The town of Green Bank, West Virginia, sits at the heart of the National Radio Quiet Zone, where cellphones, Wi-Fi routers, and broadcast antennas are all but absent. For most, it is a throwback to a different era. But for an increasing number of new residents, it is a rare refuge from wireless technology. Welcome to the fringe of the electromagnetic age.

One day in 2003, Diane Schou's hair started falling out. She got rashes and lingering headaches. Her doctor didn't know what was causing her symptoms, but Diane began to have her suspicions. She'd fallen ill around the same time a new cellphone tower went up near her Iowa farm. When she drove by the tower, her headaches worsened. So she and her husband, Bert, jumped in their Winnebago and fled. Diane didn't know what she was running from. All she knew was that she felt better the farther she got from that cell tower, and civilization in general.