Back in the 60s, the world was just minutes from being wiped out.
In her 2016 book The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency, Annie Jacobsen describes such an incident.
On October 5, 1960 the newly operating radar station at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland registered several hundred incoming missiles coming over the horizon. Computers confirmed the numbers and concluded that there was a 99.9% certainty of attack.
It was estimated that NORAD had approximately 10 minutes to make a fire/no-fire decision before the missile strike would hit the continental United States. DEFCON 1 was ordered and and the officer in charge attempted to contact the head of NORAD for authorization, only to find that he was airborne and out of contact.
They then got through to the Canadian deputy commander who was in Ottawa. He thought it unlikely that the Soviets would launch a missile strike as Nikita Khrushchev was in New York to deliver a speech at the UN. When they contacted Thule AFB, someone took the time to look out the window.
There, coming over the horizon was the full moon, which the newly minted Greenland Ballistic Missile Early Warning System had mistaken for a nuclear attack.
In her 2016 book The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency, Annie Jacobsen describes such an incident.
On October 5, 1960 the newly operating radar station at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland registered several hundred incoming missiles coming over the horizon. Computers confirmed the numbers and concluded that there was a 99.9% certainty of attack.
It was estimated that NORAD had approximately 10 minutes to make a fire/no-fire decision before the missile strike would hit the continental United States. DEFCON 1 was ordered and and the officer in charge attempted to contact the head of NORAD for authorization, only to find that he was airborne and out of contact.
They then got through to the Canadian deputy commander who was in Ottawa. He thought it unlikely that the Soviets would launch a missile strike as Nikita Khrushchev was in New York to deliver a speech at the UN. When they contacted Thule AFB, someone took the time to look out the window.
There, coming over the horizon was the full moon, which the newly minted Greenland Ballistic Missile Early Warning System had mistaken for a nuclear attack.
