The night the world almost ended - BBC REEL 

This man should have been nominated for the Nobel prize.

Thank you, RU-vid algorithm, for introducing me to this unsung hero Stanislav Petrov. A wonderful person, and yet live such a humble life.

"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend". (Stanislav Petrov) A simple but intelligent man, at the right place at the right time. Thank you for keeping all your wits with you when the whole humanity needed it. May your soul rest in peace. G. H. Ayres

If it wasn’t for this mans actions we wouldn’t be here today. We have to be eternally grateful that an ordinary man saved the world and then carried on with his job.

Today, 38 years on. Thank you for saving the world, Stanislav Petrov.

A brave, decent man and soldier. We owe Petrov a lot.

It's weird - I came here after watching the Cuban missile crisis hero and ended up crying about the another hero who in the end saved us all as well and seemed to be humble about it....

The fate of the world rested in 1 mans hands. If he had made a different decision, none of us would be here today. Thank you Mr. Stanislav Petrov for saving all of us. There are many who will never know what you did, but you may be the single most important man who has ever existed in the right time and in the right place.

My son's dream is to save the world, but this man did save the world. Respect.

These days I pray that there will be more people like him in the right places.

It's so terrifying how easy the course of History can be changed at seemingly a moment's notice. This man is an absolute Hero

Having such a dilemma, the fate of the World in your hands, this story is just epic!

He is "The Unknown Hero" for me. I never heard of him... Thank you, sir!

Why, after this incident was revealed, this man was never nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

Every living being on this planet is in debt with this man.

I wouldn't be born if it wasn't for this hero 🙏

Tough choice based on his training vs technology - well trained man.

Truly admirable! Thank you Stanislav. R.I.P.

I know this will never reach his family ..but I was only 7 in Nov 1983 ... Thank you Stanislav for your logical decision ...I got to grow up along with everyone else then who were kids to grow up and let their kids know how close we all came to annihilation ... you'll not soon be forgotten. .. tip my 🧢

He is a legend( 🙏 from 🇮🇳 )

Vasily Arkhipov should also be mentioned here for his level-headed decision making during the Cuban missile crisis circa 1962.

It's ironic that the Soviet Union has always been referred as the "villain" in western modern history, there were two Russian men who actually save mankind from nuclear war.

I Thankyou!!! Your Father is a Hero. I grew up close enough to count the missles that were aimed at various targets in the U.S. and be comforted only by my Father's words that we would be vaporized and stood no chance of making it to a bomb shelter. In this time we should all know what our Father's knew...no one wins an atomic war. No one.

There should be a monument to this man in every country on this planet

Everyone today should still be thankful that Stanislav Petrov saved billions of lives thanks to his quick thinking . He should be recognised world wide with a Nobel peace prize or a memorial in his name because through his actions he made such a impact on so many lives that he saved .

God bless you Stanislov Petrov ❤️ Thank you for everything 🌎

This man is the reason all of us are alive today.

You are a hero, thank you

Loss for words! A higher power was in control! Thanks to this man and the power that guided him.

So we walked this earth just because of him. 👏👏👏wow

Thank you. RIP

Love, despair, succes, failure, friendship, amazement, gratefulness,... everything that I have experienced in those forty years since then, I owe to this man. And so does everyone else.

We owe him....Everything.

Oh God please don't let us come this close . It's 2/27/22 and all hell is breaking loose. God bless one & all.🙏🏼🤞🏼

without him my life on earth would be short! not even a year! rest in peace silent hero!

The world owes him the biggest thank you .

That man has saved millions, literal millions of lives

There really should be a statue of him in every country.

Also this man Vasily Arkhipov saved us from a nuclear war. During the Cuban missile crisis

Crazy how he isn’t recognized more he literally saved us all

💞 & Peace to the Petrov.

Able Archer 83, the Cuban Missile Crises, Checkpoint Charlie Standoff... so many times we came close to a nuclear WW3 scenario.

Thank you so much man

I thank to this man with my heart rest in peace good man ❤️

People would freak out if they knew just how many times we came within days, or hours, of all out nuclear war with the Soviet Union

This dude saved the world. Why don't everyone know who he is?

Dude the early 1980’s (1983, 1984, early 1985) is where the Cold War tensions were really heating up with the Soviet Union. We were getting closer to a possible nuclear war each day. On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of one intercontinental ballistic missile with 4 more missiles behind it, from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were suspected to be false alarms by Stanislav Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces on duty at the command center of the early-warning system. He decided to wait for corroborating evidence-of which none arrived-rather than immediately relaying the warning up the chain-of-command. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack against the United States and its NATO allies, which would likely have resulted in an escalation to a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later determined that the system had indeed malfunctioned. Why do you think that between 1983 & 1984 tons of Nuclear War movies such as: ‘The Day After,’ ‘Threads,’ ‘Testament’ & a few others were made through that time? Now people just saying stuff like: ‘I miss the 1980’s,’ ‘Life was so much simple back then’ and stuff like that just makes me really uncomfortable.

Thank you LtCol Petrov. Sir you are a true friend of the world.

Thank you

A REAL soldier, soldiers do not want war, that us why they fight. We are ALL alive today thanks to him.

