Eight Minutes In Serpukhov-15
People have been running around on this planet for quite some time now. However, it has only been in the last sixty some odd years that we have had the ability to, quite easily now, destroy all life on it. Hooray for modern technology!
While most people are aware of the cold reality that we very well *could* kill everything that we consider life, most aren't aware just how close we've come at times to doing just that.
There are the well published incidents...The Cuban Missile Crisis being chief among them, where potential war between the nuclear powerhouses of America and the Soviet Union threatened the existence of developed nations around the world. That was a very public crisis solved by heads of state, with calculated political risks made over a span of days.
But then there are the incidents that slip under the News radar, the ones that fall into a file marked Top Secret that we never hear about. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 came the declassification of many of its documents, one of which contains a story that I find quite thought provoking, and you should too. It is the story of how the fate of the world may have, for a few short minutes in a bunker outside Moscow, rested in the hands of a Russian scientist named Stanislav Petrov. It sounds like a James Bond plotline - but it was real.
It was 1983, and Cold War relations between the USA and the USSR were strained at best. Soviet Primier Yuri Andropov maintained an antagonistic relationship with President Reagan, and the atmosphere in the Kremlin was one of extreme paranoia. The relationship especially soured when on September 1st, 1983, the schizophrenic USSR shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, which it thought was infringing on its airspace. 269 people died, evidencing the kind of hair trigger it took to awaken the wrath of the USSR. And then, three weeks
later, on September 26th, the entire world came close to feeling that wrath.
In the control room of the Soviet Satellite Early Warning system, located in a place called Serpukhov-15, sat Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was the officer on duty, at least for this evening. This was not his job - he was a scientist, not a supervisor, but the man who normally filled this role was out and Colonel Petrov was the substitute.
Any other night, this would not have been notable. But on that day, shortly after midnight Moscow time, the satellite caught something, and it caught something scary. According to the sensors, the United States had just launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, a weapon containing far more power than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2, straight at the Soviet Union.
Then, four identical missiles appeared, all on their way towards Soviet cities.
Protocol demanded that Petrov immediately report this to his superiors. If this truly were a nuclear assault, every second mattered, and Petrov did not have time to analyze the computer data to determine if this were really an attack, or a computer error. But reporting that satellites had observed five American ICMs Russia bound could result in the USSR launching a full scale counterattack. This would assure that America would indeed launch their nuclear arsenal, population centers around the world would cease to exist, and billions would die.
It was not his place to judge the situation without proof either way, his orders were to report what the computers told him, to the same men who with only slight provocation weeks before made the decision to shoot down a harmless airliner full of civilians. But Petrov decided to take a risk, and in doing so may have saved all our lives.
“I gave the Americans the benefit of the doubt,” says Petrov. “By that time the Americans had not yet developed a national missile defense system — they still haven’t — so they knew that a nuclear attack on us was tantamount to the eradication of at least half of their population. I was convinced that the Americans were a militant nation, but not a suicidal one. I remember thinking, ‘That big an idiot has not been born yet, not even in the U.S.’ And then I grabbed the telephone and reported a false alarm to the SPRN command station.”
Petrov reported that the machines were in error. But Colonel Petrov did not know for certain this was a false alarm. He said, "I made a decision and that was it." It was only after about 15-20 agonizing minutes passed, waiting to detect if U.S. missiles were incoming, that Petrov's decision proved correct.
Regarding the Petrov incident, former Soviet KBG officer Oleg A. Gordievsky stated: "If the Soviet Union had overreacted, it could have gone very badly. If war had come, Soviet missiles would have destroyed Britain entirely, at least half of Germany and France, and America would have lost maybe 30 percent of its cities and infrastructure."
Things didn't go well for Petrov after the incident. His disobedience to protocol led to his career taking a massive hit. He now lives a lonely life on a small military stipend in Moscow. When asked about his actions that night, he is very humble, refusing to accept the honor that is due him.
We can look at stories like this and ponder how things could have gone much differently. There are other incidents we know about where machine failure came close to triggering a war, but none so dramatic as
Petrov's. Of course, while Soviet documents have been declassified, not all of ours have-there are likely other such tales of terror in our own Cold War archives. The Cold War was a very dangerous time indeed, and even in 1983 the threat of World War III still loomed large.
We no longer worry about the idea of nuclear weapons raining down Armageddon across the world. For the time being at least, our enemies aren't capable of such things. But history and human nature tell us that eventually something will go awry and weapons humanity would like to forget we have will be utilized. It might take hundreds of years, but in the span of world history that is a short time indeed- especially when the radical changes of the last hundred are examined.
When we think about how close we may have come to untold disaster during the Petrov incident, it isn't hard to see a creator's hand at work. We could claim it was mere luck that caused the man who normally worked in Serpukhov-15 to fall ill or whatever and take the night off, leading to Petrov being at the right place at the right time. Or, we can acknowledge that the events of the world, however horrific they may be, are still moderated by a supernatural hand. The future will undoubtedly hold countless tragedies, but we can face them knowing that ultimately God is in control.
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. Matthew 24:21-22
If you'd like to learn more about the near-apocalypse of '83, you can read this article, which goes into far more detail than I did, or check out the Wikipedia page.
Also, you should take a few minutes to watch the trailer for a short documentary coming out shortly about Petrov.
