Thank you so much Petrov

In fact, the situation was a bit different. Petrov was on duty on sattelite control, he monitored the data from infrared early warning sattelite that was aimed on US missile bases.

Suddenly, sattelite reported about six launches from US base. The normal procedure was to immediately report to upper echelons, but Petrov suspected that something is wrong, because just six "Minuteman" missiles simply could not inflict enough damage to work as effective first-strike attack. So, he asked the radar stations (which should detect the missiles as soon as they rise over the horizon), and they reported nothing. Optical sattelite, aimed at this area, also reported no engine flares, so Petrov became convinced that this is a false alarm and ordered to stand down.

Eventually, it was discovered that sattelite optics was aligned imperfectly, and bright solar rays, rfeltected from high-altitude clouds, accidently gave infrared signatures, which corresponded with missile launches.

P.S. And Petrov could not "set a counter strike in motion". He was only supposed to rely the data to higher echelons, who would make a decision about what to do next.

@Dilandu With as paranoid as Soviet leadership had become under Andropov, if he had reported it they would not have questioned it. The whole Operation RYAN spy program (Andropov's brainchild) assumed that nuclear war was inevitable and the only thing that could be done was to preempt the west.

@Dilandu There were a few incidents like this on the american side as well. in october of 1960 the radar equipment at Thule airbase showed what appeared to be a massive russian attack.. NORAD went on alert, but held back a response because the Then premier of the soviet union, Nikita Khrushchev, was in New York for a UN summit. they wisely figured the soviets wouldn't nuke their own leader. turned out the system was detecting *the moon* as it rose over the horizon in the radar's field of detection.

@mithril The moon could of caused a nuclear war?

@Dilandu My favorite incident is the US one where a monitor was busted so 0's looked like 8's or something. It basically said that Russia launched 8888888 (or 2222222, one of the 2) nukes, and they panicked. They then stopped and realized, there's no way they had that many missiles.

Also Cuba, where they found out Russia was doing stuff there because of a rugby field.

There needs to be a public holiday in every country dedicated to this man. And also to Vasili Arkhipov, the vice-captain of a soviet nuclear sub, who vetoed the decision to launch a nuclear torpedo at a US ship during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It's truly amazing that we're all still here after all that's happened.

If the both of you are somehow reading this, humanity is eternally in your debt. Thank you.

@Dal World day of conscientious objectors?

@Dal I'm so sorry to say that, but Petrov died last year. I've heard he was almost forgotten by Russian officials and was never praised fairly.

More specifically, Petrov instantly found it weird that only a single "missile" was detected. A first strike would've involved dozens or hundreds of missiles, which is why he waited and watched.

What's really scary is that there were several near misses that could've started a nuclear war, from human error to weather to bears.

@Sorflakne Bears? How can a bear cause a nuclear war?

@Lildawg32301 In Soviet Russia, bears start nuclear wars.

@DarkMage7280 XD

@Lildawg32301 Basically a base where nuclear missiles were stored detected that something had tripped the perimeter alarm. They feared that it was an invasion force but it turned out to just be a hungry bear looking for food.

@SomeRandomSmuck Wow, thank goodnes it didn’t escalate any further.

@Lildawg32301 He could fall off his unicycle? Or make a potato leader of the military world power? Just watch the John Oliver Special on nukes security violation in your case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g If it's allready that bad in a first world country you try not to dear imagine the possibilities in the former sovietunion.

@Lildawg32301 Even the brief entry about it on Wiki is too nuts to summarize.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volk_Field_Air_National_Guard_Base#False_alarm_incident

@Sorflakne , Jep, this post is a bit imprecise.

There is a grate documentary about this man.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2277106/ Here is a link to IMDb

Stanislav Petrov was NOT a coward, he new something was wrong...

@Mikkel Where did I call him a coward?

His logic was that if America were actually going to fire their nukes it would be all of them and not just a few. Which makes sense

@nicorath he himself said the phrase that it felt like the system was too sure they were lauching nukes and it didnt make sense in context

@nicorath
...common sense vs. algorithm...
...common sense wins...

...forutately...


...for now...!

Fucking hell. I'm an American, and I owe this Russian my existence. Thank you Mr. Petrov.

