Stanislav Petrov – True story: About 32 years ago. A man has been the greatest hero of all time. A man who managed to save all of humanity. This is none other than Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
Stanislav Petrov – True story: the story of a heroSometimes in history what almost happened is more important than what actually happened. And perhaps the most impressive of these incredible hero stories. The ones that are now so far from the shine are the coincidences that surround them.
I'm going to tell you how thirty-two years ago, a man most of the world had never heard of would become the greatest hero of all time. The one who "literally" saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.
It was 1983, during the Cold War. "Wild" years, the likes of which had never happened before before the Cuban Missile Crisis. On March 23, President Reagan launched the "Star Wars" campaign, effectively declaring Russia the "Evil Empire."
I'm going to tell you how thirty-two years ago, a man most of the world had never heard of would become the greatest hero of all time. The one who "literally" saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.
It was 1983, during the Cold War. "Wild" years, the likes of which had never happened before before the Cuban Missile Crisis. On March 23, President Reagan launched the "Star Wars" campaign, effectively declaring Russia the "Evil Empire."
Stanislav Petrov – True story : The worst moment
Among his most important allies was the equally determined to put an end to communism. Pope John Paul II ". The timing seemed ideal. That is, in order to close the open accounts with the Soviet Union. The Soviets had taken the matter equally very seriously.
The US and NATO planned to place missiles in West Germany. At the same time they were organizing military exercises in Europe. But the leaders of the Soviet Union belonged to the generation of the second world war. they remembered exactly how, under the guise of an exercise, Hitler had fooled Stalin and launched Operation Barbarossa.
To allow this to happen again would be unthinkable. Considering that the military exercise was a pretext for an actual invasion. They made a decision. To lower their entire arsenal at the first sign of a nuclear attack.
The tension was at its peak. So much so that on September 1, 1983, a South Korean aircraft was mistakenly placed within Soviet airspace. The Russians did not hesitate to shoot it down without warning, killing 269 people. Among the victims was a senator as well as several US citizens.
It was the worst time this could happen. On the evening of September 25, 1983, a 44-year-old colonel from the military intelligence division of the Soviet Union's secret services was preparing to take up his daily duties at the Early Warning Center, from where Russian aerospace defense was coordinated.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: Imminent Missile Nuclear Attack
However, that night he should normally be on leave. He had been called at the last minute because the colleague he was supposed to take over had fallen ill. His mission was to analyze and control all data from a satellite in anticipation of a possible US nuclear attack. To do this, he had a simple and clear protocol at his disposal. So clear and simple, as if he had worked it out himself.
After proper checks, he would have to notify his superior, who would immediately launch a massive nuclear strike against the US and its allies. Shortly after midnight, at exactly 12:14 on September 26, '83, all the alarm systems go off; the sirens start going off, and the computer screens flash: “missile nuclear attack imminent.
YouTube video : The Man Who Saved The World - Trailer - Stanislav Petrov Documentary
A missile had been launched from one of the US bases. The soldier asks for calm and everyone to do their job. As he himself performs his own. It checks all the data and requires confirmation from an aerial view, the only one that the satellite could not confirm due to weather conditions.
Despite assurances, he concludes that it must be a mistake. There would be no logical basis for the US to have fired only one missile if they really intended to attack the Soviet Union. So it ignores the warning, considering it a false alarm. Shortly after, however, the system displays a second missile. And then a third.
Adrenaline high, from the second floor of the fort he can see, in the operations room, the large electronic map of the United States with the light flashing indicating the military base on the east coast from where the nuclear missiles had been launched.
Stanislav Petrov – True story: The gravity of the situation
At that moment, the system still shows an attack. A fourth nuclear missile and soon after a fifth. In less than 5 minutes, 5 nuclear missiles had been launched from US bases against the USSR. The flight time of an intercontinental ballistic missile from the United States was 20 minutes.
The reaction was frenzied. Meanwhile, he analyzes the data... After detecting the target, the alarm system would have to go through 29 levels of security for confirmation. He begins to have serious doubts as to whether security levels have been exceeded. He knows that there could be a fault in the system.
But could an entire system be wrong, five times? Or was he facing an Armageddon? The basic strategy of the Cold War would be a massive nuclear missile launch, an overwhelming and simultaneous force of hundreds of missiles, not five missiles, one after the other. Some mistake must have been made.
What if it wasn't like that? If it was still a cunning American strategy? The holocaust everyone feared was about to happen and he did nothing? He had five nuclear ICBMs on their way to the USSR and only 10 minutes to make a decision on whether to inform his Soviet superiors…
Fully aware of the fact that if he pointed out what all systems were confirming, he would cause World War III. 120 officers and military engineers, with their eyes fixed on him, await his decision. Never before in history, nor since, has the fate of the world been in the hands of a single man as it was in those 10 minutes.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: The Big Decision
The future of the world depended on his decision while he wrestled with himself as to whether or not he should push the "red button". He thinks: the Americans do not yet possess a missile defense system, and they know that a nuclear attack against the USSR is tantamount to the immediate extermination of their people.
