David Hahn

On September 27, 2016, at the age of 39, Hahn died in his hometown of Shelby Charter Township, Michigan. His death was accidental and due to intoxication from the combined effects of alcohol, diphenhydramine, and fentanyl.

Hahn posed as an adult scientist or high school teacher to gain the trust of many professionals in letters—and succeeded, despite misspellings and obvious errors. Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissionable isotopes.

On April 23, 2007, the FBI received a lead regarding Hahn's alleged possession of a second breeder reactor in his freezer. Contacted via telephone, Hahn insisted that he was not in possession of radioactive material. The FBI decided no imminent terrorist threat was present but decided to attempt a personal interview. During a May 16, 2007, interview at an FBI office investigators asked Hahn about flyers that he had distributed promoting his book and upcoming film; theft of tires and rims from a vehicle prior to his Navy service; a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia; and, a few less significant topics. FBI agents then interviewed an individual (whose identity was not released) who stated that Hahn was using cocaine heavily, was not taking his prescribed medication, was paranoid of people that he claimed "had the ability to 'shock' his genitals with their minds", and had possibly been visited by prostitutes. The individual also stated that he believed that Hahn was still trying to build a reactor and was collecting radium. He stated that he did not believe Hahn had any intentions of hurting anyone, but was concerned for his mental state.

On August 1, 2007, Hahn was charged with larceny in Clinton Township, Michigan for allegedly removing a number of smoke detectors from the halls of his apartment building. His intention was to obtain americium from them. In his mug shot, his face is covered with sores, which investigators believe could be from exposure to radioactive materials, psoriasis, or possible drug use. During a Circuit Court hearing, Hahn pleaded guilty to attempted larceny of a building. The court’s online docket said prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to time served and enter an inpatient treatment facility. Under terms of the plea, the original charge of larceny of a building would be dismissed at sentencing, scheduled for October 4. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail for attempted larceny. Court records stated that his sentence would be delayed by six months while Hahn underwent medical treatment in the psychiatric unit of Macomb County Jail.

A television documentary, The Nuclear Boy Scout, aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in 2003. In it, Hahn reenacted some of his methods for the camera.

In 1999, University of Chicago physics majors Justin Kasper and Fred Niell, as part of a scavenger hunt that had as one of its items "a breeder reactor built in a shed," successfully built a similar nuclear reactor that produced trace amounts of plutonium.

While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout. As an adult, Hahn served in the U.S. Navy and Marines. He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use.

The incident received scant media attention at the time, but was widely disseminated after writer Ken Silverstein published an article about the incident in Harper's Magazine in 1998. In 2004 he expanded it into a book, The Radioactive Boy Scout, which was optioned for a feature film in 2016.

Hahn became depressed after the scandal, a problem exacerbated by the breakup with his then girlfriend and the suicide of his mother in early 1996. While he did graduate from high school, he lacked any direction or plans thereafter. His father and stepmother first encouraged him to attend Macomb Community College. He enrolled in a metallurgy program there but frequently skipped classes. He was then encouraged to join the military, so he enlisted in the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an undesignated seaman. After a four-year tour, he achieved interior communications specialist with a rank of petty officer, third class.

His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a reactor, but it did end up emitting dangerous levels of radiation, likely well over 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments—but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On June 26, 1995 the EPA, having designated Hahn's mother's property a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Unknown to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. EPA scientists believe that Hahn's life expectancy may have been greatly shortened by his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long periods in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions, but he refused their 1995 recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.

David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016) sometimes called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" or the "Nuclear Boy Scout", was an American who built a homemade neutron source at the age of 17.