On August 31, 1994, Clinton Township police get a call about a young man stealing tires.
When they catch up to guy, it turns out to be David Hahn.
Then police then asked him to step out of the car, to perform a search of the vehicle. Upon doing so, Hahn warns them radioactive materials are inside.
Understanding the severity, proceeded to call in other agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the NRC, and the FBI.
It was later discovered, Hahn’s mother was said to have some mental health issues and alcohol problems, his step father was a truck driver (which meant on long hauls he had to go out of town often) . So his father ‘s solution was to sign him up for boy scouts.
Hahn’s motive was soon revealed , he was 17, and a dedicated boy scout, because the organization nurtured him, which he desperately needed.
This is significant to Hahn, because he had not yet reached his goal of being an Eagle Scout and 18 is the age limit of the scouts.
Eagle Scout is the highest achievement or rank attainable in the Scouts – Only 4% of Boy Scouts are granted this rank after a lengthy review process.
So he felt, he needed to go big.
An Eagle Scout presentation kit, including: Mother’s oval pin, Dad’s oval pin, Mentor oval pin, Eagle badge, and Eagle award medal
Wanting to make Eagle Scout, he set out to make a nuclear reactor in his backyard.
He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, which his grandfather had given him.
He had a goal to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones- though his ultimate goal was to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes, to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissionable isotopes.
His plans were not nefarious , he truly wanted to find a new type of energy for the world.
Hahn diligently amassed this radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks and tritium (a neutron moderator) from gun sights.
His reactor was a bored-out block of lead. Then he used $1,000 worth batteries for it’s lithium, which he needed to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.
It may seem like the adults in his life were oblivious to his activities, but they weren’t.
Hahn would sometimes do experiments in his bedroom or basement which exploded from time to time – these were no small explosions either.
One occurred while he was wearing a gas mask, at the hospital the medical team, literally had to remove chunks of plastic out of his eyes.
Others would damage the wall or burn through his clothing.
The punishment for the explosions were rare and lenient.
Another time Hahn’s father found what he thought was a small tin with a candle like substance floating in oil.
He then took the substance Hahn ‘s school, because his son would not tell him what it was.
That’s when he learned from his teacher, it was a type of sodium, which if plucked from it’s oil would have ignited.
By the age of 17, Hahn wrote to numerous nuclear industry entities, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), posing as a high school science teacher.
The Harper’s article goes into some detail on his efforts.
As Harper’s wrote:
David hadn’t hit on the idea to try to build a breeder reactor when he began his nuclear experiments at the age of fifteen, but in a step down that path, he was already determined to “irradiate anything” he could. To do that he had to build a “gun” that could bombard isotopes with neutrons.
…
Again posing as a physics teacher, David managed to engage the agency’s director of isotope production and distribution, Donald Erb, in a scientific discussion by mail. Erb offered David tips on isolating certain radioactive elements, provided a list of isotopes that can sustain a chain reaction, and imparted a piece of information that would soon prove to be vital to David’s plans:
“Nothing produces neutrons … as well as beryllium.” When David asked Erb about the risks posed by such radioactive materials, the NRC official assured “Professor Hahn” that the “real dangers are very slight,” since possession “of any radioactive materials in quantities and forms sufficient to pose any hazard is subject to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (or equivalent) licensing.”
David says the NRC also sent him pricing data and commercial sources for some of the radioactive wares he wanted to purchase, ostensibly for the benefit of his eager students. “The NRC gave me all the information I needed,” he later recalled. “All I had to do was go out and get the materials.”
It wasn’t a big reactor , about the size of a shoe box filled with a collection of tiny foil -wrapped cubes of thorium dioxide ash and uranium held together with duct tape. It didn’t quite work as a breeder reactor making more fissionable material ,but it did make the Geiger meter click fast.
When the 2 lb block, started getting more radioactive. he tried to make control rods out of cobalt drill bits. When that didn’t work He had no choice but to put gloves and gas mask and dismantle his experiments, He had separated the components and stored them in his bedroom and the trunk of his car.
The police involved in this case, were definitely by the books and reacted well and appropriately – which up to this point no one else had.
Police followed the Federal Radiological Emergency Response which was later named, the Nuclear Radiological Plan (NRP) post 9/11 – which are the federal guide lines for emergency response teams to follow when dealing with radioactive waste or materials.
