Greg Mekvit
BBC
A Norwegian rocket, launched on January 25, 1995, to study the Northern Lights, was mistaken in Russia as an incoming nuclear missile on a direct trajectory to Moscow.
For just over an hour on that icy winter day, the world faced its worst nightmare. Cold War.
On an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, military technicians on duty at radar stations across northern Russia noticed an ominous dot on their screens.
The missile was launched somewhere along the Norwegian coast and was arriving with a vengeance.
Where was she headed and did she pose a threat?
At the end of the war, most assumed that such nuclear tensions had disappeared along with the Berlin Wall.
For those who watched the skies, the implications were terrifying.
They knew that a single missile fired from an American submarine in those waters could carry eight nuclear warheads to Moscow in 15 minutes.
The message was quickly passed along the chain of command to the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
He became the first world leader to activate a "nuclear briefcase," a suitcase containing instructions and technology for detonating nuclear bombs.
Since the end of World War II, nuclear-armed states have pursued a policy of deterrence, based on the idea that if the warring parties launch massive nuclear attacks, it will lead to mutually assured destruction.
In these tense moments, Yeltsin and his advisors had to urgently decide whether to respond.
As we all know now, this troubling chain of events did not end in disaster.
Despite the heightened tensions, the story ended as an entertaining feature at the end of the evening news, with Tom Lehrer's increasingly darkly humorous song "We'll all go together when we go"/... all imbued with a glowing glow."
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World currency markets were shaken, as politicians, military leaders and journalists spent a frantic hour trying to get information.
BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman noted:
"Before we leave, it should be noted that nuclear war did not break out today, despite the best efforts of the Russian news agency."
"At 1:46 p.m., reports began coming in, citing the Moscow-based Interfax news agency, that Russia had shot down an incoming missile."
"The journalists, who thought they would get the best seats for Armageddon, immediately called the Ministry of Defense."
"The shaken but unshaken spokesman boldly said: 'I am certain the British did not fire any missiles at Russia.'"
A Pentagon spokesman was unable to say anything more than that, saying, "All we have are reports about reports."
An hour later, those who were aware of the potential crisis were able to breathe normally again.
Interfax corrected the report, writing that although the Russian early warning system registered the missile launch, the rocket landed on Norwegian territory.
Later, a defense official in Norway confirmed that the launch was carried out peacefully.
It was part of a routine scientific research program at a civilian missile range to gather information about Polar lightsand, the unique meteorological phenomenon known as the Aurora borealis.
The rocket landed as planned in the sea near the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen, far from Russian airspace.
Hours after the report was known to be false, unnamed Russian defense sources told Interfax that it was “too early to say” whether the launch was intended to test their early warning radar system.
Russia has been sensitive about its own air defense capabilities since 1987, when West German teenager Matthias Rust managed to fly more than 750 kilometers through every Soviet defensive shield in a single-engine plane and land at the gates of the Kremlin.
The Cold War was now over, but it was a sign that some Russian officials remained nervous about the nuclear threat.
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"I was terrified when I heard about the attention our routine launch had attracted," said Norwegian scientist Kolbjorn Adolfsen, who was at a meeting when the panicked phone calls started coming in.
What was even stranger was that weeks before, Norway had already informed Moscow of the planned launch.
Adolfsen suggested that the Russians may have reacted because this was the first time an Aurora Borealis rocket had climbed to such a high ballistic trajectory, reaching an altitude of almost 1.500 kilometers.
However, he says it shouldn't have come as a surprise.
"The message was sent through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 14 to all countries concerned that we would carry out the launch," he said.
And yet, somehow, the warning didn't reach where it was supposed to.
It was a sobering reminder of how a single missed message can have potentially catastrophic consequences.
Watch the video: 'I'm looking for the aurora borealis to see my son'
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, there have been more near misses than one would like to believe.
It's not just about major events like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which is probably the closest the Cold War came to an all-out nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union.
In 2020, the BBC reported on how false alarms were triggered by everything from migratory swans and the Moon to computer glitches and space weather.
In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on a family's garden, fortunately killing only the chickens there.
Two American military planes crashed over a remote Spanish village in 1966 - one of them carrying four nuclear weapons.
As recently as 2010, the US Air Force briefly lost contact with 50 missiles, leaving it with no way to detect or stop the automatic launch.
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Dangerous moment
Many in Russia at the time dismissed Yeltsin's announcement that he had used a nuclear briefcase for the first time as a mere show-off, intended to distract from the war in Chechnya that was then underway.
"Yesterday, I actually used the 'black' suitcase with the button that I always carry with me for the first time," he told the Interfax news agency the day after.
"Someone may have decided to test us, because the media keeps reporting that our military is weak," he added.
Newsnight's report on the panic over the Norwegian missile may have been light-hearted, but opinions on the seriousness of the incident differ.
For one former CIA official, it was “by far the most dangerous moment of the nuclear weapons era.”
"Never before has the leader of any nuclear power truly opened the equivalent of the Russian 'nuclear briefcase' in a situation where a real threat was perceived, and where an instant decision to launch Armageddon was possible," wrote military adviser Peter Price.
However, UN nuclear disarmament researcher Pavel Podvig said: "If I were to rank these events, I would probably give it a 3 out of 10."
"There were many more serious incidents during the Cold War."
He even suggested that the nuclear briefcase scenario may have been staged for Yeltsin the day after.
Russian nuclear expert Vladimir Dvorkin said the Norwegian alert posed "no" danger at all.
"Even if the warning system gives you a signal of a massive attack, no one would ever make such a decision, not even an irrational leader scared that one missile was fired."
“I think this was an empty threat,” he told the Washington Post in 1998.
Five days after the incident, BBC radio reported that Russia blamed the alert on a "misunderstanding" that must not be repeated.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Norwegians acted in accordance with normal procedure and that there was no ill will towards them.
Although disaster was averted, concerns remain that a harmless weather rocket could cause such panic.
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