This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the United States.
He quickly raised the temperature of the cold war and assumed a muscular stance toward the Soviet Union.
Let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.
That September, a message flashed in a secret bunker at Superkov 15, a secret soviet outpost that analyzed satellite data from the United States.
Inside the bunker was a 44 year old soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov.
The military commander saw a button pulsing red.
His panel told him the unimaginable had happened.
The United States had launched a ballistic missile.
Within minutes, the satellite data showed four more missiles had been launched.
It looked like the United States was trying to cripple the Soviet Union with a sudden, deadly nuclear attack.
There were only seconds for the Soviets to launch strikes.
In response, Stanislav Petrov debated whether to report the attack.
If he did, it could have triggered a massive soviet response.
The soviet commander did not do what was expected of him.
He decided the satellite data was wrong and did not report the missiles.
He was right.
The satellite signals were reflections of sunlight off clouds.
You probably have never heard of Stanislav Petrov, but you might owe your life to him.