The hero who saved humanity from a nuclear war: “I was like someone being dragged to be crucified.”

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 from nuclear 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.

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.

Next to the front was a map of

North America and a small square near a military base on

the west coast of the United 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

he had to notify the United Nations System Commander and the Chief of Staff of the warning of a rocket attack, and to do so he had to go to a second room for telephone communications.

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

1. they could be detected by the second level of
2. the radar defence system reporting
3. the missile strike about 20 minutes before

the warheads hit the territory of the Soviet Union.

Thus :

1. if the warning was real
2. the missiles should have exploded on
3. Soviet territory in only half an hour.

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 :

• and even violated instructions because he questioned the fact of

• the alarm for precise objective reasons, was aware of the weight of

• responsibility he held on his shoulders, and was very happy to

• end up like this and not to be the cause of a deadly nuclear war.

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 a nuclear 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

avoiding the scourge of a nuclear inferno in 1983

but rather a credit even to those born afterwards.