@Uniquitous I think that many of us owe our existances to him, me included.

@Uniquitous
Given how numerous large-scale nuclear explosions are expected to be an extinction event for our entire planet... I think we ALL do.

Dear humon, thank you for always making funny comics with some historical information .. Get well soon..

@Zuperkrunch Did you change that gif, or was there something in my food?

@Mixu did u eat some poisonous mushrooms? Lol... Yes i did change the garfield with russian dance.. More fun..

@Mixu something in ur food

It gets much worse in context. Pretty much all of 1983 was building up to to a crescendo and frankly the most astonishing thing is that the year ended without a nuclear war starting. History time!

Reagan's evil empire speech, the launch of SDI (conceptual space-based weapons to shoot down Soviet nukes, aka Star Wars), the space shuttle, the B-1 and B-2 programs, the impending deployment of the Pershing II missiles to Germany which the Soviets thought meant Moscow could be hit in as little as 8 minutes, all scared the heck out of the Soviets, who were already paranoid and suspected that the west was going to launch a nuclear war, it was only a matter of when it would happen, and could they preempt NATO and launch first. Then this event. But to make matters worse, the flaw wasn't discovered until 6 months later (turns out light reflected off a cloud over Nebraska- a stupid mistake that had been noted during construction but ignored so they could meet the deadline). The real problem to Soviet leaders was not that their toys were broken, but that their men were inclined to ignore their orders- can they rely on them during a real crisis?

A month later the US invaded Grenada, then a few weeks later began Autumn Forge 83 which was a massive troop readiness training course, which ended with simulated nuclear launches (Able Archer 83). The Soviets knew about the exercises, but weren't sure if they were simply exercises or buildups to a real invasion (Soviet strategy was based on this ruse, they almost invaded Poland in 1981 with the guise of a training exercise, ZAPAD-81). They actually had planes on standby ready to take off in case NATO started moving real equipment around. This whole time they didn't know if they had a faulty launch detection system or if their men could be relied on to do their jobs.

@bearynicetomeetyou Reagan's evil empire...

@Zuperkrunch He was right though. It was an evil empire.

@LoveIsGood I didn't write he was wrong.. I just smile coz it's sounds funny...

@bearynicetomeetyou Wow. The year I was born was *intense.* And here I thought the only interesting thing about 1983 was that The Return of the Jedi came out. (I'm the reason Dad doesn't have the sound track.)

to be more percise- that desicion came because Petrov had 2 big reasons to doubt that computers were correct.
1- that computer system had had some issues prior to that
2- By his estimates, americans wouldnt have launched so few missles.
Therefore he decided to wait until radars confirmed missles, although at that point it wouldve been too late to retaliate. His gamble paid off

@Meelis13 , well, he considered that salvo of just six "Minutemen"'s could carry at most eighteen warheads - far too few to actually carry a deciesive first strike against USSR. So, the military risk of waiting was minimal.

@Dilandu
that is good point too.

Bigger hero was Vasili Arkhipov.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, or really the Cuban portion of the Turkey Missile Crisis (I'll explain later), Vasili was in charge of the submarine fleet. His sub was outfitted with a nuclear torpedo. It came under fire from the Americans; yes we opened fire on the Russians during the crisis. He was too deep to use the radio, and everyone aboard thought WWIII had already begun. To launch a nuclar strike, a unanimous decision needed to be made by him, the captain, and the political officer. He was the only one who voted no. Luckily, it turned out the depth charges were dummies, but inside the sub, there's no way to tell.

As for why the Turkey Missile Crisis, the whole thing started when Kennedy decided to place a battery of nuclear missiles in Turkey. This pissed off the Russians for good reason, and when diplomacy failed they did the same to the US. The result of the crisis was that the missiles were removed from Turkey, so technically, the Russians won the crisis. But the Americans got what they wanted too, so they won. But the crisis humiliated Russia in the eyes of the Chinese, so Russia actually lost. Whereas the crisis made De Gaulle convinced that the Americans would never help France when push came to shove, because they wouldn't help Cuba, so America lost the crisis too. Everyone got what they wanted, and still lost.

