Citation Needed - Nuclear Close Calls

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

A nuclear close call is an incident that could have led to at least one unintended nuclear detonation or explosion. These incidents typically involve a perceived imminent threat to a nuclear-armed country which could lead to retaliatory strikes against the perceived aggressor. The damage caused by international nuclear exchange is not necessarily limited to the participating countries, as the hypothesized rapid climate change associated with even small-scale regional nuclear war could threaten food production worldwide—a scenario known as nuclear famine. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

which is why they can bring the Garfield spider verse back now. I think he's doing like musicals and stuff now. He could do both see so it can be both. I... I'm gonna do it. Please undo it. I do it right now. You guys aren't listening.

This brings tension. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on guys? He's doing the thematic chinant against thing. He does. Right. But in this case, he wants to ruin our lives. Yeah. It is not going to ruin our lives.

We just have to be careful. Okay. All right. So what's the deal here? Thank you. Noah. So since this week's episode is about nuclear close calls, I set up our Twitter to our mics.

And if any of us messes up pronunciation or grammar, when we're talking, it's going to send this tweet, this, this one right here. Oh my God. Yeah. See? Exactly. That's not. Undo it. I don't, I can't, I don't even know some of those slurs. But, but as long as none of us mess up, what we're saying is going to be fine. And there's like no way to undo this. No, sir. I mean, we might be, wait, who's hosting? Me.

I'm gonna text my wife. I'm already typing up the apology statement. Okay, come on, guys, it's not, guys. I can talk good. Oh, there it goes. There it is. Yep. Hello and welcome to Cytation Needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and

pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be responsible for this comedy explosion, but I'll need a highly volatile vial of panelists first up. the two hydrogens to my oxygen heat and Noah. Okay. Water's not volatile. I would say yes. I would say yes.

I would like to get bent because I'm not a normal athlete. You know, the chemistry nerds. I love that. Eli, I feel like if you were the molecule holding it all together, you'd be doing your own bits rather than a hobon. I would remember my intro for Skating A, the A, the A, three, fifteen, but you know, I feel like if you were the molecule holding it all together, you'd be doing your own bits rather than hoping that we remember my intro for skating a theus three fifteen, but you know,

I thought if I chosen heaven so far, I'm back you forget. Stupid search function. And also, it doesn't make sense. The comedy duo almost is explosive and way more funny than Taco Bell di Aurea, Cecil and I had a hard time writing for that because it wasn't a real sentence. I know. I read a Cecil and I had a hard time writing for that because it wasn't a real sentence. I know. No, sure. Yeah, the non-English runs for the border runs. I swear if a laxative could be weapons grade, it would be Taco Bell.

Yo, Kiero Kagar. What's your? All right, all right. To shit. I want to shit. Okay, there it is. Okay, yeah. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to. I want to shit. Okay. There it is.

Okay. Yeah. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons, patrons. Each week you give us money, we were inches away from you, not giving us money and me having to explain to any hiring manager at a Ben and Jerry's, what a podcast is. So if you'd like to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Tom, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? Today, we will be talking about nuclear

close calls. And you were definitely rooting for some of these to go the other way. Are you ready to sing us a song, sorrow? Most. Yes, I did that that Eli or I've been listening to love to balloons on repeat for no reason. I'll make some. It's all right. So tell us Tom, what are when some nuclear close calls, there we go. You know, I've been at the whole episode. I've decided, you know, a few weeks ago, we got an email suggesting that we look into and maybe write about what are called broken arrow events.

And it led me down a related rabbit hole about nuclear close calls. And I thought to myself, well, since Russia is massing at the border with Ukraine as we speak and Kazakhstan's government is in chaos with Russian soldiers now providing support. And North Korea just tested their second hypersonic missile system. What better time to pause and remember a simpler time when sometimes a bear or the moon nearly causes to rain fiery atomic death on the heads of our enemies, less they rain fiery atomic death on our heads first. I'm often very bad at comforting things. Bears and moons are going to be involved. Okay. Bear, bear, bear, and moons. Bears and moons. So all the essays we recorded in advance

have a chance of being ironically dated by the time they come out, but none in such an off-line is this. Right. Interest, right? Interest, you record that you're set there. Yeah. Funny guys. Gather around the fire. I got a good one for you. It's a story they'll tell on the road.

