant:There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com.

18:39Josh Clark:Mom, are we there yet?

18:41Chuck Bryant:Ten more minutes.

18:42Josh Clark:Only ten minutes? Can you drive slower?

18:44Chuck Bryant:What's up with them today?

18:46Josh Clark:Lingo Kids. That app we downloaded last week? They love it. The games. Oh, this funny baby bot character. Kids, we're almost there.

18:54Chuck Bryant:No! With more than 4 ,000 interactive games, songs, and shows little ones can't get enough of, Lingo Kids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids. Why didn't we download this sooner? Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download it for free.

19:22Chuck Bryant:By the way, Chuck, it's the Chippewa Valley Big Red, which appears to be a giant cardinal. Oh. If you ask me, that was a missed opportunity.

19:33Josh Clark:Chipmunks.

19:34Chuck Bryant:Chippewa chipmunks, the rabid chipmunks.

19:37Josh Clark:Yeah, I love it. All right. So when we left off, David Hahn was getting serious about building this nuclear reactor. He needs material to do that. So and we should point out that, you know, I said it was dangerous. It was dangerous. He did know this. He still pursued it. But he like he had a lead shield that he worked with. He threw away his contaminated clothes. He left his shoes in there and didn't take them in his house.

20:04Chuck Bryant:It was like his driving shoes, but in a potting shed that he was building a breeder reactor in.

20:09Josh Clark:Do you have driving shoes? Is that a thing?

20:12Chuck Bryant:I know that it's a thing from watching old episodes of Frasier.

20:16Josh Clark:I've never heard that.

20:18Chuck Bryant:Yes. You've seen driving shoes. People wear them, and they're totally unaware that you're not supposed to wear them out of your car. But it's like if your car is so nice, you take off your outdoor shoes and put on your driving shoes that never leave your car. And that way you don't get your car dirty.

20:34Josh Clark:I don't know if I have seen them. I guess I just maybe didn't.

20:37Chuck Bryant:They look kind of like a cross between a loafer and a moccasin. And then the dead giveaway is the tread on the bottom comes up the back of the heel as well because of the position that your foot is in when you're driving. It gives you grip. All right.

20:52Josh Clark:I'm going to have to look this up.

20:53Chuck Bryant:You've seen them.

20:54Josh Clark:All right. All right. So it's amazing. 52 years old. Never knew about this.

21:02Chuck Bryant:I was only probably 40 when I learned about it, so don't feel bad.

21:05Josh Clark:All right. So he starts looking for materials. And these are just a few sort of stories about he would go about that. He wanted some Amarisium 241 for this neutron gun. In the booklet that he got from the Boy Scouts, said you can get this stuff in smoke detectors. So he tries to steal them from the Boy Scout camp, got caught and sent home early. Then he writes smoke detector companies saying, I need a bunch of these things for a school project. Eventually, one company sold him 100 broken ones for 100 bucks, couldn't figure out how to find this americium. So got in touch with another smoke detector company.

21:48Josh Clark:It was like, oh, well, here's where you find it and was able to extract americium enough to like weld together with a blowtorch.

21:56Chuck Bryant:Yes. So remember I was talking about the neutron gun is a lump of lead with a cavity hollowed out. And then you put your radioactive material in the cavity of lead. Now we have his radioactive material. That's right. Americium is I looked up why it would be in smoke detectors. Did you see why? No. It's really interesting. Just for a second. So a myricium, because of its radioactive decay, it creates a flow of ions, positive and negative ions, that are moved across like this metal plate. And there's a constant movement of ions that this myricium is creating from the air around it. And when smoke interacts with those ions, it actually breaks that flow.

22:42Chuck Bryant:That flow is detected by the smoke detector, which triggers it to go off. Isn't that just so bizarre? That's how your smoke detector works.

22:49Josh Clark:And that's how they still work?

22:51Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's still a myricium in smoke detectors today.

22:55Josh Clark:Amazing.

22:55Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

22:56Josh Clark:So you said he built his own Geiger counter. I don't know if it was this one or if he ended up getting another one, but he would drive around upper Michigan with this Geiger counter on, just looking for naturally occurring uranium out in the world, and then eventually he was like, this isn't working out. So he got a Czechoslovakian firm that the NRC told him about and sourced uranium ore.

23:23Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he had that Geiger counter mounted to his dashboard, and apparently any time he drove, he had it turned on.

23:28Josh Clark:Isn't that amazing? Yeah, I mean, you've got to find this stuff.