Jesus well done that man. A humble hero we all owe our gratitude to

A true hero.

If this Man took the alerts seriously, I've joined the Minuteman by now. Thank you comrade. For averting not only WW3 but a nuclear fallout.

I am so sorry that he did not receive the fullest of respect from all.

Thanks, Stanislav Petrov. You done good. Real good.

Wow

Thank God for men like Mr Prtrov

If he had said yes instead of no, none of us would be here

God Bless You and Your Family 🙏🙏🙏💟❤️💕🥳🥳😘 .

This is why we need independent thinkers in such high-pressure, high-stakes government positions, who are loyal to their country. Not lackeys to any one leader who will blindly follow orders without any question.

There have been so many close calls on both sides with nuclear weapons…

So guys as this guy decided to stop during the main part I’ll tell you what happened So as soon as Petrov heard the alarm go off he naturally started checking all the systems to confirm in case their had been a software failure And obviously he trusted the visual inspection the most but it was impossible to see because the sun was setting at the time and the satellite was exactly on the border line terminator line (it divides the daylit side and the dark side of earth) So now petrov had less then 30 mins to decide if the launch actually happened and now he had to decide if he wanted to report this to the higher ups (which would have surely provoked a Soviet nuclear response) and as it said in the video American - Soviet relations were at a low due to soviets upgrading their ICBMS in the European theater so it was a real possibility that the Americans had launched nukes but when the higher ups called for a situation report he said it was a false alarm and that the program was giving false information , and a investigation later showed that the Americans didn’t fire any missiles and the satellite confused the sunlight reflecting from the clouds to be a missile launch Stanislav petrov retired in 1984 and went on to live a humble life in a small town outside Moscow he never talked about the incident with anyone and passed away a hero in may 2017 Rip sir Thank you for saving the world as we know it 🙏🌏

Interestimg that the movie War Games came out in 1983 too.

The rationale is that of most of us. No one wants this and it would be the end of our world if we were to ever step through that door.

Announcing an attack when the alarm went "off"? I though that the alarm should be "on" , in order to be considered as a threat.

Im reeling.Godspeed STANISLAV PETROV

I can’t imagine the soviets were happy about this. What if he had been wrong?

Noam Chomsky had already write about it

That picture looked like superman in the 70s

He should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize

8 people apparently wished the world had ended that night.

Who cares where hes from his single action of following his guts gave us a chance to rethink and sadly if he saw today it would make him sick thinking oh not again. Lets hope theres more of him now days out there. Nuclear war never ends well for anyside. I am American/Australian but I would Salute him as respect for being a soldire no matter where from. Lets hope as a thiest that if there is really an afterlife I hope he got to go and enjoy enteral peace.

It wouldn't have ended that night but it would have been the start of the end

This incident is the basis, although only mentioned once, in the podcast Welcome to Nightvale. Nightvale is based on this incident but the Russians attacked. It’s a weird little comedy.

Soviets had been portrayed as a bad villainous people, but in reality if you look at what were the biggest nuclear crisis almost all of them were because of the US sometimes a software glitch, training alarm, a bear intrusion, communication malfunction from oklahoma facility and in all of these US was quick enough to dispatch it's nuclear delivery systems like B52s and it was only miracles that stopped nukes from being launched, it was only twice in human history that US wasn't quick enough to launch a nuke and that were the one which was saved by this russian officer and the other when pakistan was deciding to nuke Indian capital even the US intelligence knew when pakistan was developing nuclear weapons they did nothing to stop them but for the world the bad guys were the soviet russians.

Let me correct the title of BBC . It should be the night when almost USA and USSR almost ended each others. Not the world. 2 countries are not the world.

As a NATO member.....in 1983 in Europe/PLAYING WAR GAME exercises .,... I CAN ONLY THANK .,,..... STAN THE MAN,..,.PETROV. FROM AMERICA.

What logic....no logic...just the end of all! No winners, just tge entire human species gone!

I thought Norway launched a rocket 🚀 and confused the situation. Can someone confirm or correct this?

God will be pleased with him

he knew US doctrine was to only launch in retallation and it would be a alot more than 5 missiles....talk about cool under pressure

Good job humanity, the enlightened path is to give a random guy with incorrect info 30 min to decide if civilization ends. I was 8 months old, and I know that three soviet missiles were designated for my city.

ISNT THE MAN ARKAPHOV? OH THATS NOT 1962 ...

We need no patriots but more humans,

All our saviours are Russian, we owe our lives to Russia and this coming from a Brit

Glory to USSR

These 2 russian men Are heroes

I think God had a hand in this.

3:27, 5:27,

World khtm nhi hoga. Hoga to gddhe Insaan ke hoga. Ye duniya sirf Insaan ka nhi baki aur ke liye vi hai. Maan lena.

Pray this man had Christ, Surely I believe God prevented this. Lord we thank you and bless this man's whole bloodline.

Power man 5000 fear factory pantera korn nin jarassic park stuff about the cia

All news on the trend is on my page.

What a load of tosh

Man of moment Everything he know side effects of war but massive nuclear attack This intense moment of cold war People are very passive and tolerant This people are simply designed as right place right time right people It is not evil empire but ideology difference