So we'll spend the bulk of the episode, go flying like chuckle headed fools at the near total elimination of all life on the planet very soon. Classic. I promise. But before we do, I do want to take a minute and explain to some of our younger listeners, a concept central to the extinction level cataclysm we nearly created. That aren't global warming or rejection of public health. Otherwise, yeah.

People, people, kids, one, okay. Other ones. Put them in the list. Yep. So beginning in the list. Yep. So beginning in the period following World War II and lasting into the early 1990s, the Cold War was a series of geopolitical tensions and a concurrent arms race that pitted the former USSR against the United States and which had many, many proxies in between.

Now if that sounds at all familiar, that's because we are very clearly in a Cold War again with Russia, which we appear to be losing quite badly. Our starting squad had Rudy Giuliani for four years, plus we got mercy rule during that period. And ours governments, yeah. Russian intelligence is just making up games to play. They're just laughing. They're watching.

His phone says password is one two three four on the side. They should have to apologize for the late 20 teams like that high school football team in California. One by two. In Espionage, he's butt-diling the journalist right now, saying the thing he's doing that's dumb. And you great. This is great. He's great. She's led it. This is not even worth the poison on the word. Just let him do his own thing. I'm going to work on my rule. We're saving on so much polonium. We have a pizza party with all the polonium. So the Cold War itself would be its own episode, but a central tenet behind the ever-increasing weapons escalation was the idea of mutually assured destruction.

So this was the doctrine that declared that we were at least somewhat unlikely to all die in a blazing furnace of white, hot, radioactive death, not because causing those deaths isn't inherently evil thing to do, but because everyone was in agreement that the moment either nation sent a volley of chaos and hellfire to the other, they too would be destroyed in a guaranteed retaliatory strike of equal or greater magnitude. Essentially, the peace was kept because the combatants were each sure that neither side was willing to be destroyed in order to destroy the other. This is again, for the younger listeners, think of it like constantly escalating TikTok

reaction videos. But right, but like any time you like mistakenly have hope for humanity, just remember that for realsies, humanity needed to find a disincentive to killing half the population of the earth, including the plants and the animals. And the one we came up with was the author. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. It did work. So far. I can't argue with results. I feel like I can argue with results. Yeah, it's really not working super well.

It's populations. So I bring this concept up because you have got to understand the stakes in the Cold War period. There really was no possibility of a single nuclear strike or an isolated nuclear incident, whatever that term might mean. Essentially any escalation that involved a nuclear weapon would be the first domino in an inevitable chain reaction of increasingly fiery chain reactions.

So when I tell you about these close call events, it is important to realize that I'm really not exaggerating when I say that each of these moments represents a moment when everyone else was getting gas or taking a shit or lying to their boss, but when they'll have the TPS reports done while being blissfully unaware that they and everyone that they have ever loved were moments and sometimes really silly moments away from being annihilated forever. And more importantly, everyone who was reasonably aware of the danger they were in because of education and research turned out to be scared for no reason,

which is really funny. What do you think about it? It's so nice. And it's like, oh no, oh no, it's nice. So yeah, just sort of in summary for the younger generations, you know how you feel all the time thinking about climate change. It's like that, but with exploded. It's like a cinematic version of that climate change directed by Michael Bay. Yeah. Exactly.

There you go. Yes. So our first incident took place on November 5th, 1956, just 11 years after we tested the first nuclear bomb. During the Suez crisis, which again, could very easily be its own episode, but was basically when the UK and Israel tried to steal the Suez Canal from Egypt, the North American aerospace defense command, Norad, received multiple reports of aircraft over Turkey, Soviet make 35 fighter jets over Syria, a down to British Canberra bomber and unexpected maneuvers by the Soviet black sea fleet.

All of these combined to appear to be the beginnings of a Soviet offensive. The geopolitics here are kind of complicated, but the US believed that NATO might respond to the perceived Soviet aggression by launching a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, which of course would then prompt a nuclear response by the Soviets. Cool. Yeah. NATO was being run by Cobra Kai at this point, so they were doing strike first.

