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The hero who saved humanity from a nuclear war:
I was like someone being dragged to be crucified.
He becomes a hero who saves one or more people
but what can we call those who save millions from Dahm
like the Soviet officer who saved Earth fromnuclear war?
This took place on :
the night of September 26, 1983
and Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov
- at the Sirbukhov-15 Early Warning Command Centre
- oversaw the observations, under the command of
- 80 specialized military personnel with their eyes on
- radar screens and instrument measurements.
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Shortly before his death
Lieutenant Colonel Petrov described
what had happened that day
saying:
- An operational shift began as normal at 20:00
- and it was under 80 military command.
- We have always done what we do, just a chore.
Suddenly :
at 00:15, the sirens at the Monitoring Centre sounded
and the word "launch" appeared on
a screen corresponding to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
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Next to the front was a map of
North America and a small square near a military base on
the west coast of theUnited States
and from there according to the alarm system, the missiles were going off!
It was in Lieutenant Colonel Petrov's hand
and everyone in the room had their eyes on him awaiting orders
but the Lieutenant Colonel ordered them to stick to their places.
In accordance
with the rules and instructions
Lieutenant Colonel
- Stanislav Petrov described the situation
- I could not get out of the chair. My legs were numb.
- I suffered so badly as if I had been pregnant to get hard.
The information on the strike came from the OKO
space early warning system and was designed to give the country's military
and political leadership an estimated 10 minutes of
time to decide on a counter-strike.
At that moment
according to Lieutenant Colonel Petrov
if the missiles were still launched
- they could be detected by the second level of
- the radar defence system reporting
- the missile strike about 20 minutes before
the warheads hit the territory of the Soviet Union.
Thus :
In his last statement :
Lieutenant Colonel Petrov recounted that his brain had turned into
a computer-like at that moment in dealing with an enormous amount of
information that was incomplete and interconnected
so two minutes later he called his drive with the phone to
the effect that the alarm was false, and that there was a computer bug.
He recounted that
what needed to be done afterwards was to wait for the missiles
and if they were actually fired, Soviet airspace would arrive and be detected
by radars, and that was supposed to happen in 18 minutes, which did not happen.
What led the Soviet lieutenant colonel to
wait and doubt the sincerity of the nuclear attack alarm?
In addition to experience
accuracy and intuition, the Soviet officer questioned
the matter because the alarm only observed rocket fire from one base
which is unlikely in the event of a rocket attack
and the warning system
he operated at the same time showed no signs of malfunction.
In addition :
information from the milita
whose sights are focused on radar readings in the dark room
was crucial at those moments, and they did not confirm the American rocket launch.
The Soviet :
officer inherited legendary patience :
Six months later
the cause of the dysfunction in the early missile warning system was known
and it was due to the reflection of
sunlight in a certain
way from clouds above the American missile base on
the satellite.
The Americans were later found to have experienced two similar cases.
This officer
credited with avoiding anuclear war, said in his remarks before
his death in 2017 that he did his job properly and saw no heroism in the matter.
This officer's humility does not override :
the fact that he assumed great and dangerous responsibility
