In the early hours of September 26, 1983, at the height of the Cold War, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov was on duty at a nuclear early warning center when the computers announced that the United States had launched missiles. His training said to report it up the chain immediately. “All I had to do was to reach for the phone,” he said later, “but I couldn’t move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan.” Something didn’t add up, so he reported a system malfunction instead. Twenty-three minutes later nothing had happened. It turned out satellites had mistaken sunlight reflecting off clouds for missile engines. One man’s calm judgment may have kept the world out of a nuclear war.