I guess fuck. Now, thankfully, the aircraft over Turkey turned out to be swans, blamed the queen, I guess for that one. The Soviet MIG fighter jets over Syria weren't Soviet fighter jets at all, but Syrian fighter jets, escorting the Syrian president somewhere he needed to be. The British bomber was brought down not by Soviet malfeasance, but because it was made in Britain and had mechanically. I guess suck at playing. And then, you know, the unexpected maneuvers, they were very much expect they were scheduled

maneuvers. Somebody just did read the fucking calendar that day. So each of the, yeah, each, you would not believe how much of this comes to people not reading memos. Each of the Soviet threats were discovered to be neither Soviet nor threats. And so nobody was vaporized barely very closely. Hey, guys, can we all just agree that we're not going to do unexpected maneuvers with our Navy in the Black Sea on the theoretical day of our secret attack because, you know, that would be a apocalypse day. Doesn't really matter where we are. That doesn't make sense.

We can all just agree that that's not what happened. So that will trigger it, right? Yeah. Spoiler podcasts listener. The moral for every story in this episode is, well, I feel like we need smarter people in charge of those buttons. Yeah. Yeah. So, whopping four years later in October of 1960, radar equipment in Tool Greenland detected a large scale Soviet missile launch. If you're wondering why you never read about the great Soviet missile launch of 1960, that is because the radar equipment actually misinterpreted the moon rise over Norway as a massive nuclear strike by the USSR. Similar looking things in any way, but we did it.

It's radar. How is it? It's not looking. I don't get it's even worse than I thought it was in my head for a second. That's how dumb. They sent the missiles really into the long direction. They sent them all. You guys see the rolling emery because I think it's all like a thing guys reading and researching this was like, we invented the technology to end the world like way before

we invented any of the technology to safeguard ourselves from end. Yeah. We're just way behind on this stuff. So Norad didn't figure this out right away and they went on high alert and they prepared to launch a retaliatory strike against the moon by the way. That would be the moon. Sure. Saw that cooler heads prevailed, not because they figured out that the moon, by the way, wasn't actually made of Soviet bombs, but because at the same time that all this was happening, Khrushchev was in New York at the United Nations, and it just made no sense that an attack

was happening while the Soviet leader was on the same soil that was about to be nuked by the Soviets. Yeah. What our intelligence agencies didn't know was that was all part of the plan. And Khrushchev had been training a series of spin moves in juke's and he was giving you a lot more budget. Unexpected spin move versus what they call them. Actually, it's weird.

Khrushchev has been in New York for weeks, but all he wants to see is our deepest baseness like that. Probably one of the good ones you can see him, but he just walking around with a desk on his back and like the crutching on your brain and only whatever. Turn a light on. Like a turtle. A car backfires. He's got a refrigerator with him everywhere.

He was. Three months later, I'd love if there were bigger gaps. I need a days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

In January of 1961, a B 52 strato fortress was flying over North Carolina when it broke up in mid-air. Was it a couch fortress or a strato fortress? That bomber was carrying two four megaton mark 39 nuclear bombs at the time it broke up. For a touch of context, these bombs were about 200 times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Hiroshima. The Mark 39 nuclear bomb had four safety devices to make sure that they didn't like explode in convenient times. One of the four safety mechanisms.

Yeah. It's got to be it when you want it to have good about this. I feel good about this. Yeah. So one of the four safety mechanisms, according to the Wiki was, quote, not effective in the air. No other ex that bombs are going to be in the air Like, just, I, what don't, he, when you literally know other explanation, that one is going to be very, if it's inside of a tree, you can do it. That one, it's for the nuclear bomb that's in all of our hearts.

No idea. What other explanation seems to be a very weird limitation on a safety device? The bomb camp blowout, it's like, if you look at it, it wouldn't speed. You can't go, bomb camp blowout. It's like, if you look at it, wouldn't speed. You can't go and you're good. It's safe. Two of the other safety mechanisms were broken when the airplane broke up in a flight.

Okay. I tried the capture on the side of the bomb, but I missed one of the head. It's a traffic light. It's a really small, like the edge of a traffic light in one. So, yes, go look at your bomb. So those nuclear bombs were now falling out of the sky over North Carolina, and they were only not exploding because of one simple quote, ready safe electric switch. A ready safe electric switch is a super basic little electric switch. You can buy one on Amazon for $30

right now. Okay, this sounds bad. A bunch of stuff broke, but don't worry, we actually put masking tape over that switch. It says, do not put it on the tape. I don't think somebody's going to switch it back off to not say the debriefing. Okay, that's our bad. We're going to put a fifth switch on now. I really go out. So that's same year, same year, 1961 in November, the guys over at the strategic air command suddenly and unexpectedly lost contact with both NORAD and multiple ballistic early warning systems all at once. So this is bad. So the idea was that these systems all acted redundantly.

