12 Explosive Facts About The Unabomber

Dr. Theodore John Kaczynski, better known as “The Unabomber,” was a domestic terrorist who, between 1978 and 1995, engaged in a wide-scale bombing campaign against people he viewed as promoting modern technology. He planted and mailed homemade bombs to people who he felt were promoting technology and contributing to the destruction of nature, and ultimately, he was responsible for killing a total of three people and injuring 23 others. His victims included an engineering professor, a computer science professor, and the owner of a computer store. He claimed that he would stop if major news outlets published his “manifesto,” Industrial Society and Its Future, a screed against technology. He was apprehended in 1996 and has remained a controversial figure in popular culture since. With the new movie Unabomber set for release, here are 12 facts about the Unabomber. He was extremely smart and well-educated He gave a humorous response to his college alumni He unwittingly participated in a controversial psychological studyHe explored gender surgeryHe got his nickname due to his early targets He left fake cluesHe shared a cell block with other infamous bombers One of his victims has ties to another infamous criminalJigsaw played him in a TV movieHe ran for president—sort ofHe was captured after his sister-in-law recognized his writingHe has a major following among Gen Z and millennials He was extremely smart and well-educated Screenshot Of Ted Kaczynski's Hgh School Photo | AFP/GettyImagesIn fifth grade, Kaczynski’s IQ was tested at 167. He skipped 6th grade, graduated from high school early, and entered Harvard College at age 16, graduating at 20 with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics. He would go on to earn both a master’s degree and a PhD from the University of Michigan, where his dissertation won the Sumner B. Myers Prize, which is awarded to “the Ph.D. student(s) whose thesis was deemed the best contribution to their field.” After completing his PhD, Kaczynski accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, but resigned after two years. He gave a humorous response to his college alumni Ted Kaczynski At UC Berkeley | Scott Manchester/GettyImagesWhile serving time in federal prison, Kaczynski was invited to his class reunion and gave sarcastic answers to the questionnaire in the Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1962 - Fiftieth Anniversary Report. He listed his occupation as “prisoner,” his address as “No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500,” and described his awards as, “Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.”Needless to say, this upset some of his victims and their families, so the Harvard Alumni Association issued an apology that read, “While all members of the class who submit entries are included, we regret publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others.”Ironically, years earlier, Saturday Night Live aired an opening sketch that depicted Kaczynski (played by Will Ferrell) attending his Harvard reunion. He unwittingly participated in a controversial psychological studyHarvard Emeritus Professor Henry A. Murray | Boston Globe/GettyImagesFrom his sophomore through his senior years in college, Kaczynski was subjected to a series of tests by Henry A. Murray, who served as head of Harvard’s psychological clinic. Murray claimed these experiments were to measure how people responded to stress, and by his own admission, were “vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive” attacks. Though Kaczynski maintained that his experiences with Murray had no significant effect on the course of his life, others disagree.He explored gender surgeryAccording to a forensic evaluation of Kaczynski after his conviction by Dr. Sally Johnson, chief psychiatrist at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C., Kaczynski visited a psychiatrist to discuss gender surgery in 1967 but ultimately decided against it.He got his nickname due to his early targets Unabomber Text Published In The Washington Post | Evan Agostini/GettyImagesThe FBI dubbed Kaczynski’s crimes the UNABOM, which is an abbreviation of “university and airline bomber,” because his first three bombs were all sent to universities and his fourth one was sent to an airport. He left fake cluesThe largest artifact in the Newseum, the Unabomber's cabin | TIM SLOAN/GettyImagesDuring his crime spree, Kaczynski planted false clues to throw authorities off his trail. These included references to FC, or the “Freedom Club,” meant to suggest the bombs were sent by a group. He also placed hairs he found in a bus station restroom between the layers of electrical tape on a bomb’s wire connections to leave DNA evidence that would implicate someone else, and used shoes with smaller soles to disguise his own shoe size. He shared a cell block with other infamous bombers Authorities Escorting Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski | San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/GettyImagesWhile incarcerated at the ADX supermax prison in Colorado, Kaczynski became friends with two other high-profile inmates: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, when all three were housed together in a section nicknamed “Bomber’s Wing.” After he was transferred to the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, McVeigh even had a reporter mail Kaczynski a copy of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.One of his victims has ties to another infamous criminalDavid Gelernter, Unabomber victim | James Keyser/GettyImagesDavid Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale, was injured in a mail bomb sent by Kaczynski in 1993, which resulted in damage to four fingers on his right hand and permanent damage to his right eye. Two years later, Kaczynski sent Gelernter an anonymous letter mocking him, stating, “People with advanced degrees aren’t as smart as they think they are. If you’d had any brains, you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source.”In 2026, Gelernter came under fire when it was revealed in documents released thanks to the Epstein Files Transparency Act that he corresponded with Jeffrey Epstein from 2009 to 2015, beginning a year after Epstein’s first conviction, when he pled guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. In one email to Epstein, Gelernter talked about possibly hiring a former student whom he described as a “v small goodlooking blonde,” and in another, he said that in Paris there are “French girls dressed & behaving like actual females.”After the emails were published, students staged protests outside Gelernter’s class, and he was subsequently “relieved of his teaching duties.”Kaczynski also sent a bomb to geneticist Charles Epstein in 1993, who has no known ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Like Gelernter, he survived the attack but was severely injured. Jigsaw played him in a TV movieTobin Bell at "Saw" 20th Anniversary Screening At BeyondFest | Jon Kopaloff/GettyImagesIn September 1996, just five months after he was apprehended, the USA Network aired a television movie about Kaczynski, in which Tobin Bell played him. Bell would later play Jigsaw, the villain in the Saw film series. The film, Unabomber: The True Story, got mixed reviews. Kaczynski was also portrayed by Sharlto Copley in the independent film Ted K. (2022), Paul Bettany in the first season of the anthology series Manhunt, and Jacob Tremblay in Unabomber. He ran for president—sort ofSeven months before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber, artist Lydia Eccles and anti-natal activist Chris Korda launched a write-in presidential campaign for him for the 1996 Presidential Election. The campaign’s slogan was “If elected, he will not serve.” Bill Brown, director of the campaign’s New York City office, said in an interview, “The intended symbolism of the campaign was not that it was a joke, but that the political system was a joke.”He was captured after his sister-in-law recognized his writingTed Kaczynski In Prison | Stephen J. Dubner/GettyImagesWhen Industrial Society and Its Future was published, Linda Patrik, who married Ted’s younger brother David in 1990, recognized the writing from letters her husband had received from his brother over the years and encouraged him to read the manifesto. When he did, he agreed and contacted the FBI, leading to the arrest of his brother.He has a major following among Gen Z and millennials Kaczynski is a hero among many members of Generation Z and younger millennials, some of whom call him “Uncle Ted” and refer to themselves as “Ted-pilled.” Many relate to his writings about technology-driven alienation.