@CorruptUser I was thinking that myself. From memory, the use of dummy depth charges (and they were throwing lighter stuff before the dummy depth charges) was something that the Americans had warned the Russians they were going to do to warn any submarines that got too close that a) they'd been seen and b) if they didn't surface or otherwise back off, they might get fired upon for real. Arkhipov's submarine, however, had been underwater long enough that it hadn't received the message. Eventually the submarine surfaced, hoping it wouldn't be sunk as soon as it did so, which turned out to be the right thing to do.

'@Draxynnic'' @CorruptUser' but officers on the sub got an order (or, well, instruction) to use nuclear torpedo only if boat took actual damage, which wouldn't happen with signal depth charges. On top of that, nuclear-tipped torpedo is a tactical anti-ship/sub weapon, and it wouldn't be treated the same as full-fledged ballistic missile attack. Foxtrot-class B-59 had no capability to launch even a cruise missile, and SLBMs are out of it's league completely.

@comrade_Comrade

Umm, what? It's a submarine, not a battleship; the moment it takes any damage there's a good chance it's too late to launch anything at all.

'@CorruptUser' captain of another Foxtrot-class (B-4) Rurik Ketov is sometimes cited as an origin of a quote. Official order that submarine captains received only told them to arrive stealthily to and patrol the designated area in Caribbean sea without any additional guidance.

When presented with the printout of this order, Arkhipov raised the question about guidelines on use of nuclear weapons - no one so far had any ideas why they were given nukes in the first place. First deputy commander of the Soviet Navy Vitaliy Fokin either didn't have an answer or said that he has no right to issue such instructions, accounts vary. First deputy commander of the Northern Fleet Anatoliy Rassokho answered instead: "Write it down. Special weapons are to be used in following cases: First - when you are bombarded [implies use of depth charges either by patrol aircraft or ASW ships] and you take a hole in the pressure hull. Second, if you are surfaced, take fire and there is a hole. Third, if ordered by Mosow."

Such order would imply that losing the boat with all hands and a chance of not being able to return fire is preferable to premature use of nukes. Also giving such order in Rassokho's position was a decisive and potentially career-ending action. Given that he resigned from Navy only 1985, his gamble paid off.

@comrade_Comrade Wasn't aware that the nuclear torpedo was under orders to only be used if the sub took actual damage. Sounds like two out of three voted to disobey orders there. :o

A tactical nuke wouldn't be the same as a city-killer, certainly, but taking out a fleet with a tactical nuke, under the circumstances, could have triggered WW3 even if it wasn't targeted at a city.

That said, WW3 would DEFINITELY have happened if Petrov hadn't recognised that the alarm was a false one. So while we probably owe the continued non-nuclear-wasteland state of most of the Earth to those two (and others), on balance Petrov was probably the more significant. Since he a) technically disobeyed orders, and b) if he had fired, it would have certainly triggered a MAD response rather than possibly doing so.

'@Draxynnic' "Sounds like two out of three voted to disobey orders there"
Another version was that captain lost his composure, but Arkhipov overruled him as his immediate superior and was fully supported by XO. There is no vote when it comes to orders, and people in torpedo room know who is the boss.

"A tactical nuke wouldn't be the same as a city-killer, certainly, but taking out a fleet with a tactical nuke"
It was a 10 kiloton torpedo, when tested in 1957 it sunk only ships within radius of 500 meters from explosion. 533mm torpedo has a very limited useful range. USS Cony would be sunk, nothing else. Given that U-2 shot down over Cuba didn't lead to nuclear war, I don't see how losing a single Fletcher would change the picture.

"That said, WW3 would DEFINITELY have happened if Petrov hadn't recognised that the alarm was a false one."
Not necessarily. First of all, this:' #9754515' , then this:' #9754170' .
Also most articles about this event are written from his words alone, so there is always a place for sensationalism (first article was published in 1993, the "yellowest" period in Russian journalism) and self-aggrandizement which is always almost inevitable in single-source stories.

"Since he a) technically disobeyed orders"
No, he didn't. Even in his own words he had no specific instructions on how to proceed in this situation.

