Claim:
The FBI visited the lab of a 12-year-old boy who achieved nuclear fusion in his bedroom.
Rating:
Context
While social media posts in 2025 didn’t give the story a date, it happened in 2018. He achieved fusion on his 13th birthday, but several hours before his birth time, according to Guinness World Records.
Throughout 2025, a number of social media posts shared a story about a 12-year-old boy who achieved nuclear fusion at home and was then raided by the FBI. Those posts, as well as articles published (archived) in September (archived) and October (archived) 2025 (archived), prompted Snopes readers to send us emails and search the site for the truth of the story.
But social media posts sharing the claim appeared long before those articles. A Facebook post (archived) from August 2025 was viewed 2.3 million times. While going into more detail in its caption, text on an Instagram post (archived) from July claimed, “a 12-year-old’s science project got raided by federal agents.” Multiple Instagram (archived) posts (archived) and a Reddit thread (archived) shared the claim in March 2025.
This incident really did happen, although it occurred in 2018 and many of the social media posts described it in exaggerated terms. The recent interest in the story might have been related to posts from Guinness World Records.
The boy, Jackson Oswalt, became the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion in 2018. Guinness published a blog post about him in February 2025 and a Facebook post (archived) about him in March 2025.
According to Guinness, Jackson was inspired at 11 years old by Taylor Wilson, who was the previous youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion when he accomplished it as a teenager. Jackson managed to achieve fusion on his 13th birthday, but Guinness said that because it was two hours before his birth time he was still technically 12, making him the new record-holder for youngest to achieve nuclear fusion. Guinness added that the FBI visited the boy’s home to sweep it for radiation after his accomplishment.
At the time of his accomplishment, Jackson posted details of his project and evidence of his success to a forum for amateur fusioneers (archived), a term used to refer to people who achieve nuclear fusion. The device created by Jackson and most other amateur fusioneers was a fusor, which does not generate power like a reactor would. The other fusioneers on the forum confirmed Jackson achieved fusion based on the evidence he provided, which relies on the detection of neutrons, and declared him the youngest fusioneer.
In 2019, Jackson was invited to speak at the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics, which also described him as the world’s youngest fusioneer. He also showed off his fusor to a local news station (archived) in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is from, that year.
Jackson has since posted a thread to his X account (archived) describing how he created his fusor. He said “almost every single part” of the device came from eBay, where liquidated research and military facilities would dump parts for cheap.
Near the end of the thread, he noted his experience with the FBI (archived): “One Saturday I was woken up by two FBI agents, who made a quick sweep around my house with a geiger counter to make sure all was good.” He then quipped that he remained a free man afterwards. Jackson made no mention of a “raid.”
