There are plenty of wild rumors, mythologies, and eyebrow-raising stories from the long history of music, including claims that parts of synthesizers designed by electronic music pioneer Don Buchla had been dipped in LSD. But as engineer Eliot Curtis recently discovered, those claims might actually hold some truth.

...

As Curtis was disassembling a module that appears to have been added to the Buchla Model 100 after it was delivered to the school, he noticed a crystal-like residue stuck under one of the instrument’s knobs. In an attempt to dislodge it, he blasted it with cleaning solvent and tried to simply rub it off with his finger. Forty-five minutes later, he started to experience a tingling sensation, the beginnings of an acid trip, that would last nine hours. Three separate chemical tests later identified the crystallized substance as lysergic acid diethylamide—or LSD—which can be absorbed through the skin, and can survive for decades.