Incident 27: Nuclear False Alarm
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On the night September 26, 1983, a false report of five American intercontinental ballisic missiles was registered at a Soviet military base. Stanislov Petrov was working the night shift at Serpukhov-15 when a warning of the first missile came through, carrying the highest level of confidence in its reporting. Knowing the technology was new and rushed into use, Petrov phoned his superiors but did not call for a counterstrike. The alerts continued to come in until the system reported five incoming ICBM's from the United States that would strike in approximately 12 minutes. Several factors dissuaded Petrov from calling for a counterstrike: the newness of the technology, the unrealistically high confidence level, the low amount of missiles reported (a real first attack would have been many more), and the fact radar had not picked up any incoming objects. The satellite Oko system had incorrectly identified the light reflecting off high-altitude clouds above North Dakota to be the glare of launched missiles. After 23 minutes of waiting, Petrov felt comfortable confirmed this had been a false positive. The story was first reported publicly in 1998.
Short Description
An alert of five incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles was properly identified as a false-positive by the Soviet Union operator Stanislov Petrov.
Severity
Negligible
Harm Distribution Basis
Geography
AI System Description
Oko satellite imaging meant to collect image input and determine the likelihood of those images containing evidence of missile launch
System Developer
Soviet Union
Sector of Deployment
Public administration and defence
Relevant AI functions
Perception
AI Techniques
Oko satellites, image recognition
AI Applications
Early warning system
Location
Soviet Union
Named Entities
Soviet Union, Oko, United States
Technology Purveyor
Soviet Union, United States
Beginning Date
1983-09-26T07:00:00.000Z
Ending Date
1983-09-27T07:00:00.000Z
Near Miss
Near miss
Intent
Accident
Lives Lost
No
Infrastructure Sectors
Nuclear
Data Inputs
Geospatial Satellite Imagery
GMF Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsKnown AI Goal
Threat Detection
Potential AI Technology
Satellite Imaging
Known AI Technical Failure
Data or Labelling Noise, Limited Dataset, Black Swan Event
Potential AI Technical Failure
Generalization Failure
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of multiple USAF Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were correctly iden…
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stanislav Petrov: ''I knew perfectly well that nobody would be able to correct my mistake if I had made one''
Thirty years ago, on 26 September 1983, the world was saved from potent…
Stanislav Petrov, 77, passed away on May 19, 2017. His death in his home in the Moscow suburbs was little noted at the time. Petrov, however, is one of a few humans who can say they literally saved the world. The veteran was a lieutenant co…
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‘Gut instinct’ told Lt Col Stanislav Petrov that apparent launch of US missiles was actually early warning system malfunction
This article is more than 1 year old
This article is more than 1 year old
A Soviet officer whose cool head and qui…
CLOSE The former Soviet military officer credited with preventing a possible nuclear disaster during the Cold War has died at age 77. Time
Stanislav Petrov at his home in Fryazino, Russia, on Aug. 27, 2015. (Photo: Pavel Golovkin, AP)
A Sov…
One night in 1983, a screen in a Soviet bunker began flashing red: nuclear attack or false alarm? One man had to decide. Colin Freeman tells his story
NB. This piece on Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov originally ran in 2015, and has bee…
Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved The World,' Dies At 77
Enlarge this image toggle caption Pavel Golovkin/AP Pavel Golovkin/AP
Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor…
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stanislav Petrov: ''I knew perfectly well that nobody would be able to correct my mistake if I had made one''
A former Soviet military officer credited with averting a possible nucl…
Obit Stanislav Petrov, one of the unsung heroes of the Cold War without whose guts and intelligence you wouldn't be reading this, has died at the age of 77, his son has confirmed.
Petrov was a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet Air Def…
Stanislav Petrov, the retired officer of the Soviet Air Defense Forces whose death at the age of 77 was announced this week, did not enjoy discussing the day he averted a nuclear holocaust.
Maybe he was tired of giving interviews about the …
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OVER the years, Stanislav Petrov got used to those telephone calls. Typically they would come at night or at the weekend, just as he was unwinding. He would lift the receiver to hear the jaunty strains of “Arise, our mighty country!” in his…
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Joan Westenberg 🌈 Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 23, 2018
One of the most important people to have ever lived passed away last year.
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If things had gone just slightly differently on a tense night in 1983, today would be the 35th anniversary of the start of of World War III, for whoever was left alive to observe such an occasion. 6:00 Eastern Time on September 25, 2018 mar…
On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust.
The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, So…
Legend has it that on September 26, 1983, in a nuclear command and control center outside of Moscow, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov detected five US nuclear warheads headed right for him but stood down from calling for a massive Soviet retaliati…
It was the moment Stanislav Petrov had been dreading since childhood, and preparing for much of his adult life.
After decades of Cold War tension, the early warning satellites had been triggered. The Americans had launched their nuclear mis…
A FORMER Soviet colonel credited with averting all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States has been honoured 35 years after his heroic act.
Stanislav Petrov was working as an officer at a secret command base in Moscow in 1983 w…
A Soviet officer credited with preventing nuclear Armageddon 35 years ago has been posthumously awarded for 'saving the world'.
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Thirty-five years ago, just after midnight on the morning of September 26, a midranking officer in the Soviet Army single-handedly saved both his country and ours. Now that the Ameri…
Can one man save the world? Could just one action by one person prevent the downfall of human civilization? This simply sounds like a fictional story like Superman. It’s unrealistic. But one man, Stanislav Petrov, was able to do this. Yet, …
“The Man Who Saved the World” is the gripping true story of a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, Stanislav Petrov, who refused to order the launch of nuclear weapons when the warning system showed — erroneously — incoming …
Next week marks 35 years since America and Russia narrowly avoided fighting a nuclear war—the kind that “cannot be won and must never be fought,” in the words of Ronald Reagan. It wasn’t the first time the two nations lived through such a c…
The Cuban Missile Crisis is typically the gold standard for nuclear close calls. For 13 days, America had nuclear missiles ready to deploy from Italy and Turkey, while Russia did the same in Cuba. It is widely considered the nearest that we…
