The world might have descended into nuclear catastrophe thirty-one years ago today, September 26, 1983, had someone other than Stanislav Petrov been in charge of the Soviet early-warning system at a key moment. Via BillMoyers.com:

On this date in 1983, a Soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer in the command center for the USSR’s early warning system when Russian satellites twice detected the launch of five ICBMs from the US. Had Petrov followed protocol and reported the “attack,” Moscow might have retaliated, bringing about a global nuclear war. But he didn’t trust the newly-installed system, and doubted a nuclear strike would begin with only handful of missiles. So, without any additional information, Petrov decided it was a false alarm and kept it to himself. The incident came to light after the fall of the USSR.

This was only three weeks after a Soviet plan shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, so there was already some tension.

Via Wikipedia:

Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system’s indication a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarm had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite. Continue reading →