The Man who Saved the World!

Moscow, September 26, 1983

Shadows ebbed and flowed from the greenish light that reflected from the instrument panel to Lt. Colonel Petrov's face. The jade drop out light gave him the appearance of a headless ghoul suspended in space. He sipped steaming tea from his mug and wished he could accelerate the clock to 2400 hours, only twenty-three minutes away.

Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov held the most mundane job in the entire Soviet military, akin to watching grass grow, and monitored Russia's early warning system for an enemy nuclear missile launch. He looked at the clock.

"Twenty two minutes to go! And I can live again outside this box." He whispered.

He commanded the Box, the Soviet military's underground defense facility Serpukhov-15, outside of Moscow. The center contained consoles, digital green screens, and computers linked to ground radar systems all across the continent and Satellites that orbited the earth. If America launched a nuclear missile strike against Russia, Petrov would know first.

Sergeant Schumaker the Radar specialist, to his right, lit a Sobranie cigarette and exhaled his own frustrations and boredom into the compact room.

Pungent tobacco smoke merged with the electrical scent of ozone from the electronic consoles. The embedded current in the consoles hummed at various frequencies and the radar screens bleeped at the variety of contacts made with the sweeping radars as far as a three thousand kilometers away.

Petrov focused on the three monitors in front of him. One for satellite launch-warnings, one for secondary warnings via a separate communication line, and the last for radar confirmation that a missile launch had occurred. The Analog clock displayed twenty-three and thirty-nine hours and all warning consoles checked out as normal.

“Twenty-one minutes,” He thought.

One minute later, klaxons erupted and screamed their alarms throughout the room. The first console flashed bright red and transformed Petrovs face like it was afire. He bolted upright and his mug of tea shattered against the metal console. The second monitor followed the first and its red warning beacon alternated with the first and created a pattern like that of an emergency vehicle that rushed to an accident.

"We have a launch!" "Sergeant, confirm!” He ordered. “Mark the time!”

In just a matter of minutes the American ICBM's would have already entered the edge of space and would begin their path back into the earth's atmosphere and Russia.

"Sergeant?" Petrov repeated.

"I can't confirm." Schumaker reported. "We have No contact on the radar! Time marked at twenty-three and forty hours!”

Petrov felt the sweat beads on his forehead as his mind spun as fast as the missiles headed toward his homeland. Something didn't make sense. The satellites displayed imminent threat. The radars confirmed nothing.

His standing orders were to call the nuclear response hotline when a threat occurred that would trigger an immediate preplanned response sequence of the launch of three hundred nuclear missiles.

He reached for the red phone. Once he picked it up and sounded the alarm the hundreds of nuclear missile silos would launch their nuclear warheads towards preplanned American targets. The world as anyone knew it would come to an end...

He couldn't pick the handset up.

Sergeant Schumaker said, "Colonel, you are required to make the call!"

"I want radar confirmation!" He responded. "This doesn't make sense."



Major Bortoli, the next in command, had heard the klaxons and stepped into the control room. His eyes scanned the console warnings, and barked, "Colonel, what are you doing? Why are your waiting? Make the call!"



Three weeks earlier an American commercial airliner had entered Russian airspace by accident. Soviet Air Defense leaders had mistakenly identified the aircraft as military and deemed it an American Spy plane. Two Mig 29's intercepted the airliner, fired their rockets, and blew it out of the sky. Two hundred and seventy-nine innocent people died.

International condemnation had been justifiably harsh and both the American and Russian military forces remained on high alert and both were prepared for war.



The alert clock showed nineteen minutes until impact. Russia would need at least fifteen minutes to launch an effective counterstrike. The clock clicked to eighteen minutes.

"Sergeant, confirm!" exhorted Petrov.

"I cannot confirm, Colonel, there is still no contact to report!" replied Schumaker.

Major Bortoli ran out of the control room. He intended to bypass Petrov and call their Superiors.

The clock clicked to sixteen minutes.

Petrov believed that they would have received ground radar confirmation by now. The satellite warning had to be a false alarm. He stood and walked to Schumaker's radar console and looked over his shoulder. The multiple scope screens rotated counterclockwise and displayed no threat.

The clock clicked and displayed fifteen minutes to impact.

"Sergeant, cigarette please?" though he hadn't smoked in five years his hands quivered. Schumacher lit two and handed him one.

Petrov thought, "If I'm right I have saved the world. If I'm wrong, we are dead and I will fail my mother Russia." as the coarse tobacco smoke entered his lungs.

He sat back at his console and watched the clock count down to five minutes. Once again, he requested confirmation from Schumacher, and received the same answer. "No Confirmation."

He thought of his wife and ten year old son, in their apartment in the heart of Moscow. The horrific image of the instant evaporation of their existence on earth, if a missile struck, passed through his mind. He banished the thought.

If he followed orders and triggered a nuclear launch based on a false alarm, millions of Americans would die. Then the Americans would retaliate with their own counter strike and millions of Russians would die, to include his family. He couldn't do it. Every bit of data showed it to be a false alarm from the satellite. He determined that only he could prevent the end of the world.

The clock clicked to one minute and then converted to seconds for the final countdown.

Major Bortoli entered the control room and looked at the console alarm and the countdown clock.

"You have killed us all Petrov, you have killed your Mother Russia! General Glaskov is on his way!"

Petrov closed his eyes as the clock ticked down the final seconds, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

Nothing happened! It was a false warning.

Petrov exhausted, slumped in his chair.

Schumacher stood and shouted, "Yes! You were right Colonel, you saved the world!"

The clock on the wall turned over to Zero hundred hours. The shift had ended and it had become a new day in more ways than one.

General Glaskov entered the control and everyone stood and snapped to attention. He reviewed the data outputs and ordered everyone to leave the control room and not touch anything. Two Security officers sealed off the room and stood guard.

Three weeks later Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov stood at attention before a military, three member; review board. General Glaskov sat in the middle of three and spoke,

"Colonel Petrov, the review of the situation the night of September 26, 1983, has been concluded. We have found that you did not complete the log entries for that night and are hereby reprimanded and ordered to retire!"

The final collapse of the Soviet Union occurred in 1993 and the world, for the first time, learned about Stanilav Petrov and how close the earth had come to total devastation ten years earlier. A review of that day had uncovered a faulty satellite sensor that sent the Missile launch warning. The system had misread a heat signal refracted by a bank of clouds.

Lt Colonel Stanilav Petrov retired and spent the remainder of his days living in his Moscow apartment until his death on May 19, 2017.

One brave Russian man, used critical thinking and courageously disobeyed orders. That man, Stanilav Petrov, "The Man Who Saved America and the World."