I Wish I Didn't Know That REAL-LIFE TALES OF CLOSE CALLS, SCREW UPS, AND NUCLEAR NEAR MISSES.

https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/close-calls#.WonHDmzFKUm

1      This is Not a Drill

2      US EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS ONCE SHOWED A FULL-SCALE NUCLEAR ATTACK AND OUR LEADERS READIED FOR WAR. THEY LATER REALIZED IT WAS A TRAINING TAPE.

Mid-morning on November 9, 1979, the unthinkable happened: computers at the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) headquarters showed a large-scale Soviet missile attack underway. The launches came from Soviet silos and submarines off the west coast and looked exactly like the kind of massive attack US military officials feared.

US nuclear bomber crews readied for takeoff and fighter-interceptors took off. But when communication with US early warning stations showed that US satellites and radars were not seeing the attacking missiles and no warheads arrived, the situation was deemed a false alarm. Pentagon experts were mystified.

Investigators later discovered that a technician was running a tape on a NORAD computer that contained a training exercise scenario simulating a full-scale attack. Inexplicably, the computer system sent that test information to operational missile warning displays around the country, generating warnings of an attack. The investigation was never able to replicate the failure mode or determine what went wrong.

Following the incident, new processes ensured training tapes couldn't run on the main system—though Marshal Shulman, a senior State Department advisor, would later note that “false alerts of this kind are not a rare occurrence. There is a complacency about handling them that disturbs me.”

3      Had enough?

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