January 25, 1995

What were you doing on January 25, 1995?

Most of you probably don't remember. I don't, besides that I was in residency.

I bet you have no idea how close you came to dying (it was 2 minutes). Or, if you didn't die, having your life dramatically altered.

A Black Brant is a type of goose. It's also the name of a Canadian rocket routinely used for atmospheric experiments. It's launched with a bunch of instruments (depending on what's being studied) and the instruments are monitored during the flight. They then parachute back to Earth and are recovered for further data.

Black Brants are commonly used by Canada, the U.S., and several other countries for research. And so it was on this day in 1995.

A team of U.S. and Norwegian scientists launched a Black Brant from northwest Norway to study the Aurora Borealis. It contained standard scientific instruments.

But things - almost - went horribly wrong.

Routine notification of scientific and test launches is customary, and this one was no exception. 30 countries were told, including Russia. But due to layers of bureaucracy, the notice wasn't passed along their military chain. After all, the cold war had been over for 4 years.

As the rocket climbed, it was picked up by Russian radar early warning systems. It was on a trajectory that matched a predicted Trident missile launch from U.S. nuclear submarines in the Arctic circle. As it flew it also crossed an air corridor between American ballistic missile silos in North Dakota and Moscow, which resulted in Russian satellites tracking it.

The Russians read it as an American first strike. Both sides had practiced war games where a single high-altitude nuclear explosion from a submarine would be used to blind radar and satellites from the real attack, while the electromagnetic pulse would paralyze their defenses.

The Russian military went to full alert. Their ballistic missile submarines in the Arctic were all ordered to prepare for immediate launch. Silo crews on land were notified. Their targets would be the major cities of North America and western Europe. They knew the American/NATO forces would respond in kind.

The Black Brant used in this case was a 4-stage rocket. As it separated the radar pattern matched that of a ballistic missile with multiple re-entry warheads coming down, further convincing the Russians that an attack was underway.

The nuclear briefcase, with its launching codes, was brought to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Like the Americans, the Russians use a mandatory 10 minute launch window (the time needed for a submarine-launched missile to reach either country). Yeltsin activated his nuclear keys to launch a counterattack- but waited for final verification.

At 8 minutes into the alert the rocket's course became clearer, and the Russians realized it was not incoming. With 2 minutes left before the mandatory nuclear launch time, Yeltsin deactivated the briefcase and ordered all nuclear forces off alert. The incident wasn't reported at the time.

The Black Brant rocket completed it's planned flight, landing near Spitsbergen and recovered. The scientists involved had no idea what had happened.

Did that story scare you? Then think about this: It's a single incident.

On November 9, 1979 the U.S. military was testing a radar training tape of what an incoming missile strike would look like. Unfortunately, while being tested, the tape was accidentally broadcast on screens at the American nuclear missile headquarters (NORAD).

The long range nuclear bombers in Alaska were ordered to take off to bomb Russia, while the command tried to verify the attack with other radar systems and satellites (which didn't show anything unusual). It took 6 minutes before an anonymous officer discovered the error, and the bombers were recalled.

We've all heard of Yeltsin, but have you ever heard of Stanislav Petrov? He's a retired Soviet military officer, now living in Fryazino, Russia.

In September, 1983 U.S.-Soviet relations were likely at their worst point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. To top it off, the Russians had just installed a new early-warning system.

On September 26, 1983, Petrov was the shift officer in command of the Soviet early-warning radar defenses. The system twice reported an incoming nuclear strike from North America, once with a single missile, a second time with 4.

Petrov, in a remarkably gutsy move, overrode the computer both times. He declared it an error and didn't pass the information to his superiors. His reasoning was based entirely on his gut instinct that the new system couldn't be trusted. As it turned out, he was right.

Petrov himself couldn't launch a strike. But both sides were on such a hair trigger at the time that if he'd passed the information farther up the line, most historians agree that his superiors would have assumed the worst and ordered a retaliatory attack.

You want more? During the Cuban Missile Crisis Vasili Arkhipov was First Officer on a submarine stationed in the Caribbean. His submerged boat was surrounded by American destroyers, who were trying to identify it.

The captain thought war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had started, and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. To do so required a unanimous opinion of the boat's 3 top officers. The other 2 wanted to launch, and Arkhipov refused. He argued so forcefully against doing so that the captain decided to surface, identify himself, and check with Moscow. The movie "Crimson Tide" was based on his story.

In only one incident was it actually a world leader who averted disaster. In the rest (and there are many others, read here, or over here) it was a few people (even one), considerably lower in the chain.

On this day in 1995 it was only 2 minutes. Just 120 seconds. Less time than it took you to read this.

Life on the edge is precarious.