23:31Chuck Bryant:And he actually did find some stuff. It's called PitchBlend, and it's a source of low-grade uranium. And he tried to extract it, but he couldn't purify it enough. So like you said, he was like, well, I'll just buy some pure uranium from a firm in Czechoslovakia that he heard about either from the pamphlet or from Donald or one of the two. Yeah.

23:51Josh Clark:Another thing he did was the little mantle, like the little mesh sacks that you tie on to a gas lantern. He bought thousands of those because they have little tiny amounts of thorium 232. and so, you know, he buys thousands of these from surplus stores, buys thousands of dollars in lithium batteries to extract lithium. So he's being very, you know, I think showing a lot of initiative in at least how to find this stuff.

24:20Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I mean, like he's using his after-school job money to buy$1 ,000 in lithium batteries to purify the thorium that he got from the gas lanterns that he purchased and extracted it from. Like, I can't imagine how much time and effort this took. And by the way, he did purify that thorium pretty well. I saw that he got it to 9 ,000 times the level found in nature of radioactivity and about 170 times the level that you would need a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to possess.

24:51Josh Clark:He also went around, of course, where you're going to find old, dangerous radioactive things, junkyards and antique shops. So he would take that Geiger counter into a junk shop or an antique store, and he would walk around until something lit up, like radium paint. If you remember our, I think it was a pretty excellent podcast on the radium girls. And he would find, like, radium paint in an old clock.

25:18Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Yeah, he found a vial of paint just tucked away inside of one. And then he really had his radioactive material for his neutron gun. He actually stepped it up and built a second gun. He had also, from corresponding with Donald Erb, gotten even better at creating a neutron gun that was going to be useful in creating a nuclear reaction. He also found that when he used the radium on, I think, the thorium that he purified, he was trying to trigger a chain reaction by bombarding thorium with neutrons. That's what he was trying to do. He found that the thorium wasn't converting into uranium like it was supposed to.

26:00Chuck Bryant:So he contacted Donald Erb, and Donald Erb said, your neutrons are too fast. You've got to slow them down. One of the best ways to slow them down is tritium. And he said, well, where would I find tritium? And apparently they used tritium to make the glowing sights on gun scopes and gun sights. So he ordered, I think, dozens of gun sights from mail-order catalogs from stores. and then he would scrape the tritium off and then send them back and say, I need this site repaired. There's no tritium on it. And they would put more tritium on it and send it back. And he'd just create a new pseudonym and send that back.

26:34Chuck Bryant:And that's how methodical that kid was.

26:37Josh Clark:So this is all kid stuff. He's like 14, 15 years old. Eventually, he turns 17 and he says, all right, I think I want to build an actual nuclear reactor. It's called a tiny breeder reactor. They've been around since the early 1950s when the U.S. developed them, when we were, you know, sort of the beginning of the age of trying to use nuclear power for electricity. And they're like, well, these little tiny breeder reactors might be a good way to extend the supply of fuel or something. It never quite worked out that way. I think they're still working on that kind of thing in Russia and China. But it never really went off the ground.

27:17Josh Clark:But it was enough to inspire David to think that maybe I can build a small thing like this in my mom's potting garage or potting shed.

27:27Chuck Bryant:Yeah. The difference between a breeder reactor and a regular reactor is that you, in a regular reactor, you just use fuel and you get energy from the fuel. With the breeder reactor, you get energy from the fuel, but it also creates more fuel. And you end up with more fuel than you started with. I saw it likened to leaving your house or the car with a half a tank of gas. And when you return home, the tank is full. That's kind of like what it does. And yet they just could never get it to work. But that's what he was trying to do. And the reason why is because you start with uranium-238, and that's the most abundant uranium found in nature.

28:03Josh Clark:That's right. So he doesn't have enough uranium, no matter what kind it is, to create an actual chain reaction for a normal reactor. So he says, maybe I can at least do something. It seemed like he became sort of obsessed just with this goal of creating some kind of nuclear reaction himself. Got a blueprint from one of his dad's textbooks. Took that americium and the radium from his neutron guns. Mixed it with some aluminum shavings, some beryllium. wrap that up in aluminum foil, and basically you have yourself a very small reactor core right there.

28:41Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he created an atomic pile, like the first one that Fermi created in Chicago, but on a much, much smaller scale. But it worked. Like, it worked. He created, like you said, a nuclear reactor, and it started a nuclear chain reaction, and it started to take off actually pretty quickly.

28:59Josh Clark:Yeah, he's got that Geiger counter, and he's measuring this thing like on a daily basis. And he's like, it's actually growing. Like it's getting more radioactive in here. I imagine he was thrilled and also possibly a little bit like Matthew Broderick in War Games where it's like, oh, wait a minute. Like, what have I done here? Such that he was worried and took it apart.