They functioned and communicated independently of one another. A sudden unexpected communication loss from these redundant systems looks an awful lot like a coordinated attack meant to sabotage America's defense systems prior to a full scale bombing. The strategic air command ready the entire ready force for takeoff, shit was about to kick off when aircraft already in the sky confirmed that, nope, nobody was on fire. Everything appears fine. It was later discovered a bad relay switch in Colorado, cause the communications failure that nearly caused the US to start World War III. Yeah.

Four star general strides into the room. Mr. President, did you try turning it off and then back on it? Right. Right. Because look, wait, so when the two possibilities are, well, the problem is either here or everywhere else, you shouldn't default to the latter. Wait 15 seconds. You didn. Wait 15 seconds. You didn't wait 15 seconds.

To the following year in October of 1962, he's a fucking mother. During the Cuban in just happened. You're killing me. Almost during the Cuban missile crisis, tensions were obviously dangerously high. And the big brains in charge of fantasizing about how an attack might begin surmised that cells of spies or saboteurs might try to cause damage to American defense operations prior to the launch of a first strike against us.

So you can imagine the pants filling terror when a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center saw a dark shadowy figure scaling one of its perimeter fences. The guard fired at the intruder then hit the O-shit switch signaling that a sabotage event was in progress. This alarm in turn set off alarms in other facilities. So they too knew that there was some shit going down and all that is fine, except that over at Wolf Field in Wisconsin, the another facility is having problems alarm didn't go off. But because of a faulty alarm system, the end of the fucking world clacksons went off. Just a government electrician lying in his bed a few months before. Did I wire those alarms right? Yeah, they're probably fine. They're probably fine. I'm just beat myself

off. So when the end of times buzzers go off, this causes the air defense command to immediately scramble nuclear armed fighter jets. And because the nation was in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, the pilots had already been briefed that if shit goes down, this will not be a drill. We aren't doing drills right now. So these guys were literally sprinting to their nuclear armed fighter jets fully convinced that the war with the USSR had just started. Meanwhile, the base commander actually picked up the God damn phone and called Duluth and he learned that no, they kill everyone alarms were a mistake and an officer from the command center literally had to drive his car onto the runway and flash

his fucking lights at the taxing nuclear fighter jets to stop them from taking off. That's why we're alive today. He accidentally flashes in Morris code. Take off. This is not a drill. I'm just really grateful once again that all fighter pilots are half moth. I just got the first. But the fighter jet just turns his bright side.

But I feel like plenty of pilots, they're going his bright sun. It's going to fuck you. But I feel like plenty of pilots, they're going to see that and they're going to be like, oh, this guy's a Russian spy trying to slow us down very clearly. And they just shoot the car with the music. How the fuck are we still alive? A lot. Sure luck. Sure luck.

A lot. Sure luck. Sure luck. Sweet open hearts of four US fighter pilots. That's out. open hearts of four US fighter pilots. Now, it gets a little worse because if the fighter jets had taken off, they almost certainly would have encountered unexpected bombers in the air. See, a continuous stream of super secret bombers were flying around on high alert because, again, this was during the Cuban missile crisis.

But the bombers were so secret that the fighter pilots would have had no way to know that they were supposed to be there. They would have looked at speed and on their radars like bombers flying over America after the O-fuck alarms had just sounded the start of the end of all times. So we nearly started off the end of days by shooting down our own bombers. Oh, and the fence scaling intruder that started the entire chain of events, that was a bear. That was just a bear at the fence. Okay, but probably a Russian bear. Very interesting. Very interesting. Well, to be fair, I can't, I can't immediately think of anything scarier than a bear with nooks. So I have no clue. This is overreacting.

