Do All Superheroes Wear Capes?
No, meet Stanislav Petrov.
On 26 September 1983, Petrov was on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker just outside Moscow. His responsibilities included monitoring the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any imminent nuclear missiles.
Soviet protocol, should any incoming missiles be detected, was the immediate launch of retaliation nuclear missiles at the US and its NATO allies.
On the night in question, the computer reported that five intercontinental ballistic missiles were heading from the United States to the Soviet Union with “high reliability”. As the sirens sounded Petrov found himself staring at a large screen with the word “LAUNCH” in bold red letters.
Petrov then faced the stomach-churning dilemma; was it a computer error? or does he report this as a legitimate warning (which would certainly authorise retaliation nuclear strikes).
With the weight of hundreds of millions of lives across the world depending on his decision, fortunately, Petrov and his team concluded that the attack was a false alarm. He recalled, “I knew perfectly well that nobody would be able to correct my mistake if I made one”. It turned out that the system had mistaken the reflection of sunlight on clouds for ballistic missiles so thank goodness he came to that conclusion.
Unfortunately, the Washington Post reported that Petrov was “relentlessly interrogated afterward [and] never rewarded for his decision”.
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