29:25Chuck Bryant:He did. Apparently he could detect it from five houses down the street. And I looked up pictures of Golf Manor. And I mean, their yards are decent size. So five houses away is a pretty good distance to be able to pick up his nuclear reactor in his mom's potting shed with his Geiger counter. And at that side yards there. Yeah. Lots of big side yards.

29:48Josh Clark:No zero lot lines.

29:49Chuck Bryant:No, no, no. Nothing like that. No, this is Golf Manor, man, that we're talking about. So he took it apart and he just kind of distributed the different parts to try to drop the radioactivity levels in his mom's potting shed. And he kind of went about his life after he disassembled his reactor. He'd achieved his goal, but apparently he had a penchant for stealing wheels and tires off of cars. He admitted as much in an interview later on as an adult. And he seems to have gotten caught doing that by the police shortly after he disassembled his reactor. And when the police called him, they said, we're going to search your car.

30:34Chuck Bryant:And he said, go ahead, search my car, but do not open that toolbox. That toolbox is highly radioactive.

30:40Josh Clark:Is that a good cliffhanger for a break? I think so.

30:43Chuck Bryant:Imagine the cops going, what?

30:46Josh Clark:They're like, we've got to listen to ads before we know what happens.

30:49Chuck Bryant:Sorry.

30:49Josh Clark:All right. We'll be right back.

31:03Chuck Bryant:What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Sky Pop Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target. I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. You know what I love about cooking? The endless inspiration, sharing exceptional flavors, and of course, the best ingredients. I refuse to make a dish without them. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now McCormick's new line of signature seasonings make bringing fresh inspiration and endless versatility to everyday dishes easier than ever.

31:47Chuck Bryant:There's the everyday essential, garlic and olive oil, the savory sweetness of caramelized onion, and globally inspired flavors like the herby with a touch of heat, chimichurri, and chili garlic that elevates everything from ramen to stir-fry to even grilled meats. Try the chimichurri blend to make your steaks delicious. Each signature seasoning is crafted by flavor experts to make every dish more delicious. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. Find your favorite at mccormick.com. Warning, the following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups.

32:27Josh Clark:A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. A, B, C, D. In the morning, brush your teeth. E, F, G, H. Hurry up and don't be late. E-F-G-H. Hurry up and don't be late. Lingo Kids. Only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem. Lingo Kids! Everything kids love. Download now for free.

33:07Josh Clark:All right, so it's August, almost September 1994. That reactor is taken apart. I think he put the thorium in a shoebox. The radium in the americium was in the shed still. And the rest is in the trunk of his car. He's just been pulled over, like you said, because there was reports that he was stealing tires and wheels. And he said, warning, that thing's radioactive. Don't open up that toolbox. So they said, well, maybe we should – this sounds like an IED to me, an improvised explosive device. Why don't we call in the bomb squad to be safe? Called in the bomb squad. They said, this whole car basically is radioactive.

33:50Josh Clark:And all of a sudden, the federal radiological emergency response plan is triggered. And the EPA and the FBI and the NRC and the DOE and the state and local authorities are all, like, trying to, not trying to get this kid, but trying to figure out what in the world is going on with this kid.

34:10Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he's 17 at the time still. And all of a sudden, these huge agencies are, like, swooping down on him to figure out what's going on. The thing is, I guess they didn't think to ask the right questions or their imaginations just didn't go as far as they could have. But they seem to have in this initial questioning not really have gotten any further than his car. And he didn't offer up any information whatsoever about his actual like nuclear reaction experiments in his mom's potting shed. They didn't even know there was a potting shed at his mom's house at this point.

34:46Josh Clark:That's really hard to believe.

34:46Chuck Bryant:Yes, but that's the level of questioning that this kid was subjected to. And I mean, in retrospect, you're like, are you guys kidding? You didn't know about the potting shed right off the bat. But if you're an FBI agent or a Department of Energy agent, you're talking to a 17 year old kid. You're probably not going to assume that because they have this stuff in a toolbox in their car, they actually were successfully creating nuclear chain reactions in their mom's potting shed. I can kind of commiserate with that. Sure.

35:17Josh Clark:You probably assume he just got it at radiation or us.

35:21Chuck Bryant:Pretty much.

