1983 Soviet False Alarm

The night a Soviet officer judged a reported American missile launch to be false

Overview

In the early hours of September 26, 1983, the Soviet Oko satellite system falsely reported inbound American missiles, the system confusing sunlight on high clouds for launches. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, duty officer at the Serpukhov-15 command center, judged the alert false because a real strike would involve many more missiles, and reported a system malfunction rather than passing the alarm upward. His decision removed a link from a potential chain to catastrophe. The episode stayed classified for years and became public after the Cold War.