23 years ago today, on September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov was monitoring the Soviet satellite early warning network, and saw something that looked very much like a few American missiles coming in. He trusted his intuition that it was a false alarm and not an American nuclear attack, and as a result we are all here today.
Thank you, Stanislav Petrov.
Stanislav, my hat is very very tipped to you. Бог благословляет.
Betcha he’s got a wicked sexy accent, too.
I was 8 years old and lived about 20 miles from Washington DC then. I certainly wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t done what he did.
I was 9 years old in Montgomery, Alabama, which sounds as if it would be relatively safe. However, Montgomery houses Maxwell Air Force Base, which contains the Air War College, and at the time, contained most of the ballistic computers that would plot the paths of American ICBM’s in the case of nuclear conflict. We were always told by the CO at Maxwell that Montgomery was #5 on the Soviets’ target priority list.
Thus, I also owe my life to (former) Comrade Petrov. Thank you for your good sense and iron will.
That story always sends chilld down my spine. I am glad the word eventually got out and he got honored at least a few times way.
At the time I lived 10 miles from Missile Command in the UK. I would be gaseous if it weren’t for him.
Spazibo, Komrad Petrov.
I lived near Strategic Air Command HQ at the time. Many thanks, Mr. Petrov.
Why you should not completely take out the human factor… whether or not Petrov could really have all by his own self started or stopped it, for all our much-maligned unpredictability and fallibility you do want someone, somewhere, who can pause to say to himself, “this can’t be right…”
New York Times reportsthat Stanislav Petrov died at the age of 77 on May 19 in Fryazino, a Moscow suburb, of pneumonia. (The news of his passing wasn’t reported initially, hence the delay.)
(Previously noted here on the Celebrity Death Pool thread as of 12 Sep 2017, but I figured I’d note it here in the content-relevant thread.)
If I may pick a nit - 34 years ago. Or your fingers were offset slightly to the left.
I think you will find that 2006-1983 is 23, not 34.
In 1983 I lived miles from a Navy Supply base and not that far from NYC. I would have gone fast at least if the exchange had happened.
He did his job smartly and not blindly and thus really may have saved the world.
This incident is way overblown. For one, it wasn’t five missiles at once. It was a single missile and then later in the same night 4 more after enough time had passed to verify the first was a false alarm. From a system that had been operational for less than a year and with no corroboration from any other system. It was obviously a false alarm and there’s no way his superiors would have launched a strike.
I will admit to not being well versed in the event. But can you backup your post?
Here is wikipedia’s take:
Thank You
We are wery, wery tenkful. I toast to you wiss Wodka!
There are times, when Global Thermonuclear War is the proper solution to so many issues. The '80s were one of those times.
I am not at all sure that this man was some kind of hero.
I showed my mother his picture the other day and the related story…I don’t think she quite understood why there was a tear in my eye when I did so…
PS. I am very pro nuke and MAD and blah blah blah…but this was a case were a “common” man with common sense probably literally saved the day…and his pic looks like any old geezer that might now live next to me…