That Escalated Quickly . . .

I’m not sure why I’m just hearing about this now, because it happened back in 1994! A 17-year-old Boy Scout trying to earn a merit badge, accidentally turned his mother’s backyard into a nuclear disaster zone! David Hahn decided to build a functional nuclear breeder reactor in his potting shed in Michigan. So he used loopholes to get radioactive material from regular household items, like smoke detectors, paint off vintage clocks, and camping lanterns. He even posed as a physics professor to write letters to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who helpfully gave him instructions on how to isolate the chemicals (and it worked). His homemade reactor started becoming self-sustaining, and the radiation levels got so high that he could detect them five houses down the street. Realizing he had built a monster, he tried to dismantle it and load it into his car. But he was stopped by police, who thought he had a bomb. The EPA was called in, and they declared his mom’s backyard a Superfund hazardous waste site. They had to dismantle the shed and bury it in the desert. David never got in serious trouble, but he achieved a different kind of honor . . . he’s the only Boy Scout in history to have his science project cleaned up by men in Hazmat suits.