Two days later, way bigger gaps. I want to get right. Two days away here. 48 hours. The Soviets almost launched a nuclear torpedo at some US naval ships, which again, this would not have ended well. A Soviet B-59 patrol sub was surrounded by US naval destroyers off the coast of Cuba when it dove to evade detection. As a result, the sub was unable to communicate with Moscow for several days while it hid deep beneath the ocean. Naturally, again, guys, this is the very height of the tensest nuclear situation the world has ever known. So naturally, the USS Beale began dropping something that Wikipedia calls, quote, practice depth charges. And quote, what would that be? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the fuck practice depth charges are and it turns out, neither the guys

in the sub because they assumed those were depth charges right there under attack. And then since they couldn't contact Moscow from deep underwater, they figured the war had begun. Half the front of the sub is hanging off like dick chain is hunting buddy, you know? Guys, can we get some kind of worldwide? We're practicing the thing that would cause the end of the world speaker system. It seems like you really need that. Yeah. We literally got that after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963. We set up that red phone hotline thing from the White House to the Kremlin or across the street from the Kremlin.

Fun fact, it was never read nor a phone though. It started as a teletype thing. And then in 1986, it became a fact. Nice. What? And then in 2008, we switched over to a secure form of email. Secure email. Oh, well, in that case.

Again, how are we still alive? Wait a minute. That means in 2007, it was still a fax machine. It was a fax machine. That's correct, I mean 2007. Hey, is it World War Three? I can't tell we're out of toner. I don't even know where to buy toner anymore

for this fucking thing. PC load letter. Push junior runs into a UPS store. Hey, it's super important. I use your fact to. I know. I know I should have one at home and you buy a printer. You think maybe this one's got one in it, but they didn't. And then none of them have a man. You need a whole. I'm a war criminal. So the commander of the sub order that a 10 kiloton nuclear torpedo be launched at the American naval fleet.

It was then that the Zompolet, a political commissar whose job it was to help navigate and understand the politics of submarine war stuff, I guess, agreed. But the second and command refused to launch the torpedoes instead. He calmed everyone the fuck down and got them to agree to surface and and call Moscow who assured them that no, the warhead not yet begun. Okay, another fun fact. That second in command was a guy named Vasily Arkipov. And when he got back to Russia, he got yelled at for surfacing there. And he was not acknowledged for literally saving the world until 2002. Holy shit. And then you find it just barely begrudgingly.

Yeah. Wow. It's very upsetting, actually. Yes, it is very upset. Everything that we're talking about right now is very upsetting. True. So literally the same day, you want a bigger gaps Noah. No, same day, you're sucking into that.

An American spy plane was shot down over Cuba, which made a bad situation with the Russians worse. And just a short time later, another U2 spy plane having gotten confused readings as a result of the Aurora Borealis straight 300 miles into Soviet airspace. The Soviets sent big fighter jets to intercept the spy plane and the Americans sent their own fighter jets to escort the spy plane back home. Now all of the fighter jets involved were armed with nuclear missiles and each pilot was capable of launching those missiles themselves. Thankfully none of them did and the spy plane was safely escorted to fuck out of there. Spy planes being gingerly walked down the stairs like a grandma. Oh, you gentlemen didn't have to go. Oh, yeah, aren't you sweet. Okay. All right, but let's, let's be honest,

enough said like confused readings as a result of the Aurora Boreaus. That's a bunch of bulls. Like, I'm guessing like they were like, no, the sun was in his eyes and the Russians were like, it was at night and they're like, the Northern lights were in his eyes. Now, after the Cuban missile crisis, we didn't come to neuro-Blybian for a whopping four years when in November of 1965, shit hit the fan because of a power outage. This one might think is my favorite. See, a massive outage in the North Eastern US caused a bunch of

nuclear bomb detectors to go off. And ironically, these bomb detectors were designed to differentiate between a nuclear attack and a power outage. That same electrician. Did I install those bomb detectors upside down? No. In May of 1967, a solar flare with a massive coronally Jackson. The end day. So, the bunch of Nora at radars. And naturally that interference wasn't immediately attributed to the sun having a rocket in a ropey stream of spaces all over the ionosphere, but rather to Soviets jamming our radar. A nuclear bomber counter strike was very nearly launched in retaliation until someone was like, no, man, that was the sun. Okay, policy change number two, all militaries

get a, was that a celestial body guy who they're done everything that time? Okay, and policy change number three, I see Dave is already drawing up a bomb that looks like a, is that a fingernail moon? That's dumb. Okay, but no doing that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no A few hours after the order was given and while preparations were very much underway, the order was given a stand down and the jet full of instant annihilating sunlight in a can never to block. In a twist, the order to stand down was the result of Henry Kissinger convincing the drunk president not to kill untold millions of people. Oh, right. Well, while we ponder how many times Trump yelled those orders into a walkie talkie that to nothing that is staffed, and we will take a little break for apropos of nothing.

