[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Crimson Ghost

The Russians, however, were able to understand that it was a joke.

Jokes aside, we should thank this man for understanding an instrument error!

Just past midnight, at 00:40 hrs, the bunker's computers indicated that a US missile was heading toward the Soviet Union. Petrov reasoned that a computer error had occurred, since the United States was not likely to launch just one missile if it were attacking the Soviet Union — it would launch multiple simultaneously. Also, the satellite system's reliability had in the past been questioned, so he dismissed the warning as a false alarm and did not notify his superiors, concluding that no missile had actually been launched by the United States.

A short time later the computers indicated that a second missile had been launched, followed by a third, a fourth and a fifth...