35:23Josh Clark:So a few months later is when they finally got an expert from the State Department of Public Health to interview David more thoroughly. And that turned up the potting shed. David's mom at this point had gathered most of the radioactive stuff and gotten rid of it. I imagine not in a very safe way at all. No. Probably just went in the trash can. And they still found a lot of radiation at the house in the materials there in the shed. They had the, apparently there was a vegetable can that had about a thousand times the normal background radiation. And so they called in federal authorities and they said, well, your house is a, well, the potting shed at least is a super fun site.

36:08Yeah.

36:10Chuck Bryant:They ended up spending 60 grand on a two, three day operation between June 26 and 28 of 1995, disassembling the potting shed. I think getting some of the earth around it out of there, putting them in sealed barrels with, you know, radioactive hazard symbols on it. And they send it to the Great Salt Lake Desert where they were buried with other canisters of low level radioactive waste. His mom's potting shed is in the Great Salt Lake Desert, buried with other radioactive material. That's kind of neat. The real stuff, though, like you said, it ended up in like the landfill nearby. There was a quote from David that I saw where he said the authorities got the garbage and the garbage got the good stuff in reference to what his mom had thrown away.

37:02Chuck Bryant:So, yeah, there's some lumps of a mericium and radium sitting somewhere in the garbage pile outside of Clinton Commerce Township.

37:12Josh Clark:And what's in like a thousand years, it'll be safe?

37:15Chuck Bryant:Probably something like that.

37:17Josh Clark:I was just I don't know how long that would be. I bet somebody knows.

37:20Chuck Bryant:Oh, they'll write in.

37:23Josh Clark:So David falls into depression after this. His high school classmates were not kind to him, of course. Um, they called him radioactive boy. Uh, the EPA said, hi, we should, you know, we can examine you and your body to see if you're okay. He said, no, no, no, I don't want anything to do with that. I'll be fine. Uh, he did get that Eagle Scout badge. Um, I think the scout leaders were like, should we really do this? Um, but they did, they gave him that Eagle Scout badge and, uh, no, apparently the neighborhood, His all those huge side yards came in handy because no one in the neighborhood and no one at the home or in his family, apparently, ever suffered from any kind of radiation sickness.

38:09Chuck Bryant:That is so lucky. Yeah. Like that is really lucky for him and for everybody. But he no one got hurt. That's just mind boggling at this point. He went on and joined the Navy a couple of years later. And he served for several years, was honorably discharged, and ironically served on the USS Enterprise, which is a nuclear submarine. But he didn't work in any capacity near the nuclear part of the submarine.

38:40Josh Clark:I think he fully served his time in the Navy. He did.

38:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah, he was honorably discharged.

38:45Josh Clark:No, no, no. I think he was discharged from the Marines. I think he fully served his time in the Navy.

38:51Chuck Bryant:Oh, I thought they—

38:52Josh Clark:He was never discharged.

38:53Chuck Bryant:I thought they discharged you when your time was up, too.

38:56Josh Clark:No, you're just done. Like, a discharge means it's time for you to go, and then you're like, wait, I got three more years. And they're like, no, it's time for you to go.

39:04Chuck Bryant:Gotcha. Okay, I gotcha. All right, so, yes, in between the Navy and the Marines, he went to college and started working on an associate's degree. Like you said, he joined the Marines. He was honorably discharged. And his life was just not going the way he wanted it to. He, 2007, found him unemployed. His mental illness had really kind of kicked in. And toward the end of his life, spoiler alert, he died at age 39. There was an FBI report on him where somebody had been informing on him that he was not using his meds, that he was heavily using cocaine, and that he was acting really paranoid. From what I can tell, based on the FBI documents, it seems like the person informing on him seems concerned, not like they're doing it out of any kind of vengeful reason.

39:56Josh Clark:Right.

39:57Chuck Bryant:But when the FBI showed up and interviewed him, again, this is when he's in his 30s, he passed all the inspection or queries that they gave him, questioning that they gave him.

40:11Josh Clark:Yeah, and there were other complaints and reports with the police that he was trying to do this again, that he had a small reactor at his house. Another landlord, I think, said that he had stolen some smoke detectors that they were missing, and they found them torn apart, basically, near David's garage. But they never found any kind of radiation. He said he hadn't done that kind of stuff in a decade. and, you know, they went and checked like where he was living and they never found any evidence that he had at least started up any more radioactive work.

40:47Chuck Bryant:Yeah, imagine during your FBI questioning, you're like, I haven't done any nuclear reactions at home for like 10 years, man. That's like, that is a different show. That's like a whole lifetime ago. Teenage stuff. Yeah, exactly. The FBI documents also give just kind of a sad note in 2010, which is where the FBI's investigation of him as an adult left off based on those complaints. They noted that he was in rehab after being charged with a bunch of drug charges. So apparently the cocaine use thing was true. That was 2010. Six years later, like I said, he was dead at age 39.