People have been running around on this planet for quite some time now. However, it has only been in the last sixty some odd years that we have had the ability to, quite easily now, destroy all life on it. Hooray for modern technology!
While most people are aware of the cold reality that we very well *could* kill everything that we consider life, most aren't aware just how close we've come at times to doing just that.
There are the well published incidents...The Cuban Missile Crisis being chief among them, where potential war between the nuclear powerhouses of America and the Soviet Union threatened the existence of developed nations around the world. That was a very public crisis solved by heads of state, with calculated political risks made over a span of days.
But then there are the incidents that slip under the News radar, the ones that fall into a file marked Top Secret that we never hear about. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 came the declassification of many of its documents, one of which contains a story that I find quite thought provoking, and you should too. It is the story of how the fate of the world may have, for a few short minutes in a bunker outside Moscow, rested in the hands of a Russian scientist named Stanislav Petrov. It sounds like a James Bond plotline - but it was real.
It was 1983, and Cold War relations between the USA and the USSR were strained at best. Soviet Primier Yuri Andropov maintained an antagonistic relationship with President Reagan, and the atmosphere in the Kremlin was one of extreme paranoia. The relationship especially soured when on September 1st, 1983, the schizophrenic USSR shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, which it thought was infringing on its airspace. 269 people died, evidencing the kind of hair trigger it took to awaken the wrath of the USSR. And then, three weeks
later, on September 26th, the entire world came close to feeling that wrath.In the control room of the Soviet Satellite Early Warning system, located in a place called Serpukhov-15, sat Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was the officer on duty, at least for this evening. This was not his job - he was a scientist, not a supervisor, but the man who normally filled this role was out and Colonel Petrov was the substitute.
Any other night, this would not have been notable. But on that day, shortly after midnight Moscow time, the satellite caught something, and it caught something scary. According to the sensors, the United States had just launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, a weapon containing far more power than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2, straight at the Soviet Union.
Then, four identical missiles appeared, all on their way towards Soviet cities.Protocol demanded that Petrov immediately report this to his superiors. If this truly were a nuclear assault, every second mattered, and Petrov did not have time to analyze the computer data to determine if this were really an attack, or a computer error. But reporting that satellites had observed five American ICMs Russia bound could result in the USSR launching a full scale counterattack. This would assure that America would indeed launch their nuclear arsenal, population centers around the world would cease to exist, and billions would die.
It was not his place to judge the situation without proof either way, his orders were to report what the computers told him, to the same men who with only slight provocation weeks before made the decision to shoot down a harmless airliner full of civilians. But Petrov decided to take a risk, and in doing so may have saved all our lives.
“I gave the Americans the benefit of the doubt,” says Petrov. “By that time the Americans had not yet developed a national missile defense system — they still haven’t — so they knew that a nuclear attack on us was tantamount to the eradication of at least half of their population. I was convinced that the Americans were a militant nation, but not a suicidal one. I remember thinking, ‘That big an idiot has not been born yet, not even in the U.S.’ And then I grabbed the telephone and reported a false alarm to the SPRN command station.”
Petrov reported that the machines were in error. But Colonel Petrov did not know for certain this was a false alarm. He said, "I made a decision and that was it." It was only after about 15-20 agonizing minutes passed, waiting to detect if U.S. missiles were incoming, that Petrov's decision proved correct.
Regarding the Petrov incident, former Soviet KBG officer Oleg A. Gordievsky stated: "If the Soviet Union had overreacted, it could have gone very badly. If war had come, Soviet missiles would have destroyed Britain entirely, at least half of Germany and France, and America would have lost maybe 30 percent of its cities and infrastructure."
Things didn't go well for Petrov after the incident. His disobedience to protocol led to his career taking a massive hit. He now lives a lonely life on a small military stipend in Moscow. When asked about his actions that night, he is very humble, refusing to accept the honor that is due him.
We can look at stories like this and ponder how things could have gone much differently. There are other incidents we know about where machine failure came close to triggering a war, but none so dramatic as
Petrov's. Of course, while Soviet documents have been declassified, not all of ours have-there are likely other such tales of terror in our own Cold War archives. The Cold War was a very dangerous time indeed, and even in 1983 the threat of World War III still loomed large.We no longer worry about the idea of nuclear weapons raining down Armageddon across the world. For the time being at least, our enemies aren't capable of such things. But history and human nature tell us that eventually something will go awry and weapons humanity would like to forget we have will be utilized. It might take hundreds of years, but in the span of world history that is a short time indeed- especially when the radical changes of the last hundred are examined.
When we think about how close we may have come to untold disaster during the Petrov incident, it isn't hard to see a creator's hand at work. We could claim it was mere luck that caused the man who normally worked in Serpukhov-15 to fall ill or whatever and take the night off, leading to Petrov being at the right place at the right time. Or, we can acknowledge that the events of the world, however horrific they may be, are still moderated by a supernatural hand. The future will undoubtedly hold countless tragedies, but we can face them knowing that ultimately God is in control.
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. Matthew 24:21-22
If you'd like to learn more about the near-apocalypse of '83, you can read this article, which goes into far more detail than I did, or check out the Wikipedia page.
Also, you should take a few minutes to watch the trailer for a short documentary coming out shortly about Petrov.
