September 26, 1983, the day the world nearly ended.

[evangilder]

Amazing, but true.

On 26th September, 1983, at the nadir of the Cold War, this man — Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov — made a judgement call that saved my life. (I was then living five miles from the Vickers Tank Factory in Leeds and about ten miles from the M1/M62 intersection — both major strategic targets.) If you're over 25 years old and live in the UK, he saved your life, too. If you're over 25 years old and lived in the USA, there's about a 70% probability that he saved you. And so on. Iterate for everyone in every NATO and Warsaw Pact country, all 750 million of us.

He lost his job for it, and suffered a nervous breakdown. He doesn't consider himself to be a hero. Nevertheless, he bent the regulations and risked punishment to prevent a disaster from overwhelming us all.

I'm going to raise a glass to him tonight. How about you?

FAQ

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Good man!



He should have been promoted and not forced into retirement. Pretty sad that he would be treated that way.

[FLYBOYJ]

[syscom3]

I didnt even know this incident happened!!!!

Thanks evans

[evangilder]

A lot of people didn't know about it until recently. I found it one of the many stories of heroes of the Cold War that are just starting to trickle out.

[wilbur1]

Thats a great story Evan thanks

[Matt308]

Reminds me of War Games.

[ToughOmbre]

Never heard about this!

Great piece of information Eric.

TO

[pbfoot]

979 Nov.9: Computer Exercise Tape.

At 8.50 a.m. on 9 November, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centres
(NORAD HQ, SAC Command Post, the Pentagon National Military Command
Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on
their displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet missiles in a
full-scale attack on U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency
preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes
were launched, including the president's National Emergency Airborne
Command Post, though without the president! The president had not been
informed, perhaps because he could not be found.

No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet
intentions or to tell the Russians the reason for the U.S. actions.
This seems to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of
the "Hot Line" was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was
threatening at that moment.

With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early
warning radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the
sensors on satellites were functioning that day and had detected no
missiles. In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was
terminated.

The reason for the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the
computer system. U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ
at the time and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A
question was asked in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted
an investigation, and an off-site testing facility was constructed so
that test tapes did not in future have to be run on a system that could
possibly be in military operation.



I was working at a NORAD base in Comox BC in tower and it was something watching the pilots run to the aircraft in all sorts of attire . I don't know if its correct or just bull but we were the only ones to get our birds up of all the NORAD bases. Those techs were good on the F101's

[Njaco]

Check the date....

The Hot Line was busy, Carter was talking to Iran.

As for Petrov,

[timshatz]

Good job Petrov. Might or might not've gone to full nuclear war. But the point is, he stopped it before the process could start.

A month or two later, we almost had another nukefest with Able Archer.

Able Archer 83 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All those spies and nobody analysing the information?

[JugBR]

o good officer is allways better than a computer parafernalia or a band of fanatic jerkz.

[RabidAlien]

Look at it this way...if the same had happened in the US (and it probably did, knowing the computers of the day), and an officer had failed to do his duty, we would've run him out of the military on a rail studded with rusty nails. Much much later, when events (and time) would prove the individual correct, any thanks would most likely have been quiet and unannounced. After all, how do you give a medal to a guy who disobeyed a direct and lawful order (at the time)? That's a can of worms you DON'T want to open. In this guy's case, I'm sure he woke up every morning thanking the Lord that, being in Cold War Russia, he was able to wake up every morning.

[timshatz]

It did happen a couple of time out at Cheyanne Mtn. Once was a faulty computer part, another time some joker left a training tape in the machine.

Those are the ones we know about.

[runningdog]

The moral of the tale would seem to be, if you've got good men, rely on them, not computers..........