Have you heard of Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov?
January 14, 2014 at 4:57 am
(This post was last modified: January 14, 2014 at 5:00 am by Ryantology.)
You should. If not for him, you'd probably not be alive today.
![[Image: petrov.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.instigatorium.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F09%2Fpetrov.jpg)
30 years ago, a Soviet nuclear attack monitoring satellite malfunctioned and insisted that five nuclear missiles had been launched at the Soviet Union. Though this was a false alarm, tensions between the Soviets and the U.S. were about as bad as they'd been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yuri Andropov, the leader the U.S.S.R., was paranoid about the idea that the U.S. would launch a first nuclear strike and agents embedded in the west were not only directed to find evidence of this, but were also reprimanded if they didn't find it.
The primary reason the world didn't end on September 26, 1983 was because of Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the commander of the Oko nuclear early-warning center which received the faulty attack warning. He was the one who decided that the U.S. would have fired a lot more than five missiles if their intention was really to wipe out the Soviet Union. In addition, ground-based missile detection systems showed nothing (the satellite glitch was caused by the sun reflecting off of some clouds). Had he decided to immediately inform his superiors of an incoming nuclear attack (which, horribly, would have been understandable given the state of political affairs), the Soviets would have almost certainly launched an all-out retaliatory nuclear attack, which would have certainly resulted in a likewise retaliation by NATO, and the global nuclear apocalypse would have been on.
I think it's very strange that Col. Petrov is not lauded as one of the biggest heroes in world history, because his cool head certainly earned him the honors in my opinion.
You can read more about him here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ar...ng/280050/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
30 years ago, a Soviet nuclear attack monitoring satellite malfunctioned and insisted that five nuclear missiles had been launched at the Soviet Union. Though this was a false alarm, tensions between the Soviets and the U.S. were about as bad as they'd been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yuri Andropov, the leader the U.S.S.R., was paranoid about the idea that the U.S. would launch a first nuclear strike and agents embedded in the west were not only directed to find evidence of this, but were also reprimanded if they didn't find it.
The primary reason the world didn't end on September 26, 1983 was because of Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the commander of the Oko nuclear early-warning center which received the faulty attack warning. He was the one who decided that the U.S. would have fired a lot more than five missiles if their intention was really to wipe out the Soviet Union. In addition, ground-based missile detection systems showed nothing (the satellite glitch was caused by the sun reflecting off of some clouds). Had he decided to immediately inform his superiors of an incoming nuclear attack (which, horribly, would have been understandable given the state of political affairs), the Soviets would have almost certainly launched an all-out retaliatory nuclear attack, which would have certainly resulted in a likewise retaliation by NATO, and the global nuclear apocalypse would have been on.
I think it's very strange that Col. Petrov is not lauded as one of the biggest heroes in world history, because his cool head certainly earned him the honors in my opinion.
You can read more about him here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ar...ng/280050/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