And even though he doesn't trust them, he knows they aren't suicidal. It even says: "Such an idiot has not yet been born, not even in the United States." Although he knows that if he makes a mistake, an explosion 250 times the size of Hiroshima would be unleashed on them.
Within a few minutes, without themselves being able to do anything anymore, he manages to keep his composure and trust his instincts by listening to the voice of reason. And he decides to report the system malfunction. Limbs numb and sweat pouring out, the 120 men under his command count the minutes until the missiles reach Moscow.
"I'm not happy in my marriage, but I don't want to divorce for the sake of the child. What do you advise me to do?'
When suddenly, with seconds remaining, the sirens stop sounding and the warning lights go out. He had made the right decision. He had saved the world from a nuclear holocaust. His comrades, drenched in sweat, grab him and toss him in the air, hug him and hail him as a hero.
He throws himself into his seat and consumes over half a liter of vodka breathlessly. When that night came to an end, he fell asleep for 28 straight hours. When he returned to work, his partners gave him a Russian-made portable television to thank him. They were all safe thanks to the decision he had made.
Stanislav Petrov – True story: Downgraded
When he learned what had happened, his superior told him that he would be rewarded for averting the disaster and that he himself had proposed declaring a day in his honor. But none of this happened in the end. Russia could not allow the United States and the Russian people to realize what had happened.
So they informed him that he had not followed protocol and moved him to a lower position in the hierarchy. Some time later he was forced to take early retirement.
He lived the rest of his life in a small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow, subsisting on a meager pension of $200 a month, in complete solitude and anonymity.
Until in 1998, its commander who was in charge that night, Yury Votintsev, revealed the event, the so-called "autumnal equinox event" caused by an extremely rare astronomical coincidence, in a book of his memoirs, which arrived accidentally in the hands of Douglas Mattern, president of the international peace organization, "Union of Citizens of the World".
After confirming that this shocking story was true, he went to personally meet this unsung hero to whom we all owe the fact that we are still living in this world, to present him with the "Citizen of the World" award.
The only clue he had as to where to find him had been given by a Russian journalist, who had warned him that he would have to go without an appointment because neither the phone nor the doorbell worked. Searching among the huge and gray concrete apartment complexes, about 50 kilometers from Moscow, was not easy.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: Humble and indifferent to fame
One of the people he asked for information replied, "You must be crazy." If there really was a man who would have ignored a warning of a nuclear attack on the United States, he would have already been executed. At that time in the Soviet Union, the concept of "false alarm" did not exist. The system was never wrong. Only the people.
Finally, on the second floor of one of the buildings, he managed to locate the officer, who appeared, unshaven and unkempt. "Yes, it's me, please." "I felt like I was with Jesus when he opened the door," said Douglas Mattern.
“However, he lived in squalor. With a limp, with swollen legs, he could not walk, and as it was very painful for him to stand, he told me that he only went out to buy the necessities." After telling the story, roughly as we have described it to you, this man would say to you: “I do not consider myself a hero.
I was just an official doing his duty dutifully, at a time of great danger to mankind. "I was just the right person, in the right place, at the right time." In a world full of vain people who pretend they are doing something important, when in reality all they do is harm others and the planet.
In a world so full of misery, pettiness, egos, greed and ambition, this man's humility and indifference to fame and recognition is truly shocking,'' Mattern said. After learning about this fact, experts from the United States and Russia calculated what the extent of the destruction would be, according to the arsenal available to them at the time.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: The Conclusion
The chilling conclusion: three to four billion people were directly and indirectly saved by the decision this man made that night. "The face of the earth would have been distorted and the world as we know it would have ceased to exist," said one of the experts. This person has received:
The World Citizen Award, on 21 May 2004. He was honored by the Australian Senate on 23 June 2004. On 19 January 2006, he was admitted to the United Nations. He said that day was the "happiest day he had lived in years."
In Germany, in 2011, he was awarded the prize for those who have made a significant contribution to world peace by preventing a possible nuclear war. He was awarded in Baden Baden on February 24, 2012. He won the Dresda Preis in 2013. And Kevin Costner made the documentary "Red Button" in his honor.
Today he continues to live in his small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow, on his small pension of $200 a month, in relative anonymity. He gave most of the prize money to his family, keeping some money to buy a vacuum cleaner he dreamed of that turned out to be defective.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: The Sequel to the Conclusion
When I heard this story, the first thing I thought was: when his neighbors or anyone else looks at him, have they ever thought that they owe their lives and the lives of their family, descendants and friends to this man?
Or if that man watches the news and all that is happening in the world, has he ever wondered if all that is happening is because of the decision he made in those 10 minutes? When he sees the sun rise and set has he ever thought that so many people can do it, thanks to him?
Bonus Video: The Man Who Saved The World - War Documentary
And I wonder how much Karma a human soul can earn for saving billions of people, plants and animals? To save an entire planet? This old man who lives in a small two-room apartment on the outskirts of Moscow with the crumbs of 200 dollars a month, saved the world and no one knows it.
How is it possible that after 32 years, so few people in the world know about him? It is unthinkable and terribly unfair. So on this new anniversary of the common sense decision that saved the world, I just want everyone to know the man who made that decision. This is Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.
Stanislav Petrov – True Story: Here are photos of Lt. Col
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