"if he had fired, it would have certainly triggered a MAD response rather than possibly doing so."
See above mentioned comments, he had no authority to do so. Even if he would just go along and act as if launches were real, Andropov, Ustinov and rest of them would receive the same information "six consecutive launches detected by satellite, no radar detection, no plumes visible". There is a lot of speculation on what would Andropov do and wishful thinking about his paranoid fear of NATO's attack. The fact that he didn't push the button in response to "Able Archer" says something.

@comrade_Comrade Ah, so there were additional steps in the chain in Petrov's case? Fair enough.

In the case of the nuclear torpedo - I would be inclined to say that taking out a destroyer would be considered an escalation over shooting down a spyplane - especially since using a nuclear weapon leaves little doubt that it was the Soviets that did so, while in the case of the spyplane it was questionable (IIRC, it was actually the Cubans who did that one, but the Americans didn't know at the time). Diplomacy might still have won in the end, but the doomsday clock would at least have moved a few seconds towards midnight before it did.

@comrade_Comrade Thinking further on the matter, regarding this:

"Also most articles about this event are written from his words alone, so there is always a place for sensationalism (first article was published in 1993, the "yellowest" period in Russian journalism) and self-aggrandizement which is always almost inevitable in single-source stories."

It's probably a case of 'people like a hero' coming into play. 'The system had multiple checks and this happened to be the one that triggered' just isn't as interesting for most people.

@CorruptUser

I wouldn't say bigger and I wouldn't call any of them heroes (see explanation of this below), but he was another man who made the right decision.

The really dangerous part of the Cuban Missile Crisis was that the Soviets had delegated control over their nukes to the local commanders in the field, while in the US only the president can ever authorize the use of nuclear weapons of course.
With the Soviet Union being as secretive as it was during the Cold War, the west didn't actually know this, but assumed that Soviets commanders had to get authorization directly from the Kremlin to launch nukes.
They also didn't know that the Soviets had equipped some of their submarines with nuclear torpedoes, or just how many tactical nukes the conventional Soviets forces on Cuba had at their disposal (nearly 100).
There where a lot more nukes, and controlled by other people, on and in the waters of Cuba during the missile crisis then the Americans knew at the time.

Therefore, the real risk of the Cuban Missile Crisis was that some local Soviet commander could have felt his position so threatened that he decided to use the nukes under his command for self-defense.
The American side never even knew this was a possibility, as they though local Soviet commanders weren't authorized to make those decisions.

While Khrushchev of course knew full well that he didn't actually have complete control over the Soviet nukes and from his perspective the risk of the situation spiraling out of control was even greater.

Also, there was no direct telephone line between the US and the Soviets, so neither leader could talk directly to the other in real time, but all interactions where by telex or by diplomatic channels, which takes time.

Regarding your claim of a "Turkey Missile Crisis", that's not really an accurate description.
Firstly, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey was agreed upon by Turkey and the US in 1959, when Eisenhower was president - it was not JFK's idea or decision.
Secondly, the Soviet placement of missiles on Cuba was not in retaliation over the US placing missiles in Turkey - it was to protect Cuba from the threat of a US invasion.

The Americans had already tried once to overthrow Castro by a military invasion - but that time it was exile-Cubans in the Bay of Pigs-fiasco in 1961.
But it was widely expected that the next time the US would use it's own forces to do the job - something the US military leadership and many politicians was also openly advocating for at the time.
That's why Castro turned Communist by the way - siding completely with the Soviet Union was the only way he could guarantee safety from a US invasion.
And with the Soviet conventional forces that where then sent to defend Cuba from a US invasion, the medium range ballistic missiles followed too.

The Jupiter missiles in Turkey where a secret part of the deal the US and the Soviets struck at the end of the crisis, that's true.
But those missiles where already obsolete anyway as the US had moved on to submarine launched Polaris missiles by that time, so it's not like withdrawing them from Turkey either weakened the US strategic hand or strengthened the Soviets.

It was more a sweetener to the main deal, which was that in return for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles the US promised to not invade Cuba.

As you rightly say both major powers can be seen as winners or losers in the crisis, depending on which point you take.
But Castro and his regime certainly gained from it, as the threat of US invasion was rescinded. Without the Soviets deploying troops to Cuba, the missile crisis that followed from that and the deal that followed from that, the US would certainly have invaded Cuba by now.

