On the night of 26th September 1983, Colonel Stanislav Petrov reported for duty at a secret nuclear bunker just south of Moscow. As it happens he should have been at home with his family but a colleague had reported sick and so Petrov was instructed to substitute.
It was a cushy number. All he and his crew had to do all night was watch a few computer screens to make sure the USA wasn't launching a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. The technology was pretty old, dating back to the 1960s but it still seemed to function OK.
It was boring work, if work it was, but it gave Petrov a chance to catch up on one great Russian novel after another. On the night of the 26th September 1983 everything started out as per normal but two hours into his shift that would change. Petrov had just poured himself a coffee when all hell broke loose. Computers went mad, sirens were wailing and huge screens situated around the room started flashing STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!
This was the one thing all those on duty dreaded. They had all assumed it would never happen. Everyone stiffened and prepared themselves for the unenviable task ahead, the task for which they had been trained. There was a set procedure, codes to be entered into the computers, launch priorities and survival drills. Petrov had been through it hundreds of times before as part of his training.
Everything was cut and dried, there was no leeway, if Russia came under attack it was the Colonel's duty to retaliate. No one disobeys their Command, especially in the Soviet military.
The lights continued to flash and the sirens continued to wail. Everything was readied for a launch against the USA and Europe. The crew were watching Petrov, waiting for him to give the final order -- the order that would trigger World War Three,.
Despite his years of training -- brainwashing you could call it -- despite his long and decorated career, never once questioning an order, something caused Petrov to delay. He sensed that something was not right. What if it was a false alarm? He decided to ignore standing orders and disable the alarm system. Everyone in the bunker was astonished. A colonel disobeying orders... unheard of. What if Moscow was obliterated within the hour and America got off scot free?
Minutes later the sirens started wailing again, signalling that another strike had been launched against the Soviet Union. STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! The huge light boxes seemed even more ominous this time. Surely this proved it was no false alarm. Yet once again Petrov disabled the alarms.
Five times that night the system went crazy, warning everyone in the bunker of impending doom, yet Petrov stood his ground and did nothing. Well, what he did do was ignore the most important order he had received in his entire life.
Turns out it was a false alarm, triggered apparently by an unusual cloud formation. Colonel Stanislav Petrov was dismissed from the military for disobedience and then he disappeared into obscurity. Yet this man who no one has ever heard of saved the lives of most every living creature on planet Earth. If that sounds like an exaggeration consider the effects of 28,000 exploding nuclear warheads, all of them many times more powerful than the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs. The entire northern hemisphere would have been obliterated in a matter of hours and the southern hemisphere would've followed as the clouds of nuclear debris moved south and enveloped it. Nothing would grow. Think Chernobyl times several billion. Think Chernobyl on a global scale. Pestilence would be so rampant as to make Europe's Bubonic Plague look like a picnic. Possibly rats might have survived, and cockroaches. What a feast! Billions of rotting corpses all around the world.
There have been several other near launches that no one is aware of. We are living on a knife's edge. Russia's early warning system is in a parlous state of repair and both Russia and the USA have missiles on a hair trigger alert. Meaning they can be launched within an hour of a computer glitch or virus. 2,000 nuclear missiles are kept in a constant state of readiness. The remaining 26,000 would take a little longer to fuel and launch, probably 24 hours, but by that time most of us would be dead or dying.
Of course none of this bothers Christian America. In case you haven't heard, 42% the adult population of the USA is looking forward to ""Armageddon" with gleeful anticipation. You see, those rah rah rah Christian evangelicals are going to be "raptured" into the sky to meet Jesus while you, me and our loved ones burn or starve to death down here.
How many of those crazies sit in pairs down missile silos, or command nuclear submarines, of fly nuclear bombers? No one knows. How many of them program Pentagon and Norad computers? No one knows. And no one really cares, because let's face it, there are far more important things than nuclear obliteration -- footie for example, golf, tennis, cricket, smart phone apps, wide screen televisions, Facebook, Twitter...
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