People just keep bringing them a diet coke. It's like... So, in short, the mechanical failure of the plane was a near-miss situation. Great. Okay, so I just have a couple of follow-up. Excuse me, I need to step out just for a second. Oh, well, yeah, go ahead, Nick. Thanks, thanks. Okay, so my first question. Oh my God, we all almost died. Is how we can prevent this kind of thing in the future.

My friends, my family, dad, all of them, dad. Sir, there are several mitigating factors that I recommend putting in place in the future. Why do we even have these? We don't need them. The first would be a coding system for nuclear armaments moving forward. Our entire military is made up of the bottom half of our high school class. These are the worst possible people to make these decisions.

There's also other safety measures. We're all going to die because some old general wants to wave his dick and some stone teenager can't fucking Re-wrap him off. We could put him into place. Oh for blood! Stupid, ugly, hateful blood! Okay then, uh, those sound good, I like those. Sorry about that, what did I miss? We're gonna put more switches on the bombs. Nice. blow you up first. What happens next time? I will. This next story is a little bit more complicated, but also so much less complicated than any story should be that nearly resulted in global genocide. During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Syrian army nearly broke through the Golan Heights, which panicked the Israelis who asked the US for an emergency airlift. The US declined to help. Israel then put an absolute shit ton of nuclear

warhead tipped missiles into play, both on jets and in missile launchers aimed at Cairo and Damascus. A US SR-71 Blackbird spy plane noticed all the nukes and the US reconsidered its stance on that air lift immediately. Oh, sorry. You guys meant like never again, never again. Sorry. Hey, we have a helicopter. What?

What? What? What? What? Israeli is taking saddles off of missiles. Oh, good. Air lift. I was not so like the idea.

I was with you guys getting the fuck out. So ceasefire was brokered and broken and Soviet general secretary, Leonid Brezhnev threatened to deploy Soviet airborne forces against Israel, which caused the US to go to DEF CON3, which that kind of sounds like the middle DEF CON, but that's not really how Devcon's work. You see, Devcon one, that means we're in a nuclear war. So like, to my mind, that one doesn't really count since there's no one with non-liquified eyes left to read. Reading this. This is bad. It doesn't matter. Never mind. Just over. Devcon three means that we are at a state of 15 minute readiness. So that's a pretty big

deal. So while we are at Defcon three, a mechanic in Michigan was repairing an alarm system at an Air Force base and accidentally activated that alarm system and very nearly scrambled B 52 nuclear bombers until a duty officer reported the alarm as false. Just same mechanic again. She's, you know, check out the help Larry fixed that alarm. I know. He's fine. He's fine. I'll be good. Nice. I keep myself up so late all the time. There's no need for that. In 1979, computer errors affected Nourad, the strategic error command post that off-fought

Air Force Base, the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, and the alternate National Military Command Center in the Ravenrock Mountain Complex all the same time, which is a bad deal since it led everyone to believe that there was a large scale nuclear attack. Norad notified the national security advisor that the Soviets had launched 250 ICBMs at the US and that the president had three to seven minutes to decide whether to retaliate. Norad's computers then reported that now there were 2200 missiles in the air and on their way to the US. Nuclear bombers were prepared for takeoff.

They had seven minutes, six minutes later, satellite and radar systems confirmed that in fact the total number of missiles was at 2200, but zero. And that maybe we shouldn't start Armageddon today. Someone grabs the dog matrix print out and turns it over and sees it wasn't a group of missiles. It was just asky art of a girl bending over. We got to change the code that says, do nuclear Armageddon because 531 80008, that's boobies upside down and I feel like it's going to cause confusion. So when the oopsie end of the world was happening, a senator happened to be present at Norad. So Congress got way to the near miss pretty much immediately and they launched an investigation

because this was in the past and truth hadn't been declared a preposterous left wing conspiracy yet. So they finally figured out that a training scenario was accidentally uploaded into an operational computer instead of, I guess, the training computer kind of like a burning down Notre Dame moment here. Yeah. So we started getting suspicious. First time we triggered a challenging stage. Commenting on the near miss US State Department advisor, Marshall Schulman noted that, quote, false alarms of this kind are not a rare occurrence. There is a complacency about handling them that disturbs me. And to, yeah, yep, say, yeah, say, even the Soviets were like, yeah, hey guys, maybe if we kill all life on the only known planet to have any, we don't do it by accident, okay? In the three months that followed that investigation, Nora had three more false alarm incidents.