Explanation regarding "heroes":
I know you Americans tend to call anyone who does their job well in a time of crisis a "hero", but to me (and I believe most of the rest of the world) we don't use that word as frequently.
In times of war or catastrophe a lot of people do their jobs professionally - but they also do so every single day and they get no recognition for that.
Also, it's their job to make these decisions and to get them right. So I won't call them heroic for doing what they're supposed to - and neither would most of these people themselves actually.

I'd reserve the title of "hero" for people like the engineering crew of the Soviet atomic submarine K-19, who knowingly sacrificed their own lives stopping the boats nuclear reactor from a total meltdown by building a jury-rigged cooling system for the reactor, inside the reactor room at lethal radiation levels.
They all died - but they saved the boat, everyone else on it and a large part of the North Atlantic from severe radiation contamination.

There are also the firefighters first on the scene to put out the fires at Chernobyl, and later the soldiers that where sent there to clear radioactive debris from the roof of the reactor building.
Radio controlled machines sent up to do the job broke down because the radiation levels where so high, so the Soviet Union sent in volunteers to do it manually instead.

And many others who've done other things (not all related to radiation of course) that have been INSANELY risky to their own survival and has gone above and beyond any reasonable professional demand on them.

That's the level where I think we should start calling people heroes.
Not just for making the right call in a tight spot or landing a damaged plane when you're the pilot (I'm looking at you Sully - and now that Southwest pilot the other day).

@Nisse_Hult

1) An "obsolete" nuclear missile is still enough to ruin your day. The North Koreans have "obsolete" nuclear weapons and a delivery system still in the 1950's, yet it's still a threat.
2) The US had ceased to back Batista, as Eisenhower was fed up with him and wanted him gone. Castro wouldn't have had anything to fear from the US if he wasn't anti-American and was slightly less awful than Batista.
3) While there are different levels of heroism, it's still heroic to do a job under extreme pressure.
4) Also, as an aside, I've also heard rumors that the Soviets accidentally left a few nuclear warheads in Cuba for a few years (though they did recover them later), but I'm not sure how true that is.

@CorruptUser

1.) It was the Americans themselves who deemed the Jupiter missile system obsolete and moved on to the submarine launched Polaris system instead. Of course the Jupiter system still worked, but there is no point in paying upkeep for an old system when you've developed a new and better one. All armies in all the world sooner or later retire old hardware that they no longer feel is good enough.
One of the Jupiter systems main drawbacks was that it - as land based - was susceptible to a surprise first strike by the Soviets, while the submarine launched Polaris missiles where safe from such a strike.

2.) I've never heard the claim that the US had stopped backing Batista, but you're welcome to prove that with any credible source you might have.

Cubas interests where always deemed "anti-American" by most of the American political system, as the US viewed Cuba as a client state. The mafia owned most of the hotels and nightclubs in Havana, the United Fruit Company owned most of the arable land on Cuba - and they used it to produce cash crops for US consumers.

When Castro came to power he went to Washington and sought a deal where the Cuban state would regain control of at least some of the land to be able to properly feed it's own people.
US politicians refused to even listen to him, instead siding with the United Fruit Company and other American business interests who had bough up much of anything of value on Cuba from consecutive corrupt regimes, including Batista's, supported by the US.

Faced with an almost completely hostile US that refused to accept Cuba as anything but an American economic colony, Castro was forced to unilateral nationalize the American assets instead.
That's what's always happens sooner or later when colonial masters refuse to accept that their colonies no longer wish to be exploited by them. The Americans should know this from their own history, but instead they've acted in exactly the same way not just towards Cuba, but many other nations as well.

3.) I don't agree, and I frankly think you Americans are pretty alone in believing so. But I haven't asked all the people in the world about it, so I can't say I know this to be a fact.

4.) I don't think that story is true. Instead, I think this is a correct description of what happened:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/cuban-missile-crisis-unto_n_1967544.html

To anyone wondering /why/ he did that, tl;dr he correctly guessed that 6 missiles was far too few to be a real attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident