Nos encontramos a 26 de septiembre de 1983. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov está realizando un turno de sustitución en el búnker Serpukhov-15 cerca de Moscú. Lloyd Bridges habría dicho que no era el mejor día para dejar de esnifar pegamento:
Just past midnight, Petrov received a computer report he’d dreaded all his military career to see, the computer captured a nuclear military missile being launched from the US, destination Moscow.
In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union’s strategy protocol was to to launch an immediate all-out nuclear weapons counterattack against the United States with nuclear power, and immediately afterwards inform top political and military figures. From there, it would be taken a decision to further the military offensive on America.
The bunker was in full-alarm, with red lights all over the place as the missile was captured by the Soviet satellites via computers. Petrov wasn’t convinced though. He believed that if the US attacked, they would have attacked all-out, not just sending one missile and giving a chance for them (the Soviets) to attack back.
Petrov figured something didn’t make sense, as strategically, just one missile from the US would be a strategic disaster. He took some time to think and decided not to give the order a nuclear attack against America, since in his opinion, one missile didn’t make sense strategically and it could easily have been a computer error.
But then, seconds later, the situation turned extremely serious. A second missile was spotted by the satellite. The pressure by the officers in the bunker to commence responsive actions against America started growing. A third missile was spotted, followed by a fourth. A couple of seconds later, a fifth one was spotted… everyone in the bunker was agitated as the USSR was under missile attack.
He had two options. Go with his instinct and dismiss the missiles as computer errors, breaking military protocol in the process or take responsive action and commence full-blown nuclear actions against America, potentially killing millions.
He decided it was a computer error, knowing deep down that if he was wrong, missiles would be raining down in Moscow in minutes.
La historia completa, en 24 years on - The man who saved millions of lives.
(Visto en la lista SKEPTIC.)