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FILE 046 · VOL VII · They Lied to Your Parents
The Computer Said Nuclear Launch. One Man Didn't Believe It.
There is a man in a room somewhere right now who could end everything by trusting a screen.
Based on: Nuclear False Alarms of 1979 and 1983
Intake record
| Recovered from | Personal effects of a retired U.S. Air Force missile warning officer, Colorado Springs |
|---|---|
| Contents | Duty log (1979, partial), a newspaper clipping (1999), an unsent letter to a man in Russia |
| Finder | Nephew |
| Status | The letter's intended recipient died in 2017. It was never delivered. |
Recovered file
On the night of September 26, 1983, a Soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer at a secret early warning bunker outside Moscow. Shortly after midnight, the computers reported that the United States had launched a nuclear missile at the Soviet Union. Then a second. Then a third, fourth, and fifth. [1]
His orders were to report an attack up the chain of command, where it could trigger a Soviet counterstrike. The warning system was new. It had been declared reliable. The sirens were sounding. The screen behind him flashed one word: LAUNCH.
Petrov did not report it. He reasoned that if the Americans were really attacking, they would send hundreds of missiles, not five. He judged it a false alarm. He was right. The satellites had mistaken the reflection of sunlight off high clouds for the flare of rocket engines. He was not rewarded. He was reprimanded for poor paperwork, and his story stayed secret until the 1990s. [1]
Six weeks later, NATO began a large military exercise called Able Archer, which simulated preparations for nuclear war so realistically that some Soviet leaders reportedly feared it was cover for a real first strike. [2]
Four years earlier, the same thing had nearly happened on the American side.
On November 9, 1979, a training tape simulating a massive Soviet attack was accidentally loaded into a live computer at the North American Air Defense Command. For several minutes, missile warnings appeared on screens at NORAD, the Pentagon's command center, and other critical posts. Interceptor jets took off. The President's national security adviser was woken at three in the morning and told the country was under attack. He was preparing to call the President when the warnings were identified as false. [3] Seven months later, in June 1980, it happened again, caused this time by a single faulty computer chip that cost forty-six cents. [3]
Very few people at the time knew any of this. Most still don't.
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 046 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.