Jesus. Okay, guys, I don't want to put up the blank many days till we almost ended the world sun, but you made me do it. In September of 1983, tensions again, very high following the downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 over Soviet airspace. Zero zero seven was a mistake. I know. Yeah. That's a license to, anyway, over Soviet airspace. Zero zero seven was a mistake. I know. Yeah. That's a nice license to. Anyway, over Soviet airspace, when I satellite early warning system near Moscow, a warrant of five incoming ICBMs launched from the US. The protocol for this is, of course, to fire their missiles because mutually assured destruction keeps us all safe. But Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov literally saved the entire world

because he refused to acknowledge the attack as legitimate since he believed that if the Americans had attacked, they would have launched a hell of a lot more than five missiles. He was able to keep his superiors from launching a retaliatory strike until it was confirmed that it was all a false alarm. Yeah, it was just five swans on the way to Turkey anyway. Okay, legit though, there is no single human being in all of history who has a greater claim to saved the world and stand a slow petro and the superpower he used to save it was the power of Gimia fucking break. I'm so happy.

So I guess the lesson is the ultimate like double bluff is like a really small single nuclear bomb, right? Yeah. Shaped like the moon. Shaped like a plutonium shaped like a fingernail on a sling shot and they've never retaliates. The two months later, in November of 1983, NATO forces were carrying out a command post exercise, which is kind of like if nuclear war was D&D, and if you didn't roll the dice well, the entire planet was then engulfed in flames. As part of the exercise, NATO began simulating preparations for nuclear war, which if you happen to be

the USSR and you are watching this with keen existential interest, this looks very much like actually preparing for nuclear war. And it didn't help that the exercises included 170 radio silent flights to airlift 19,000 US troops to Europe and referred in their communications, which were absolutely being monitored by the Soviets to the B-52s involved as nuclear strikers. Speaker systems people. It's so important just a little one.

The facts is jammed again. Fuck. Do we get everyone on a group text? Just all the countries. Get all the big countries with n get everyone on a group text just all the countries, get all the big countries with nougues on a group text. So the Soviets fueled and armed a bunch of their cataclysm machinery and got their ICBMs all polished and pointed at everyone. They believed the NATO exercise was a ruse to secretly actually launch a nuclear first strike. It's impossible to

know just how close we came to war as a result of this exercise because we didn't learn about the Soviets radying their war machine and furiously checking their intelligence to decide whether or not to end the world until much later. The Soviets finally stood their weapons of war down when the clueless NATO forces completed their wargaming. Okay, now they have cake. I feel like it might have been practiced because of the cake. I don't.

I feel like it's. We just got. So remember your dumb friend who used to go on and on about how we should have taken out Saddam Hussein in 1991 during the Gulf War prequel. Yes. We're very glad that we didn't. Saddam did have a sizable stockpile of chemical weapons in 1991. He was very much willing to use them. He even used them on occasion in Iraq against the Kurds. So it should come as no surprise that there was serious concern that Saddam would

employ chemical weapons against Israel, particularly since he had literally set out loud that he was willing to do this. Well, yeah, but I mean, after that mother of all ground wars nonsense, who could take him serious? Right. So Israel wasn't having any of that shit and warned somewhat obliquely or not early that any use of chemical weapons by Hussein would be met with a nuclear response.

Then the US and the UK pretty much said the same thing. Now these threats of a nuclear response are credited with preventing Saddam from using chemical weapons, but intelligence later indicated that he still planned to fire chemical weapons into Israel if he ever felt his life or his government were about to be lost, which certainly would have meant an Israeli nuclear response. We're all pieces basically a wristboard ready to be flipped by your losing killer, right? But if guys in Russia and the United States had installed giant spatulas under the board in 1950 and then they died of old age. But the spatulas are still there under every