41:29Josh Clark:Yeah. So in the media, of course, initially there were some people that said that the radioactivity did him in or that was a factor, at least. Very sadly, the report came back that wasn't true, but he died from combined effects of alcohol and fentanyl and Benadryl. And he suffered from mental illness, just like his mom, I think, from paranoid schizophrenia and depression. and it's just a very sad end to a story of a kid who sounds like he was really smart and just wanted to try and do something really amazing, you know?

42:06Chuck Bryant:Yeah. He was found dead in the bathroom at a Walmart that he had gone shopping in the night he died. And it is a sad end. I don't quite know what to make of it, Chuck.

42:18Josh Clark:Same.

42:19Chuck Bryant:If he were still alive, I don't know. I think it would be a much different story somehow. Yeah. But he did something. I don't know. Maybe it's the story of somebody who was just so single minded. They did something that most other people would have given up on or never even attempted. And that's worth mentioning, you know?

42:37Josh Clark:Yeah, absolutely. And I tried to look at other angles. I just I never saw anything like nefarious, really.

42:44Chuck Bryant:No, no. Either an FBI interview or a media interview. The interviewer was like, I mean, were you thinking of making a bomb or whatever? And they said they reported like he seemed to just be like that never even crossed my mind. Like, no, that's not at all what I was doing. He was just obsessed with creating a nuclear reaction. And he did it.

43:05Josh Clark:Yeah. Well, thankfully, we don't have to end it on that sad note because Livia found this other great story of a kid named Taylor Wilson who got the radioactive Boy Scout book from his grandmother as an 11-year-old science kid. and operating under supervision and oversight and getting real experts to help, actually became the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion at the age of 14.

43:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah, which is amazing. I mean, fusion is a whole new ballgame. But yeah, 14.

43:40Josh Clark:And works as a nuclear physicist as an adult.

43:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and supposedly, according to The Guardian, a super cool dude, too.

43:47Josh Clark:Yeah, and directly inspired from David's story.

43:50Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and apparently his grandmother lived to regret it again, according to The Guardian. Oh, really? Yeah, that's what The Guardian said. Because I guess his grandmother was giving it to him as a cautionary tale, and he was like, oh, I want to try this myself.

44:05Josh Clark:Very interesting.

44:07Chuck Bryant:Taylor Wilson's grandmother is the 11th person we need to thank in this episode, Taylor Wilson being 10 and Donald Irv being number 9.

44:14Josh Clark:Right. Nice work.

44:16Chuck Bryant:If you want to know more about the nuclear or radioactive Boy Scout David Hahn, there's a lot of stuff out there. But you would be remiss in not reading Ken Silverstein's article, at least if not his book on David Hahn. And while you're looking that up, we'll just go ahead and do listener mail. All right.

44:37Josh Clark:This is from Tiffany. Hey, guys, thank you for bringing back some vivid memories from my eighth grade reading class. too many decades ago to admit. But my reading teacher was also the social studies teacher, and I guess that explains where all of our reading lists included Animal Farm, Hiroshima, all quiet on the Western Front, and you know it, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. To hammer home what we read, he would incorporate details of the book into a little imaginary coin toss he did each day to determine whether the boys or girls got to go first and walk to lunch in single file line. And for the weeks we discussed the jungle, it would sound something like this.

45:13Josh Clark:Today's menu includes hot dogs. Call it in the air. Is it the rusty nail or the severed finger? What a great teacher. One day we noticed that half the kids in the class had an edition of the book that included this. And yes, I still remember it decades later. Mary had a little lamb. And when she saw it sicken, she sent it off to the packing town. And now it's labeled chicken. I was really hoping you guys had seen this so we could hear a recitation during the podcast. But we just did it right there, Tiffany. That's great. Yeah, I didn't run across that. I didn't either. That's a great ad.

45:50Chuck Bryant:Yeah, thanks a lot, Tiffany. That's a great email, and we appreciate it big time. And hats off to your teacher, the 13th person we need to thank in this episode. You're number 12, Tiffany. Can we thank Jerry? Sure. Why not? We'll go with 14. we could thank ourselves and just bring it up to 16 a nice even number

46:08Josh Clark:sweet 16

46:10Chuck Bryant:we're going to make it 17 because we want to thank you for listening and we want to thank you in advance for getting in touch with us via email at stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com

46:21Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio for more podcasts from iHeart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

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47:32get stuck in mom's head that's not our problem everything kids love download now for free this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human