There was the popular story of the "nuclear boy scout" I thought I'd add, in case some hadn't heard about him...
About David Hahn, while his life went downhill in later years as a teenager David was a boy scout in 1994 and was wanting to get a rare atomic energy scout badge. So he built a secret breeder reactor in a backyard shed at his parent's house. While he did become an eagle scout, that backyard shed scared local authorities when they found suspicious items in David's car during a stop and it led to finding the reactor which they panicked and thought the boy had built or was building an atomic bomb so they called in the FBI and EPA.
Quote from Wikipedia:
His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a nuclear reactor, but it did emit measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed by this, David Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response Team 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 placed its contents in steel barrels, which were later buried as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Unbeknownst 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 David Hahn had hid in the house and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. EPA scientists believed that Hahn's life expectancy may have been shortened due to 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 recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
David went on to serve in both the US Navy and Marines. Sadly his life spiraled due to drugs and he passed away at age 39. In 2016.
Theres a cool documentary called "The nuclear boy scout", plus countless youtube videos about him.
The Wikipedia article talks about how he acquired and built his neutron source as well as how his entire parents property was turned into a government superfund site.
