The Soviet Officer Who Chose Not to End the World

[00:00:00]Did you know one man's gut feeling may have saved every living person on Earth?

[00:00:04]It was September 26th, 1983. The Cold War was at its most dangerous. Soviet and American fingers were hovering near nuclear buttons. Then, just after midnight, alarms exploded inside a Soviet bunker outside Moscow. The screens showed five American nuclear missiles screaming toward the Soviet Union. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov had one job in that moment, reported up the chain. That report would have triggered a full nuclear launch. He didn't report it. Petrov had a feeling.

[00:00:32]The attack seemed too small. A real American strike would send hundreds of missiles, not five. The satellites, he suspected, had confused sunlight reflecting off clouds for missile exhaust. He had minutes, no backup, no one to ask. A system built to remove human judgment had placed all of it on one man. He called it a false alarm. He was right. A software glitch had triggered the alert. One person, one decision, eight billion lives hanging in the balance. Do you think he made the right call? Comment why yes or no.