shopping mall. Hey, guys, there's a room full of spatulas, anvils, an old rope holding up the hand. This is the Pentagon. I think facts machine. It's very distressing. Finally, in 1995, a Norwegian research rocket was launched as part of a project to study the Northern lines. The Russians, however, mistook the research rocket for a nuclear missile, like you do, and for the first time, the nuclear briefcase was activated. Russian nuclear ballistic subs were put on alert for retaliatory strike. Once it was determined that the rocket wasn't a missile, Russian forces stood down. Norway, for its part, had notified world leaders of the impending rocket launch well in advance,

but the guys who carry around briefcases with the codes to end all life on earth literally did not read that memo. That's like a real physical briefcase. Is that a real real briefcase? You can see pictures of it. It's actually like, like that's, like the thing where it's like, you know, handcuffed you. It's actually a real thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it Samsonite? Like, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would be great if it was just like a Marcellus Wallace briefcase like there's no codes in it. You pay enough, you could have peed on it too, Cecil, I'm pretty sure. I feel like there was a price.

There was a price. Now, our list ends there in 1995. So either we got much, much better at all this or we figured out that maybe nobody should know when bears or the moon or swans nearly cause us to need jerk or murder the earth. And we've decided to keep that shit classified. Whatever you think is more likely. Anyway, don't look up. Oh, fun fact. The timeframe for automatic declassification is in quarter century increments. Oh Yeah, it is seriously But we're gonna find out some fun stuff in three years

More episodes for sure. I mean, do we probably have it done it in two years? That's nice. Right. Well, a year on a month anyway, that's sunny, Optimus no illusions. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, Tom, what would it be? Many of the alternate timelines were much shorter. There's your Fermi paradox right there. All right. Are you ready for the quiz? Let's do it.

I don't know how much time we have left. I think it's the Fermi paradox. Tom. All right, are you ready for the quiz? Let's do it. I don't know how much time we have left. I think that's the Fermi paradox. Tom is the perfect. Yes. When it's the end of the world, and it's all going to end in nuclear fire, the best thing is to do is just crank the tunes. What's the best band to listen to? A, ballistics, Alice and Chains reaction,. See Katie Langstrom. That's awesome. Gamma Ray Charles. Gamma Ray Charles. Amazing.

Okay, it's not the answer is never Alison Chains reaction. That's never the right call. Well, this sticks like one good song. No, and gamma Ray chartals classic classic. Okay. That's fair. Sure. D and the end of sunglasses help blind, you know, exactly. Yeah. Right. Is you're gonna melt your eyeballs out. All right, Tom. I got one for you. What's the best movie about how we almost blew up the world during the Cold War? about how we almost blew up the world during the Cold War. A, don't look up.

Ronald Reagan's signature, because it's fucking terrifying. It's B, salt and prepper. Oh, yeah. Cause of the salt treaty. Yeah. Or C, apocalypse now? No, no, no, no. So we're titled about three. Oh, that was great.

Those, those hit me right in my heart of darkness, but I'm going to have to say apocalypse. Now you're my Joseph Comrade. Yes, he were correct. All right. I feel like you guys get together before the records work. He's out. All right. So I was going to write a super funny pun based question to close things off like everybody else, but then a my cat got sick and needed to be medicated three times a day. B, my wife got COVID. C, there was no non-COVID having family member except me left to take care of my end blood father in law or D. Nuke

Idz on the block. Okay. You came up with a pun based answer before you came up with the pun based question. I respect that D. Nuke kids on the block. It was all of the above. Actually was secret answer. I never have somehow it. I'm never really. Somehow. Noah wins because he had to help an old person. There you go. I was. Well, so I was, I was gonna choose Tom again, but then he talked shit about Alice and Shane.

So fuck Tom. We could do you know, all right. Well, for Noah, Cecil, Tom and Heath, I'm your love. John Flices are brilliant fucking out. I was really, I was, I'm your love. Jarrah, flies is a brilliant fucking album. That's what I'm doing. That is the album's greatest rock album, so all fucking to end. Thank you for hanging out with us today.

We'll be back next week, and by then Heath will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our other podcasts, but only if you ask nicely. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five star view everywhere you can. And if you like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod dot com. You like slipped into it like a

southern Democrat from like 18. And remember all nukes are under the shopping malls. And in conclusion, it's with sincere regret that we, as a podcast, would like to apologize to the people of Samoa. We have a lot of learning to do, and we hope in time that you can forgive us. You like? Yes. Me and the guys are really sorry. Seriously? Again? Why is it so much? The guys and I. Someone call the Consulate a quam.