Basically that means, police had to get the Feds involved.
The police arrested Hahn.
Subsequently the potting shed of his mother became a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site.
The shed was dismantled and its contents buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah.
However, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, collected the majority of the radioactive material and threw it away in the conventional garbage, which officials did not know previous to the official clean up and they ended up in a Michigan landfill- No one knows which.
Though Hahn was talented at applied chemistry , he seemed somewhat clueless to safety procedures and precaution.
Which ruined his promising career in science.
Hahn became depressed after the scandal, a problem exacerbated by the breakup with his 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 4 year tour, he achieved interior communications specialist with a rank of petty officer, third class.
Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist but PA scientists believe that Hahn’s life expectancy may have been greatly shortened by his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent large amounts of time in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions.
He refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.
After his time on USS Enterprise, Hahn enlisted in the Marines and was stationed in Japan.
When his time was up, he was honorably discharged on medical grounds and returned to Michigan.
Upon his death, ARC filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests with various federal agencies, including the FBI. Among the documents they received were three FBI reports dating between 2007 and 2010.
They detail three separate instances when people reported to law enforcement that they believed that Hahn may be trying to restart his nuclear activities.
When local and federal authorities investigated, they found no such evidence.
With these reports, Ars contacted Kenneth Hahn, David’s father.
He said he had never seen these documents before.
However, the elder Hahn told Ars that, upon his son’s return from military service in 2005,
David would receive regular, unannounced visits from the FBI at least annually.
The FBI would interview David and search for any evidence of nuclear material.
“Each time they were really hoping to find something,” Kenneth Hahn told Ars, adding that the searches took two to three hours.
When the FBI would turn up, Kenneth would drive over to his son’s house, just a half-mile away, and sit in his own car and watch.
below: David Hahn
Kenneth said that the FBI team was always professional, but he felt frustrated by the frequency with which these searches happened.
He was also frustrated that the federal agents frequently brought numerous law enforcement cars and search dogs with them.
“That would drive you nuts, wouldn’t it?” he said.
Kenneth Hahn said that the teams were always lead by Mark Davidson, a special agent with the FBI based in Detroit.
Ars reached Davidson, who declined to comment, and referred us to the FBI’s press office in Washington, DC.
“The FOIA documents speak for themselves and we do not have an additional comment to provide,” a spokesman e-mailed.
The earliest of the documents date back to April 23, 2007.
That’s when someone (the name is redacted) reported to the FBI in Toledo, Ohio, that Hahn was mentally unstable and was again attempting to build a nuclear device.
According the report, the person told the FBI that Hahn was “using cocaine heavily and is not taking his prescribed medication for a mental illness.”
That same day, someone (again redacted) also walked into the sheriff’s office in Montgomery County, Texas, to make a similar allegation about Hahn and his purported attempts to restart his experiments.
That report specifically said Hahn kept a “small nuclear reactor” in his freezer. The witness described the reactor as the “size of a basketball.”
The next day, law enforcement went to Hahn’s apartment to run radiological tests, but found nothing.
The FBI reached Hahn by phone—he was out of town—and he told them that he “does not possess any nuclear materials and does not intend to acquire any nuclear materials.”
Similarly, a 2010 FBI report indicates that a Shelby Township police detective believed that Hahn was again trying to conduct nuclear experiments.
No such evidence was ever found.
When Ars sent these reports to Kenneth Hahn, he said that he believed that they were made by former shipmates and friends of his son’s, who served with him aboard the USS Enterprise.
Kenneth believed that those friends were “trying to get him help” by reporting him to the authorities. However, Kenneth added, he has no idea why they would believe that David would have nuclear material.
“He was very sensitive person,” Kenneth Hahn continued. “He was very smart. He wasn’t doing anything to hurt anybody else. Dave worked hard at anything he had to do.
He achieved a lot in a short time in his life. Dave wasn’t mean to people.”
On August 1, 2007, Hahn was arrested in Clinton Township, Michigan, for larceny, in relation to a matter involving a number of smoke detectors, allegedly removed 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 are from exposure to radioactive materials. 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.
Hahn died on September 27, 2016, at the age of 39. of alcohol poisoning.
At the time, he was a resident of Shelby Township, Michigan.